Of course I'm mad.
We're all mad here. If I wasn't mad I wouldn't have come here, would I?
How mad am I? Well judge for yourself: a fifty-year-old man who collects editions of Alice in Wonderland - it sounds quite mad to me.
But it gets worse. Many of those editions are in foreign languages that I cannot begin to read. That's really rather startlingly mad, though of course I can look at the pictures.
But it gets worse. There are editions in my collection which are in foreign languages that I cannot begin to read and that have NO PICTURES. And what is the use of a book without pictures or conversations?
So, I'm mad.
I suppose I have been since I first followed Alice down that rabbit hole when I was too young to even read the English version, when my mother read it to me and showed me the pictures. Since then I've been collecting. Of course to a non-collector the mind of a collector of anything is a mad place. I don't generally pay very much for a book, the most has been around £50, but that's because there are so many editions out there and my time, space and fortune are all limited. I confess I was tempted when I saw a copy of the Salvador Dali illustrated version that was a steal at £4,000 but that particular moment of madness passed.
But really, why do collectors collect? Why do they collect coins, or stamps, or dolls, or model trains, or shoes, or ships or sealing wax? Or editions of the Alice books?
I can only say that if you collect something yourself then you already know the answer. If you don't then you will never know the answer. And doesn't that kind of Zen non-answer just infuriate people?
Lots of the answers I give to people when they ask me about my collection seem to infuriate, or at the very least bewilder.
"Who is your favourite illustrator?" they ask, feigning interest as the madman starts to rant again.
But I can't answer sensibly because I don't have one. There are a couple of editions I have where the illustrations are rather dull but for the most part I love all of them equally.
"Which is the best film version?" the ask. "Depends on who you are and why you are asking the question." doesn't seem to satisfy them.
"Why Alice?" they ask. For an answer I point them at the collection. "In there," I say I have books by hundreds of different illustrators. I have sequels by a dozen different writers. I have biographies of Lewis Carroll and of Alice Liddell. I have books about the illustrators, books about the author and books about the books. I have films that tell the story as it was written and films that use it as a starting point in a variety of bizarre variations on the theme - as a gangster film, as a piece of cyberpunk science fiction, as grim surrealism, as an action adventure."
I point to the music section of my collection with pop music, heavy metal, classical and operatic versions.
I can think of no other book that has been made over so many times and in so many ways, no other book that has captured the imaginations of so many artists in so many fields.
"Why Alice?" they ask. I can't tell them but I am not alone.
And now I have given them a new question.
"Why Eternal?" and that one, at last, I can answer. With Alice embedded so deeply in our culture, and by our I speak for the entire race (I even have an Aboriginal version), Alice will live forever. Who knows what strange mutant forms it may take in the future? Who can say what yet unborn generations of artists will do with it? That's why I have called this index Alice Eternal.
Either that or it will take me an eternity to actually create it. Which, I wonder, will be finished first - the index or the indexer?
We're all mad here. If I wasn't mad I wouldn't have come here, would I?
How mad am I? Well judge for yourself: a fifty-year-old man who collects editions of Alice in Wonderland - it sounds quite mad to me.
But it gets worse. Many of those editions are in foreign languages that I cannot begin to read. That's really rather startlingly mad, though of course I can look at the pictures.
But it gets worse. There are editions in my collection which are in foreign languages that I cannot begin to read and that have NO PICTURES. And what is the use of a book without pictures or conversations?
So, I'm mad.
I suppose I have been since I first followed Alice down that rabbit hole when I was too young to even read the English version, when my mother read it to me and showed me the pictures. Since then I've been collecting. Of course to a non-collector the mind of a collector of anything is a mad place. I don't generally pay very much for a book, the most has been around £50, but that's because there are so many editions out there and my time, space and fortune are all limited. I confess I was tempted when I saw a copy of the Salvador Dali illustrated version that was a steal at £4,000 but that particular moment of madness passed.
But really, why do collectors collect? Why do they collect coins, or stamps, or dolls, or model trains, or shoes, or ships or sealing wax? Or editions of the Alice books?
I can only say that if you collect something yourself then you already know the answer. If you don't then you will never know the answer. And doesn't that kind of Zen non-answer just infuriate people?
Lots of the answers I give to people when they ask me about my collection seem to infuriate, or at the very least bewilder.
"Who is your favourite illustrator?" they ask, feigning interest as the madman starts to rant again.
But I can't answer sensibly because I don't have one. There are a couple of editions I have where the illustrations are rather dull but for the most part I love all of them equally.
"Which is the best film version?" the ask. "Depends on who you are and why you are asking the question." doesn't seem to satisfy them.
"Why Alice?" they ask. For an answer I point them at the collection. "In there," I say I have books by hundreds of different illustrators. I have sequels by a dozen different writers. I have biographies of Lewis Carroll and of Alice Liddell. I have books about the illustrators, books about the author and books about the books. I have films that tell the story as it was written and films that use it as a starting point in a variety of bizarre variations on the theme - as a gangster film, as a piece of cyberpunk science fiction, as grim surrealism, as an action adventure."
I point to the music section of my collection with pop music, heavy metal, classical and operatic versions.
I can think of no other book that has been made over so many times and in so many ways, no other book that has captured the imaginations of so many artists in so many fields.
"Why Alice?" they ask. I can't tell them but I am not alone.
And now I have given them a new question.
"Why Eternal?" and that one, at last, I can answer. With Alice embedded so deeply in our culture, and by our I speak for the entire race (I even have an Aboriginal version), Alice will live forever. Who knows what strange mutant forms it may take in the future? Who can say what yet unborn generations of artists will do with it? That's why I have called this index Alice Eternal.
Either that or it will take me an eternity to actually create it. Which, I wonder, will be finished first - the index or the indexer?
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