Alice in Transmedia Wonderland: Curiouser and Curiouser New Forms of a Children’s Classic by Anna Kérchy (review)

In Alice in Transmedia Wonderland: Curiouser and Curiouser New Forms of a Children’s Classic, author Anna Kérchy analyzes a wide range of Alice adaptations across many forms of media. These creative transmedia interpretations give audiences new ways to experience the story and include books, movies, iPad apps, ballets, puppet shows, fan art, and even Tom Waits’s 2002 Alice album. The book focuses primarily on adaptations created in the late twentieth or early twenty-first centuries. The analyses consider Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There together as one “intertextual, dialogic unit” (1).

In the introduction, Kérchy writes that one goal in analyzing these works is to find “how intermedial transitions elicit different modes of enchantment, disenchantment, and re-enchantment” (3). Another purpose is to show how these interpretations use the readers’ senses to build on Carroll’s original works and create an ever-expanding universe of Alice tales. Given the range of adaptations presented, it is clear that this universe is both large and growing, and the author examines a diverse selection that connects to the original texts in creative and unexpected ways.

The book is comprised of four chapters, each of which centers on a general theme. These chapters are further split into specific topics with one or more adaptations included in each. Kérchy analyzes these adaptations, connecting them loosely to the main theme of the chapter. The first part explores transmedia adaptations with a special focus on the play between image and text. The second chapter shows the role the character of Alice plays in adaptations, and the reluctance audiences may have in accepting the imaginative and at times nonsensical world of the Alice stories. Chapter three discusses erotic interpretations and addresses allegations regarding Lewis Carroll’s relationship with Alice Liddell, the real-life inspiration for the character of Alice. The final chapter looks at a wide array of adaptations that enchant the senses and even includes a cookbook.

Throughout the book, photo examples from works discussed and fan art inspired by the adaptations are included. This fan art illustrates the ever-expanding Alice universe, but these images are not usually addressed in the main text, and at times, depictions from the works themselves could have been more effective.

Overall, Alice in Transmedia Wonderland provides a great critical introduction to contemporary transmedia interpretations of Lewis Carroll’s original works. Summaries are included, so readers do not need to be familiar with the adaptations to appreciate the analyses. Chapter notes, an extensive bibliography, and an index are also included. This work appeals primarily to an academic readership, especially those with a basis in postmodernist theory. Scholars with interests in particular topics or adaptations can appreciate individual articles or chapters without having read the complete book. Though the voice and scope are solidly academic, casual readers who are devoted Alice fans may also find the subjects to be interesting and enjoyable.