"Less Bread! More Taxes!" - Title of chapter 1 of Sylvie and Bruno
Sylvie and Bruno is an experimental 2 part novel by Lewis Carroll (Charles Dodgson), its his last major work.
The story is divided into 2 main strands: a love triangle set in England between a doctor, Arthur, for the Lady Muriel, and a fairy tale parody of Oxford University, "Outland" with 2 fairy characters, the children of the title. Loosely connecting these two strands is the narrator, an elderly gentleman prone to a condition similar to narcolepsy who sees both these worlds, often in tandem.
This summary is as close as I can approximate this novel for anyone. Somehow in the space of 2 years an aging Charles Dodgson decided to throw every idea he'd ever had into a novel and see if it stuck. Originating as a short story ("Bruno's Revenge", published in Aunt Judy's Magazine, 1867) the book grew ever complex, split into 2 parts and with seemingly endless tangents on Religion, Morality, and Love. It flopped upon release and faded into obscurity, with only major Carroll scholars and a few writers here and there acknowledging it.
Whilst Dodgson at the time may have considered it to be his best piece of work, for the modern reader it is almost impossible to read (and I should know - I attempted it in 2020 and barely made it through, if it wasn't for friends) I was thinking over recently why this is just so hard to read, and realized that unlike later experimental novels or poetry, a context guide, notes or introduction has seemingly never materialized in the mainstream for Sylvie and Bruno. A scholarly annotated version exists: but it is not for the casual reader or carrollian.
The context guide I found online last year seemed to give up halfway through, confusing one chapter for another. This is an oversight in my eyes as a simple guide would make the whole book far less daunting to new readers and also explain just what Dodgson is saying in the sections where characters debate 19th century values. And also, why the concept of fairy children existed in Victorian literature and its link to mortality issues.
This is a book which places you in a room in Outland (an Oxford parody) in chapter 1 with the phrase "-And then the people cheered again" and leaves you to slowly decipher its plot, or to wonder if it even has any grasp of one. Any idea of plot is tied up in Outland with a conspiracy by the Sub Warden and Chancellor to oust the Warden of the university, and in the real world, formed around Arthur and Muriel's relationship. Transitions from waking to dreaming flip back and forth so suddenly you may not be aware the narrator is awake or asleep. There are sections that work. There are sections that really don't. There are poems, often with a moral (something that a younger Dodgson would have winced at, most likely)
Within this maze, there is something to be commended: Dodgson tried to write one of the first experimental novels with only a vague idea of what he wanted. But I believe his ideas of this being a grand work, would be with editions that fully explained his vision, with notes and footnotes.
At this moment the novel is hellishly difficult to understand because it requires you know 19th Century English culture, Oxford, Christianity and mental states well enough to engage with what Dodgson is offering. For most people (myself included) this is most likely too much to handle.
I didn't want to dislike this book at all. But without proper context: it becomes almost utterly meaningless.
NOTES:
- A case for this novel as extremely early Experimental Literature is made persuasively by Thomas Christensen's 1991 article for Right Reading.
- An abridged version of the novels, called "The Story of Sylvie and Bruno" was published in 1904 and includes only the Outland strand of the narrative. Many translations omit the social realism side of the story, for example in Polish.
