Reading other reviews one finds a lot of complaining about Gregory’s lexicon. While i can agree that Gregory does have a rather outdated lexicon, i think those who wrote those reviews are very much missing the point of Gregory’s writing. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland were very much books of the Victorian age and Gregory’s writing in his spin offs from both simply tends to keep with the language of that age and the words used — he is, after all, a Victorian spin off specialist so why be surprised at the Victorian use of words in his writing? I would definitely say that all the words i had to quickly look up on my Kindle were Victorian throw backs and to be quite honest they didn’t detract from Ada’s story at all for me. If anything, they brought a genuineness to Ada’s story in that they kept it within the upper middle class Victorian world in which this is set.
And i also find it nice to learn a few new (old and forgotten) words to baffle people with: pompous as accused by curmudgeons or simply having fun with language?
There are certainly worse writers out there for using overblown language, and they have no excuse at all for doing so as they are writing contemporary fiction, not Victorian spin offs.
If you can’t be bothered with a little Victorian style language then maybe this book isn’t for you. But if you can just accept it’s there for a valid reason and deal with it accordingly and enjoy expanding your vocabulary a little along the way then you’re in for a good yarn.
I read this immediately after reading the original 4 books on Wonderland and i felt it flowed really well from those.
Although, unlike the original Alice books, this book is certainly not for young children. It’s definitely aimed at a more mature audience: those who enjoyed Alice in their childhood who would like to revisit Wonderland as late teens and adults.
The story does end with several loose ends, which i hope means Gregory will be coming back to Wonderland in the future to finish these loose ends off.
I for one enjoy Gregory’s writing and will always be a fan of his books.
Here be some more “Alice and Wonderland” books.
