Alicious Objects: Believing in six impossible things before breakfast; or reading Alice nostologically

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Notes

1 All further citations to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass are from The Annotated Alice.

2 I am referring, of course, to Freud's famous “Lecture on Femininity” (1933) in which he stated: “Nor will you have escaped worrying over this problem — those of you who are men; those of you who are women this will not apply — you are yourselves the problem.”

3 In a recent lecture, Adam Phillips has spoken on the value of helplessness, as something not to overcome, but as a state to sustain (without exploitation). Phillips makes this central point: helplessness is where we start from and helplessness is where we all end up. As Phillips comically remarks, paraphrasing D.W. Winnicott, even philosophers were once babies. Phillips’ provocative work begs the question: “What if we grew into helplessness, rather than out of it?”

4 As Weinrich writes: “the little flower known as the forget-me-not (German Vergißmeinnicht; both forms derived from the Old French ne m'oubliez mie, botanically myosotis), which was often mentioned in the Middle Ages and has since become indispensable for lovers in many countries, and which is a reminder to be faithful that is at least as effective as its positive version, the pansy (derived from French pensée).” P. 3.

5 For a full discussion of the death of the child that once was, see Mavor's Reading Boyishly and Pleasures Taken.

6 On the political perils of forgetting and remembering, especially after Auschwitz, see Weinrich's chapter: “Auschwitz and No Forgetting” 183–205.

7 All further citations to No Name will be parenthetically noted in the body of the text.

8 Katherine Guinness has opened my eyes to the work of Rosemarie Trockel; I thank her for sharing her research with me.