Uncle John’s Giant 10th Anniversary Bathroom Reader (14 page)

•
Egg Foo Yung
. From a Guangdong word that means “egg white.” Translated literally, Egg Foo Yung means “egg egg white.”

•
Fortune Cookies.
Invented in 1916 by David Jung, founder of the Hong Kong noodle factory in Los Angeles.

“By the 1920s,” says Mariani, “Chinese restaurants dotted the American landscape, and a person

      
was as likely to find a chop suey parlor in Kansas City as New York, even though the typical menu in such places bore small resemblance to the food the Chinese themselves ate….Won ton soup, egg rolls, barbecued spareribs, sweet-and-sour pork, and beef with lobster sauce were all concocted to whet Americans’ appetites….To this day it is standard procedure for an American in a Chinese restaurant to be handed a 2-column menu written in English, while a completely different menu printed in Chinese will be given to a Chinese patron.

Note:
Until the 1970s, Chinese-American cuisine was almost exclusively Cantonese. If you’re a fan of Szechuan or Hunan cooking, thank Richard Nixon. He opened the People’s Republic of China to the West in the ’70s…which brought us new Chinese cuisines.

When Charles Lutwidge Dodgson met a four-year-old girl named Alice Liddell in 1856, he wrote in his diary, “I mark this day with a white stone”—which meant it was a particularly wonderful day for him. It turned out to be a pretty good day for children all over the world: Charles Dodgson became famous as Lewis Carroll…and Alice Liddell was the child who inspired him to write
Alice in Wonderland.

B
ACKGROUND

• Charles Lutwidge Dodgson was a deacon and professor of mathematics at Christ Church College in Oxford.

• He was also a poet and photographer who drew his inspiration from children—especially little girls. In fact, he chose teaching as a career because it left him time to pursue photography and poetry.

• In 1856, the same year Dodgson began teaching at Christ Church, a new dean arrived—Henry George Liddell. He had four children, and Dodgson quickly became friendly with them. He especially enjoyed taking them on outings and photographing the girls.

• The youngest, 4-year-old Alice, had a special relationship with Reverend Dodgson—perhaps because her favorite expression was “let’s pretend.”

DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE

On what he recalled as a “golden July afternoon” in 1862, Dodgson took the three Liddell girls boating on the river for a picnic.

• As they rowed lazily downstream, Alice begged Dodgson to tell them a story…so he made one up.

• He called his heroine Alice to please her. Then he “sent her straight down a rabbit-hole to begin,” he later explained, “without the least idea what was to happen afterwards.”

• Amazingly, he made up most of
Alice in Wonderland
on the spot.

SAVING A TREASURE

Alice liked the story so much that she asked Dodgson to write it down. He agreed. In fact, that night—as a gift for his favorite little girl—he sat up and wrote the whole thing out in longhand, adding his own illustrations. He called it
Alice’s Adventures Underground.

• Dodgson had already decided he needed a pseudonym for the humorous poems and stories he’d been contributing to magazines. (He also wrote academic articles on mathematics, and was afraid people wouldn’t take him seriously if they knew he was writing nonsense rhymes.)

• He came up with the name Lewis Carroll by scrambling letters in his first two names, and used it for the first time when he signed
Alice’s Adventures Underground
for Alice.

A BOOK IS BORN

Fortunately for us, before Dodgson brought the handwritten manuscript to Alice, he happened to show it to a friend named George MacDonald, who read it to his children. If he hadn’t, Alice’s adventures might have been nothing more than a personal gift to one little girl. But the entire MacDonald family loved the story so much that they urged Carroll to publish it.

• After giving the original to Alice Liddell as promised, Dodgson decided to take their advice. He revised the story, added to it, then hired John Tenniel, a well-known cartoonist, to illustrate it.

• The book was published in 1865 as
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
It became so popular that in 1871 Carroll published the further adventures of Alice, entitled
Through the Looking Glass.

THE ALICE MYSTERY

Shortly after Dodgson presented Alice with the handwritten story, something happened that ended his relationship with the Liddell family. No one knows what it was. But the abruptness of the split has led to speculation about Carroll’s sexuality. Why was he so interested in little girls in the first place?

• In fact, however, there’s no evidence that his relationships with children were in any way improper. His biographers interviewed many of the women Carroll entertained as children and they always spoke of him with great respect and fondness. It’s more likely, say some biographers, that Carroll broached the subject of marriage to one of the Liddell girls and was rejected.

• At any rate, the lazy days of games and stories were over for Alice and Dodgson. By the time Alice received her copy of the published edition of
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
, the author was no longer a part of her life.

In 1926, Alice Liddell sold the original manuscript of
Alice’s Adventures Underground
to an American book dealer for $25,000. He resold it to a group of Americans. They took it to England and presented it as a gift to the British people in gratitude for their bravery in World War II. It remains there today, in the British Museum.

