Carroll's late and ambitious novel moves between Victorian English society and the fairy realm of two small siblings, Sylvie and Bruno. A narrator drifts between the two worlds, sometimes dreaming and sometimes half awake, while the story follows country life, romance and fairy adventures. The book mixes comic nonsense, songs, social comment and religious reflection. Its structure is unusual and sometimes uneven, but it contains much of Carroll's playful invention and shows his more serious thoughts on kindness and faith.
Quotes
I suppose every child has a world of his own — and every man, too, for the matter of that. I wonder if that's the cause for all the misunderstanding there is in Life?
He thought he saw an Elephant, That practised on a fife: He looked again, and found it was A letter from his wife. 'At length I realise,' he said, 'The bitterness of Life!'
He thought he saw a Banker's Clerk Descending from the bus: He looked again, and found it was A Hippopotamus: 'If this should stay to dine,' he said, 'There won't be mutch for us!
The West is the fitting tomb for all the sorrow and the sighing, all the errors and the follies of the Past: for all its withered Hopes and all its buried Loves! From the East comes new strength, new ambition, new Hope, new Life, new Love! Look Eastward! Aye, look Eastward!"