The hunting of the snark

"The Hunting of the Snark" is the longest of Carroll's nonsense poems, and readers of his other works will recognize his adeptness in creating story and meaning through his wordplay, rhyme, and portmanteaus. This adaptation by illustrator Singh (a member of the Lewis Carroll Society of North America and an editor for their journal, The Knight Letter) leaves Carroll's original text intact, although broken up for paneling and illustration. What really adds to the experience is the additional information provided at the beginning and end, which gives clues and insights into an otherwise puzzling story and the controversies surrounding its meaning. Singh's black-and-white surrealistic treatment of Carroll's classic poem is perfect; his illustrations are reminiscent of Henry Holiday's original spot artwork for the text, but it takes the ideology of Carroll's nonsense to new visual levels. Far beyond a simplistic, literal depiction of the poem, each panel is thoughtfully created, filled with puzzles, jokes, and allusions. The Annotated Hunting of the Snark would be an ideal companion to this text for further revelation. Verdict This graphic novel is perfect for readers who enjoy wordplay, jokes, nonsense, and mathematics. The content is suitable for all ages, though the language might be difficult for beginning readers.-Joanna Schmidt, George Fox Univ., Newberg, OR (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

From the Foreword There exists a certain kind of mind that is uncomfortable with ambiguity, nonsense, and the creative imagination. Such persons attempt to reduce the abstruse to some prosaic explication, which they then often insist is the only way to look at it, and surely was the original intent of the author, whose mind they know better than he or she did. This has frequently been the fate of the Snark and, for that matter, Carroll's two masterful Alice books, for those of limited intelligence (intellect, which such persons might possess in abundance, is another matter entirely) who `read' the poem in their own idiosyncratic way. (Analogously, we in the States elected a man as our leader who sees things exactly as he wishes to see them and allows no such things as facts or truth to stand in his way.) Contrariwise, as Tweedledee would say, more enlightened minds can rejoice in profound and perplexing-another term might be `poetic'-works of art. Hermeneutics (the art of interpretation) can better be used to demonstrate how a text could be construed a certain way, thereby proving, with great humor and wisdom, just how infinite is its depth. Fortunately, we are in such hands with this present edition, which does not dictate but rather wittily utilizes illustrations to the poem to memorialize a moment in political time, the bewildering administration of Donald J. Trump and his cronies, by assigning caricatures of his staff to the expedition's crew. As Ben Hecht put it in A Guide for the Bedevilled (1945), `Trying to determine what is going on in the world by reading newspapers is like trying to tell the time by watching the second hand of a clock.' Already at this writing some of the persons caricatured in this edition have left the administration-Anthony Scaramucci, Reince Priebus, and Stephen K. Bannon-but that does not affect George Walker's superb caricatures, nor this edition serving as an aide-mémoire of a baffling yet historic time. -Mark Burstein, President Emeritus of the Lewis Carroll Society of North America Excerpted from The Hunting of the Snark by Lewis Carroll All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.