Charles Synyard (@CharlesSynyard)

Children’s lit x theology. When I saw this slender volume, it was too intriguing to pass up. Alice in Bibleland, a playlet in seven acts by George Wills. Published only once, in 1953 by Philosophical Library, by an author who seemingly never wrote another book, and I can kind of see why. Not really recommended. In the form of a children’s book, but mostly with dryer subject matter, Alice in Bibleland was mostly panned by contemporary reviews and is often not believable, though it has several funny points that catch the spirit of Lewis Carroll’s Alice, and provides some difficult questions theologians should be able to answer. Who was George Wills? Looking the author up was challenging, given the similarity of his name to the columnist’s. A copyright entry revealed that George Wills is a pseudonyn for George Fenimore, but neither was that any help; I would never have dreamed there were multiple George Fenimores mid last century, and none described as theologians, philosophers, or authors, save of this book. It would have been nice to know the motive behind writing Alice in Bibleland: the inside flap presents it as essentially constructive criticism, but taken apart, the challenges seem meant to be evidence Christian orthodoxy is wrong. Thirteen-year-old Alice Ankrum’s observant, unexpected objections to what she learns from the pulpit and in Sunday School, are a neat spin on Alice Liddell’s pointed observations, that repeatedly upset the unreflective folk around her. The closet drama format, meanwhile, is a nice homage to the writings of Plato, and captures how, as I said in my posts on the Alice books, Lewis Carroll’s Alice can be just like a Little Miss Socrates. But the execution is flawed. Whereas the original Alice was revealed to be a very precocious, yet always believable seven, this Alice is thirteen, and if she “breaks the mold” in any way, it’s by being behind-hand on her interests. While the opening scene, of Alice playing jacks when her grandmother wants her studying catechism (3), is droll and fun, it’s hardly believable for a teenager. To digress and get two of the reviews out of the way, a contemporary critics, in Historical Magazine of the Protestant Episcopal Church, quipped “the thirteen-year-olds whom the reviewer has known have outgrown ’jackstones’ long since,” indicative of ”a general remoteness from real life which pervades the whole book”. (March 1954, Vol. 23 Iss. 1, pg. 112) https://archive.org/details/sim_anglican-and-episcopal-history_1954-03_23_1/ Another, in The Baptist Quarterly, calls this Alice “a quite incredible character, initially suggesting sheer stupidity, and subsequently revealing a remarkable aptitude for tying her pastor and a theological student, both poor specimens, in knots. Serena, the girl’s grandmother, completes an unbelievable quartet.” (1953-1954, Vol. XV, pg. 236) https://archive.org/details/sim_baptist-quarterly-uk_1953-1954_15/ Now, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a teenager who still loves, and plays, childhood games. I think I’d be charmed if I saw a young lady who still liked playing jacks and skipping rope; in a way, it’s as strong a show of personality as the original Alice showing her sharp mind and refusing to go along with others’ false pretensions. The problem is, none of the other characters find it remarkable. The problem is, Wills wants a character who can guilelessly poke holes in Christian beliefs, at once ignorant of what Onan spilling his seed meant, yet bright enough to suggest why the conventional apologetics might fall short, and to mouth off on her own notions of who God is. He badly wants a heroine to score some very pointed and acute hits, and seemingly have no agenda, as a young child wouldn’t. Carroll’s Alice is the right model. It isn’t always well done, but I did like many of this Alice’s insights. In the second act, when questioned on what her catechism says about infant baptism, she is positively Anneish: she knows what the book says, but because she doesn’t see “how someone else can make a promise that a baby is bound to perform,” HER answer is, “I don’t know” (10)! Her grandmother, or seminary student older cousin Peter, could have stressed its importance for washing away Original Sin. Alice also notes the discrepancy between saying the dead are in Heaven now, and the promise that they will be resurrected on the Last Day. ARE dead Christians in Heaven now? This troubles Alice’s grandmother Serena about her deceased husband’s fate. Hilariously, Alice says her grandma just needs to find a witch to resurrect him (11)! She points to the Witch of Endor incident in I Samuel (my Bible notes that the witch didn’t innately have the power to bring Samuel back, but was allowed to by God). Alice’s troubling observations are often of details usually missed in retellings of biblical stories, that even close readers are apt to miss. For instance, she says that the reason death entered the world was because the Lord prevented Adam from eating of the Tree of Life, per Genesis 3:22 (18) (I‘d reply that God’s original plan was for Adam to eat of the Tree of Life, but since he’d eaten of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, had he then eaten of the Tree of Life and become immortal then, he’d never reform, so that had to be shelved; and, while the natural effect of its fruits would be eternal