Firstly, a big thank you to Melanie Benjamin for taking the time to answer my questions.
Melanie is the author of Alice I Have been (you can see my review here) which is a fiction book (although based on many facts) told from the point of view of Alice Liddel – better known to the world as Alice In Wonderland. It’s a lovely book, one I really enjoyed reading, and there were a few surprises in store too.
So without further ado:
1) What was the easiest and hardest thing about writing Alice I Have Been?
Writing the chapters that dealt with her childhood in Oxford, her friendship with Dodgson, came easiest to me. My inspiration for writing the book was that famous beggar-girl photograph of Alice at age 7, so all ideas for the book sprang from my curiosity & fascination with Alice at that age. Hardest was the third section that dealt with her life away from Oxford, raising sons; there was simply so much less known and written about that time in her life. I had to rely solely on my imagination, but I think that section ended up being my favorite.
2) Did your opinion of Alice change from when you first started the book to when you finished it?
A bit. I think I saw her as this very modern little girl from that photograph – the amazing, worldly expression on her face, even her very modern, short haircut. I think that’s what made her special, made Dodgson take notice of her. But I found that she was a very thoroughly Victorian matron at the end of her life; she ended up being much more a product of her time than she wanted to be when she was young. That surprised me – but it also fascinated me and introduced another layer to the novel.
3) Describe the real Alice in 3 words
Pragmatic, strong, survivor.
4) Which character surprised you the most once you had begun writing and why?
The character of John Ruskin. Initially he was only a peripheral, gossipy figure. But in the middle section of the book, I needed a strong antagonist, someone to put up too many obstacles in the way of Alice’s happiness, and he was there. He sprang to life, commanded center stage, and it worked so well because of his own well-documented fascination with young girls, his own tragic, mad outcome.
5) Because of the lack of facts surrounding the fall out between Alice and Mr Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) you interpreted it in your own way. What made you choose the angle that you did?
“A man who fancied himself a child and a child who thought she was a woman…” those are the words I use to best describe how I see their relationship. This is why I interpreted the break between them the way I did; I never saw either of them as a stereotypical predator/victim. The truth – and I believe the truth between them – is more complex than that, always. I looked at that photograph of the 7-year-old Alice, and I did not see a victim there. I saw a startlingly strong, worldly little woman.
6) Why do you think that Alice In Wonderland is still as popular today as it was when it was written?
I honestly don’t know! I do think there’s something in the wildly imaginative way that Dodgson/Lewis Carroll wrote those books that inspires others to the same imaginative heights. Also the continued fascination about the relationship between artist and muse – that’s another reason why we keep going back to it. Dodgson and Alice and the legacy of literature, imagination, fascination, mystery that they left behind; it’s an irresistible package.
7) What writing project is next on your agenda?
Another historical novel, set in roughly the same time period as ALICE I HAVE BEEN, only this time it’s a uniquely American story, one full of great color and adventure.
8) If you could travel back in time for one year anywhere in the world, what year would you choose, and where?
Paris, sometime in the 1920′s, when all the great writers and artists – Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Picasso, etc. – were there.
9) Have you ever read a book and thought “Damn, I wish I’d written that”?
When I read E.L. Doctorow’s THE MARCH, I thought exactly that!
10) You’re going to be stranded on a desert island for a year and you’re only allowed to take 3 books with you. Which ones do you take?
HOWARDS END, LITTLE WOMEN, TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD
11) Finally, the quick fire round:
Favourite colour: – Red
Favourite animal: – Bear
Favourite holiday destination: – The mountains of Colorado
Favourite song: – Landslide by Fleetwood Mac
Favourite childhood memory: – Going to the bookmobile with my mother once a week – this was before our county had a permanent public library – and stocking up on books.
If you want to know more about Melanie:
And here is the book that Melanie wishes she had written. Another for Mt. TBR!
Info from Goodreads: “In 1864, after Union general William Tecumseh Sherman burned Atlanta, he marched his sixty thousand troops east through Georgia to the sea, and then up into the Carolinas. The army fought off Confederate forces and lived off the land, pillaging the Southern plantations, taking cattle and crops for their own, demolishing cities, and accumulating a borne-along population of freed blacks and white refugees until all that remained was the dangerous transient life of the uprooted, the dispossessed, and the triumphant.” The author of Ragtime, City of God, and The Book of Daniel has given us a work with an enormous cast of characters – white and black; men, women, and children; unionists and rebels; generals and privates; freed slaves and slave owners. At the center are General Sherman himself; a beautiful freed slave girl named Pearl; a Union regimental surgeon, Colonel Sartorius; Emily Thompson, the dispossessed daughter of a Southern judge; and Arly and Will, two misfit soldiers.”
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