The Hunting of the Snark - Lewis Carroll

Rating: ★★★★★
11/01/14

Well, I gave TV a chance today. However, I found Titanic, Terminator 3, reality shows and other stuff, so, those aren't real options for me. I have no sitcoms to watch right now. Although, I'm kind of tired of watching the same sitcoms/tv series all the time. There's nothing new now. Once Upon a Time is on, so that's a good background sound. What to do on a Saturday afternoon? Yes. Let's find something out of the ordinary to read. And what did I find? A brilliant, typical Carroll nonsense poem. I loved it. Such a unique and fascinating work, full of wit, mystery and absurdity. A bunch of weird men go to find an even weirder creature called Snark. Among those men, we have a Bellman, a Boots, a Barrister, a Broker, a Beaver, a Butcher who only can kill beavers and even a guy who forgot his name!

He would answer to "Hi!" or to any loud cry,

Such as "Fry me!" or "Fritter my wig!"

To "What-you-may-call-um!" or "What-was-his-name!"

But especially "Thing-um-a-jig!"

Well, I think it's funny, don't judge me. It's also amusing the way the Snark it's described. It seems we may have met a couple of Snarks in our lives.

The third is its slowness in taking a jest.

Should you happen to venture on one,

It will sigh like a thing that is deeply distressed:

And it always looks grave at a pun.

I know I did!

Anyway, after reading this poem (it has beautiful illustrations, too), I started to search for meanings, a classic “What the hell did I just read?” kind of questions. So this journey doesn't end with the last verse.

There are a couple of references from another poem written by Carroll, Jabberwocky, published in his novel Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, which I read years ago. I re-read it and it made me want to read the whole novel again! And no, there's no shame in that. 'Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again', another Lewis said. I never stopped reading those, anyway.