What one reviewer said about The Hunting of the Snark : An Agony in Eight Fits (Penguin Classics) by Lewis Carroll, Martin Gardner, Henry Holiday:
Lewis Carroll is brilliant in this piece. First of all the poetical music is perfect, absolutely perfect, and yet the words don't mean much. Many of these words are not even to be found in any dictionary. Be it only for the music, this piece is astonishingly good. But the piece has a meaning. I will not enter the numerical value of the numbers used in the poem : 3, 42, 6, 7, 20, 10, 992, 8, and I am inclined to say etc because some are more or less hidden here and there in the lines. Hunting for these numbers is like hunting for the snark, an illusion. But the general meaning of the poem is a great allegory to social and political life. A society, any society gives itself an aim, a target, a purpose and everyone is running after it without even knowing what it is. What is important in society is not what you are running after or striving for, but only the running and the striving. Lewis Carroll is thus extremely modern in this total lack of illusions about society, social life and politics : just wave a flag of any kind, or anything that can be used as a flag and can be waved, in front of the noses of people and they will run after it or run in the direction it indicates. They love roadsigns and social life is a set of roadsigns telling you where to go. Everyone goes there, except of course the roadsigns themselves who never go in the direction they indicate. Lewis Carroll is thus the first post-modern poet of the twenty-first century. He just lived a little bit too early.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU
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