In the past, writing in the style of others has appealed to me, at least when I've been doing the writing (VCE saw takes on both Ethan Frome and Fly Away Peter in that vein) - possibly this reflected my sense that I didn't yet have a clear voice of my own; a fondness for mimicry in general was probably also at play. Whatever the reasons, I'm not the only one to have so indulged myself - there seem to be many 'sequels' to canonical novels out there, and relatively recently I saw a book which imaginatively sought to fill in the 'naughty' bits in various of Jane Austen's novels (only browsed it in a bookstore, but it seemed to be well done). And, most recently, came across this revisiting of an old favourite, in the form of Gilbert Adair's attempt at writing a third adventure for Lewis Carroll's beloved Alice (the ambiguity in that last phrase being fully intended - and probably appropriate given Carroll's own penchant for wordplay).
In many ways, though, this book was probably doomed from its inception, and especially when read by someone like me (that is, a book whose 'originals' have become a part of our collective cultural landscape, read by someone whose fondness for those originals dates back to impressionable childhood), and while I thought that Through The Needle's Eye was a worthy attempt, it nonetheless could never measure up Wonderland and Looking-Glass simply because the series of ((un)fortunate) events it details aren't already deeply embedded in my consciousness. Adair's book also seemed to me to be too cute, too precious at places, overly self-conscious about its invocations of (post-)structuralism, linguistic theory, etc (the constant textual references to the book itself and its illustrations grow quickly wearisome), and, in general, too fixated on inconsequentialities and details to really achieve the wonderfully light absurdity, seeming to gesture beyond itself at the greater world, characteristic of Carroll's writing. All of those criticisms may well be traceable back to that fundamental problem that Through The Needle's Eye is a subsequent copy - albeit a highly respectful one which captures much of the spirit of its sources - and not itself one of those original landmarks, but, even if so, that's not really the point, is it?