life, God could’ve removed the effect had Adam gotten to both trees first). Literalists aren’t Alice’s only targets, either. On the next page, Reverend Schlosser thinks he’s on more familiar grounds when Alice asks about the six days of Creation, and he explains that they meant centuries or eons. Alice objects that that’s not only not what the Bible says, but undermines the basis for observing Sunday as a day of rest. “But if each day meant a century, a man would have to work six centuries before he could rest,” (11). I could high-five her. Unfortunately, the book is guilty of a cheap shot: there’s a scene where Alice enters, unaware the Reverend has come over, and is wearing a sunsuit (had to look that up) that she’s outgrown, and the pastor is eager to bring her over to the rectory and go over her difficult objections. Also, “Bible” isn’t capitalized in the text, though curiously “Holy Scripture“ is. So, not a book that is very respectful of the Scriptures or ofthe clergy. One of the best parts, a break from the dreary sceptical theology, comes in the fourth act, when Alice‘s teacher sends her parents a letter of reproof, for submitting a composition “too vile and obscene for me to quote, or even paraphrase”. As Peter says after it’s read, Alice’s real offense was plagiarism: it was, of course, a retelling in her own words of one of the Bible’s many salacious stories, the first two chapters of Esther, which resemble a tale from the Arabian Nights (22-23). At least in the past, some Christians had expectations for moral cleanliness in storytelling that were far in excess of the Good Book’s example. The final act tries to have a more positive note, beginning with a time when Alice found prayer helpful (45). Scouting comes up twice in this short volume, a sign of how strong that salubrious, patriotic movement was then. Alice does develop a rapport with her cousin Peter, who is more sympathetic and betetr able to field her questions than her grandmother or the minister. A third reviewer, at least, in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research (why it took five years for the review to appear I don’t know), said “George Wills gives an excellent portrayal of some of the perplexities and doubts that the young girl of thirteen confronts in the study of the Bible and the catechism. Peter, the seminary student, with his liberal and questioning mind, seems to show more understanding toward Alice than her pastor, who is more shocked than challenged by her scepticism. (March 1958, Vol. 18, No. 3, pp. 398-399) https://www.jstor.org/stable/2104545 Unfortunately, Peter concedes too much too easily. The familiar problems that the resurrection isn’t really taught in the Old Testament comes up, as does the contrast in how God is portrayed in the Old vs. the New Testaments; he would have been trained to point out many respects in which “what is concealed in the Old is revealed in the New”, and could have shown Alice passages that prefigure the promise of the resurrection of the dead (e.g. Ezekiel 37), and highlighted not just passages about God’s mercy in the Hebrew Bible, but where Jesus says that He fulfills, rather than just does aways with, the old Law. Altogether, there is too little about Jesus here; early on, Alice says she had read two inches deep into their three-inch-thick Bible so far, so that, the Old Testament, what she’s got most on her mind throughout the story. The seminarian also doesn’t challenge enough of Alice’s own notions. She speaks of the satisfaction of being good for its own sake: where did she get that idea, and how does she know what good is? Peter mentions Plato, but amazingly simplifies him and his school as merely teaching doing good for its own sake. A part, but far from the whole, which of course involves conceptions of eternal verities, and the nature of the divine. He ends up expressly likening Alice’s views to Spinoza’s. The text ends on a still more deflating note. As the Baptist Quarterly reviewer sums it up, ”The conclusion of the playlet is apparently that the Bible, though containing much ‘that is true and wonderful and wise,’ contains also ‘some other parts that are frankly just trash.’ It is a pity that good paper, printing, and binding have been wasted on expounding with such crudity so silly a verdict.” Hard to disagree. Multiple times in Alice in Bibleland, Alice wonders why the minister doesn’t tear objectionable pages out of the Bible in the pulpit, so to instruct the faithful! Wanting, here, are lessons in humility. None of the difficult passages end up fully explained, nor their significance in the original context, or with the less obvious lessons they might have for us today, brought out, and this despite two of the four characters being trained in theology. Even if parts of Alice in Bibleland are frankly just trash, it is a neat curiosity of mid-Twentieth century scepticism, and shows how a the-definition-of-marginal writer adapted the Alice tradition, which he read as akin to the Platonic, to his own use. What questions would Alice read if she studies the Bible? I’m afraid the question remains unanswered. #GeorgeWills #GeorgeFenimore #AliceInBibleland #PhilosophicalLibrary #LewisCarroll #Alice #AliceInWonderland #curiosities #Plato #Socrates #closetdrama #playlets #playlet #childrensliterature #childrensbooks #literature #books #Bible #Scripture #theology #philosophy