Charles Synyard (@CharlesSynyard)

10/13 “‘Seven years and six months!’ Humpty Dumpty repeated thoughtfully. ‘An uncomfortable sort of age. Now if you’d asked my advice, I’d have said “Leave off at seven”—but it’s too late now.’ “‘I never ask advice about growing,’ Alice said indignantly. “‘Too proud?’ the other enquired. “Alice felt even more indignant at this suggestion. ‘I mean,’ she said, ‘that one ca’n’t help growing older.’ “‘One ca’n’t perhaps,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘but two can. With proper assistance, you might have left off at seven.’” And what does Alice say to this? “What a beautiful belt you’ve got on!” Her politeness is tried to the limit as she gabs with the most pompous and erudite fool of them all, Humpty Dumpty, in Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (1871), by Lewis Carroll. The irony is heavy from the beginning. Who is this pretentious sophisticate, who says Alice should have committed suicide rather than grow past seven? He is an egg that Alice purchased from the Sheep (the White Queen when she’s at work). “‘I should like to buy an egg, please,’ she said timidly. ‘How do you sell them?’ “‘Fivepence farthing for one—twopence for two,’ the Sheep replied. “‘Then two are cheaper than one?’ Alice said in a surprised tone, taking out her purse. “‘Only you must eat them both, if you buy two,’ said the Sheep. “‘Then I'll have one, please,’ said Alice, as she put the money down on the counter. For she thought to herself, ‘They mightn’t be at all nice, you know.’” Notice in passing, Alice does something very unusual: she pays 5 1/4 d for a single egg, when she could have had two for 2 d, or 1 d each unit price. Almost no one would do that in real life! But Alice is quite certain that she wants only one, and accepts implicitly the Sheep’s rule that she must eat both. The shoulder note says there was an in-joke about of two eggs, one was always bad. But, how does Alice know she isn’t just getting the bad egg? Keep in mind, with everything that happens afterward, Alice has already plunked down the money, and owns the egg! The transformation from egg to Humpty Dumpty is worth quoting in full. “‘The Sheep took the money, and put it away in a box: then she said ‘I never put things into people’s hands—that would never do—you must get it for yourself.’ And so saying, she went off to the other end of the shop, and set the egg upright on a shelf. “‘I wonder why it wouldn’t do?’ thought Alice, as she groped her way among the tables and chairs, for the shop was very dark towards the end. ‘The egg seems to get further away the more I walk towards it. Let me see, is this a chair? Why, it’s got branches, I declare! How very odd to find trees growing here! And actually here’s a little brook! Well, this is the very queerest shop I ever saw!’ “So she went on, wondering more and more at every step, as everything turned into a tree the moment she came up to it, and she quite expected the egg to do the same. “However, the egg only got larger and larger, and more and more human: when she had come within a few yards of it, she saw that it had eyes and a nose and mouth; and when she had come close to it, she saw clearly that it was HUMPTY DUMPTY himself. ‘It ca’n’t be anybody else!’ she said to herself. ‘I’m as certain of it, as if his name were written all over his face!’ “It might have been written a hundred times, easily, on that enormous face. Humpty Dumpty was sitting with his legs crossed, like a Turk, on the top of a high wall—such a narrow one that Alice quite wondered how he could keep his balance—and, as his eyes were steadily fixed in the opposite direction, and he didn’t take the least notice of her, she thought he must be a stuffed figure after all. “‘And how exactly like an egg he is!’ she said aloud, standing with her hands ready to catch him, for she was every moment expecting him to fall.” How precarious he is, is shown nicely in one of the woodcut engravings by Barry Moser. The model used, Moser explains at the back of the book, was Richard Nixon. “It’s very provoking,’ Humpty Dumpty said after a long silence, looking away from Alice as he spoke, ‘to be called an egg—very!’ “‘I said you looked like an egg, Sir,’ Alice gently explained. ‘And some eggs are very pretty, you know,’ she added, hoping to turn her remark into a sort of compliment. “‘Some people,’ said Humpty Dumpty, looking away from her as usual, ‘have no more sense than a baby!’” Some people… such as yourself, Humpty? He talks down to Alice, a child, and standing below him: he doesn’t even deign to look at her. Yet it is certain that he IS an egg! Alice hasn’t taken her eyes off the egg since it was set on the shelf, she’s still looking at the same thing. Yet he’s incensed to be called what he is. This betrays a lack of self-awareness. The irony is, the most learned character Alice meets in Looking-Glass Land, does not at all know himself. Actually, there is a great deal Humpty Dumpty doesn’t know, only none of it is the sort of thing that impresses polite society. As he seemingly ignores Alice, “she stood and softly repeated to herself:— “‘Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall: Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the King's horses and all the King’s men Couldn't put Humpty Dumpty in his place again. “‘That last line is much too long for the poetry,’ she added, almost out loud, forgetting that Humpty Dumpty would hear her.” Humpty only hears her “chattering”, but he makes it clear he isn’t aware of the nursery rhyme about him, which governs his existence. “Don’t you think you’d be safer down on the ground?’ Alice went on, not with any idea of making another riddle, but simply in her good-natured anxiety for the queer creature. ‘That wall is so very narrow!’ “‘What tremendously easy riddles you ask!’ Humpty Dumpty growled out. ‘Of course I don’t think so! Why, if ever I did fall off—which there's no chance of—but if I did—' Here he pursed up his lips, and looked so solemn and grand that Alice could hardly help laughing. ‘If I did fall,’ he went on, ‘the King has promised me—ah, you may turn pale, if you like! You didn’t think I was going to say that, did you? The King has promised me—with his very own mouth—to—to—‘ “‘To send all his horses and all his men,’ Alice interrupted, rather unwisely. “‘Now I declare that’s too bad!’ Humpty Dumpty cried, breaking into a sudden passion. ‘You’ve been listening at doors—and behind trees—and down chimneys—or you couldn’t have known it!’ “‘I haven’t, indeed!’ Alice said very gently. ‘It’s in a book.’ “‘Ah, well! They may write such things in a book,’ Humpty Dumpty said in a calmer tone. ‘That’s what you call a History of England, that is. Now, take a good look at me! I’m one that has spoken to a King, I am: mayhap you'll never see such another: and to show you I'm not proud, you may shake hands with me!" And he grinned almost from ear to ear, as he leant forwards (and as nearly as possible fell off the wall in doing so) and offered Alice his hand. She watched him a little anxiously as she took it… “‘Yes, all his horses and all his men,’ Humpty Dumpty went on. ‘They’d pick me up again in a minute, they would!’” Yes, Humpty is reassured that Alice hasn’t been eavesdropping, because he supposes the King’s promise of assistance was recorded in a History of England! He is unaware, though, of the copybook-heading-like verse that every English child knows, I think, even today, and ignorant of its lesson: if you put yourself in danger and the worst happens, no earthly power may be able to help you. Humpty Dumpty, for all Alice’s concern for his well-being, returns one insult after another. After suggesting she has no more sense than a baby, he insults her name—“It’s a stupid name enough! What does it mean?”—and is constantly using linguistic gotchas to make her seem ignorant for speaking idiomatically. “‘So here’s a question for you. How old did you say you were?’ “Alice made a short calculation, and said ‘Seven years and six months.’ “‘Wrong!’ exclaimed Humpty Dumpty triumphantly. ‘You never said a word like it.’ “‘I thought you meant “How old are you?”’ Alice explained. “‘If I’d have meant it, I’d have said it,’ said Humpty Dumpty. “Alice didn’t want to begin another argument, so she said nothing.” Strictly speaking, Alice HAD “said a word like it” earlier that day, when she told the White Queen “I’m seven and a half, exactly.” Alice’s use of language is about as precise as Humpty’s, only she doesn’t stress it so imperiously, or insist on special rules for herself. Talk about walking on eggshells! Alice shows her forbearance with Humpty as nowhere else. In a novel about how one is to enter the adult world rightly, this reveals how Alice will comport herself in society: turning the other cheek, and returning good for evil as long as she can. She doesn’t try to add to the unpleasantness herself. But it’s right after this that Humpty gives his disgusting advice, that she’d have been best off getting help killing herself on her last birthday six months before! Remember, that was May 4, when she had her first epic dream, in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and the temptation there, proffered by many characters, was to embrace the nonsense, and refuse to grow up. He means, she would have been better off staying down the rabbit hole. Humpty has the cynic’s negativity about adulthood—but as for himself, he’s minded like the Tweedles, and abuses reason to make extortionate gain. When Alice complements his cravat, he explains, “‘It’s a present from the White King and Queen… They gave it me…—for an un-birthday present…’ “‘…what is an un-birthday present?’ “‘A present given when it isn’t your birthday, of course.’ “Alice considered a little. ‘I like birthday presents best,’ she said at last… “‘You don’t know what you’re talking about!’ cried Humpty Dumpty. ‘How many days are there in a year?’ “‘Three hundred and sixty-five,’ said Alice. “‘And how many birthdays have you?’ “‘One.’ “‘And if you take one from three hundred and sixty-five, what remains?’ “‘Three hundred and sixty-four, of course.’” Humpty even has her do the math on paper to humiliatingly drive his message home. “‘…that shows that there are three hundred and sixty-four days when you might get un-birthday presents—‘ “‘Certainly,’ said Alice. “‘And only one for birthday presents, you know. There’s glory for you!’” Lost on Humpty, of course, is that there is anything naturally special about a birthday, any reason we cherish celebrating them. For him, it is just payday. Of course, since he was set on the shelf by the Sheep (White Queen) just minutes before, I have to wonder if the cravat was anything more than a ribbon to dress up merchandise! The ultimate irony is that, for all his pretensions, Humpty Dumpty is just that: a product to be bought. I don’t knly mean because he’s an egg. To be sure, he is ridiculously learned—“I can explain all the poems that have ever been invented—and a good many that haven’t been invented just yet”—and demonstrates this by deciphering the first stanza of “Jabberwocky”, which contains many neologisms invented by Carroll. But, as I have already covered, see the fourth post in this series, Humpty is so incurious that he cuts Alice’s recitation of the poem (note her priorities, she had memorized “Jabberwocky” in a single reading, but had to pausebto calculate how many months half a year was) short, before she even gets to its namesake, the Jabberwock! Didn’t he wonder why it was called “Jabberwocky”? In turn, he reads Alice a poem he disingenuously claims “was written entirely for your amusement,” but is brain-wracking, because purposefully impossible to make sense of. “In winter, when the fields are white, I sing this song for your delight— “In spring, when woods are getting green, I’ll try and tell you what I mean. “In summer, when the days are long, Perhaps you’ll understand the song: “In autumn, when the leaves are brown, Take pen and ink, and write it down.” Something is out of order here! And the beginning is the best part. The poem—inspiration for Finnegan’s Wake?—ends in the middle of a sentence. “‘And when I found the door was shut, I tried to turn the handle, but—‘ “There was a long pause. “‘Is that all?’ Alice timidly asked. ​“‘That’s all,’ said Humpty Dumpty. ‘Good-bye.’” What a heel! No wonder, as Alice walked away, “she couldn’t help saying to herself as she went, ‘Of all the unsatisfactory—‘ (she repeated this aloud, as it was a great comfort to have such a long word to say) "of all the unsatisfactory people I ever met—‘“ Yes, there IS something of the haughty (wo)man of letters in Alice. She likes using long words. But how different she is from Humpty. She likes using long words even by herself, and not to impress anyone. Hence, she isn’t taken in by his crafty but unfinished verse. Yet, Alice herself is fated to leave her thoughts unfinished. In one of the most satisfying lines in all of literature, “She never finished the sentence, for at this moment a heavy crash shook the forest from end to end.” Humpty Dumpty had his great fall! Why does he fall? Aside from his insistence on staying in his dangerous perch, it’s also a sign of how precarious his career is. Humpty esteems himself a critic who can unpack any poem, including many not yet written—and the literary critic, hardly different from the palace bard or court historian, is entirely dependent on his employer. In that he occupies a narrow berth with only a few positions available to many aspirants, it is rent-seeking. One needs always be on guard. Given that Humpty (and per the Red Queen, the whole sixth square he possessed) had been bought by Alice—for five pence one farthing!—it is no wonder that with his owner’s displeasure, he comes crashing down! To be sure, an author like Carroll also has to compete for attention, and rely on favor from publishers and critics as from his audience. But if, like Carroll and his Alice, he truly enjoys his craft, and earnestly writes entirely for amusement of audience and self, one will always be pleased with one’s work: even if it appears in handmade, hand-circulated magazines, as the first stanza of “Jabberwocky” did. So Alice has passed one temptation more: to become impressed, perhaps wishbto emulate, a cynical and dilettantish critic. But next time is her definitive test of character, by the White Knight. #LewisCarroll #BarryMoser #ThroughTheLookingGlass #AliceInWonderland #PennyroyalPress #Pennyroyal #woodcutting #woodcut #engraving #illustration #art #HumptyDumpty #cynicism #nihilism #criticism #rentseeking #pride #dreams #fantasy #childrensliterature #childrensbooks #literature #books