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FAMILIAR FACES

Many of the now-classic characters in Carroll’s stories were easily recognizable to the Liddell children. For example:

The White Rabbit:
Was modeled after Carroll himself. Like the rabbit, he was very proper, usually dressed in an old-fashioned formal black suit and top hat. He always wore gloves—no matter what the weather—which he frequently misplaced.

The Dodo:
Carroll had taken the girls to a museum, where they were fascinated by a stuffed Dodo bird. He incorporated the bird into the story as himself because he stammered and his name came out as “Do-Do-Dodgson.”

The Duck, Lory, and Eaglet:
The Duck was Carroll’s friend, Robinson Duckworth, who’d accompanied him on many of the outings with the children. The Lory was Lorina Liddell, the Eaglet, Edith Liddell. The three sisters show up again in the Dormous’s story as Elsie (from L.C., Lorina’s initials), Lacie (an anagram for Alice), and Tillie (a family nickname for Edith).

The Mock Turtle’s Song:
“Beautiful Soup” was a parody of one of the children’s favorite songs, “Star of Evening,” and the way they sang in their childish voices.

The Mad Hatter:
Supposedly modeled after an eccentric man named Theophilus Carter, who’d been at Christ Church but became a furniture dealer.

The Alice books are among the most quotable children’s stories ever written. There’s a gem on practically every page—and some passages are packed with them. In the 1st and 6th Bathroom Readers we included a few sections of Lewis Carroll’s work. Here are some more.

I
n that direction,” the Cheshire Cat said, waving its right paw round, “lives a Hatter: and in that direction,” waving the other paw, “lives a March Hare. Visit either you like: they’re both mad.” “But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked.

“Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat: “we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.”

“How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice.

“You must be,” said the Cat, “or you wouldn’t have come here.”

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“It was much pleasanter at home,” thought poor Alice, “when one wasn’t always growing larger and smaller, and being ordered about by mice and rabbits. I almost wish I hadn’t gone down that rabbit hole and yet it’s rather curious, you know, this sort of life! I do wonder what can have happened to me! When I used to read fairy tales, I fancied that kind of thing never happened, and now here I am in the middle of one! There ought to be a book written about me, that there ought! And when I grow up, I’ll write one but I’m grown up now,” she added in a sorrowful tone, “at least there’s no room to grow up any more here.”

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“Alice took up the fan and gloves, and, as the hall was very hot, she kept fanning herself all the time she went on talking: “Dear, dear! How queer everything is today! And yesterday things went on just as usual. I wonder if I’ve been changed in the night? Let me think: was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I’m not the same, the next question is, Who in the world am I? Ah, that’s the great puzzle!” And she began thinking over all the children she knew, that were of the same age as herself to see if she could have been changed for any of them.

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“Who are you?” said the Caterpillar.

This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, rather shyly, “I, I hardly know, sir, just at present at least I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.”

“What do you mean by that?” said the Caterpillar sternly. “Explain yourself!”

“I can’t explain myself, I’m afraid, sir,” said Alice, “because I’m not myself, you see.”

“I don’t see,” said the Caterpillar.

“I’m afraid I can’t put it more clearly,” Alice replied very politely, “for I can’t understand it myself to begin with; and being so many different sizes in a day is very confusing.”

“It isn’t,” said the Caterpillar.

“Well, perhaps you haven’t found it so yet,” said Alice; “but when you have to turn into a chrysalis—you will some day, you know—and then after that into a butterfly, I should think you’ll feel a little queer, won’t you?”

“Not a bit,” said the Caterpillar.

“Well, perhaps your feelings may be different,” said Alice; “all I know is, it would feel very queer to me.”

“You!” said the Caterpillar contemptuously. “Who are you?”

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“The two
Alices
are not books for children; they are the only books in which we
become
children.”

—Virginia Woolf

TV comments about everyday life, from
Primetime Proverbs,
by Jack Mingo and John Javna.

ON ROMANCE

“Gomez, I’ve been yours since that first day you carved my initials in your leg.”

—Morticia Addams,

The Addams Family

Emily Hartley:
“Bob, do you love me?”

Bob Hartley:
“Sure.”

Emily:
“Why?”

Bob:
“Why not?”

—The Bob Newhart Show

“We’ve come to realize that you can be in love without making others want to puke.”

—Michael Harris,

Newhart

ON BIGOTRY

“Look, Archie Bunker ain’t no bigot. I’m the first to say—look, it ain’t your fault you’re colored.”

—Archie Bunker,

All in the Family

ON WOMEN’S ISSUES

Game Show Host:
“Complete this famous phrase: Better late than…”

Blanche:
“Pregnant!”

—The Golden Girls

ON BEING WEALTHY

“If God had not meant for there to be poor people, He wouldn’t have given you all their money.”

—Minister addressing a

wealthy congregation,
SCTV

“As my old Pappy used to say, if the Lord had more respect for money, he’d have given it to a better class of people.