Deal Me In, Week 33 ~ “Alice, Falling”

Hosted by Jay @ Bibliophilopolis

“Alice, Falling” by Steven Millhauser

Card picked: Eight of Diamonds

From: The Barnum Museum (only one more story left in this anthology!)

Review: Confession time: Along with Peter and Wendy and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, I haven’t read Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. I seem to have skipped many of that era’s children’s literature in favor of Poe and Conan Doyle. What I know of Alice is, indeed, the Disney version.

Millhauser’s Alice falls with seemingly no hope of ever reaching a bottom. She falls past cupboards with raspberry jam and ginger beer. She falls past maps and mirrors and statues of cherubs. She wonders if she is falling toward adventure, or if she’s already taking part in the adventure, or if this is only a dream. And if it’s only a dream, is the Alice asleep by the lake while her sister reads (a book without pictures or conversations) any more real than the Alice that followed a white rabbit down a rabbit hole? And Millhauser subtly leads the reader to wonder if the Alice of the book is more real than the Alice that the story was told to and written down for.

This is the second to last story of The Barnum Museum and I think I’m going to miss Millhauser. At least until I pick up another of his anthologies.