New Criterion, October 1st, 2006
Lewis Carroll The Annotated Hunting of the Snark, edited by Martin Gardner. W. W. Norton, 192 pages, $27.95 Nonsense may well be the most misunderstood of literary genres. Many have mistaken it for mere loony and meandering piffle--fun, but chaotic stuff. Yet, as the novelist and critic Elizabeth Sewell discovered in her insightful study The Field of Nonsense, a well-made nonsense world is strictly regulated. It resembles a game whose moves are ordained: they can't go in just any direction. Guests at the Mad Tea-Party have to keep moving on to the next seat; indeed, the plot of Through the Lo...
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