FunBlog

I’m still thinking about why so many movie and television adaptations of Alice in Wonderland have been unsatisfactory (including, in my opinion, Tim Burton’s latest attempt.) But perhaps the more important question is why the original books by Lewis Carroll continue to be beloved after so many years, even though, as I pointed out before, there isn’t much of a story there.

I think there are 4 main reasons why they are so popular, and the failures of the adaptations have a lot to do with their failure to measure up in these areas.
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Musui’s Story–The Autobiography of a Takugawa Samurai by Kokichi Katsu offers an unusual glimpse into a side of historical Japan that is rarely discussed, the seedy underside of life in the romantic Edo period. Instead of being the sort of noble and upright samurai that is usually depicted, the author comes off as a cheerful scoundrel.

Kokichi was born in 1802, the third son of Heizou Otani, a minor government official. As the younger son of a samurai, his best chance for advancement lay in being adopted by a samurai family with no sons. Accordingly at the age of six his father arranged for him to be adopted by the Katsu family, with the understanding that he would eventually marry their daughter Nobuko.
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American Gods
by Neil Gaiman
HarperTorch 2002

For thousands of years people have come to America, sometimes in small groups, sometimes in large numbers, across the Atlantic and the Pacific, from Europe, Africa and Asia. Some left quickly, others settled permanently. Always they brought their gods with them.

But the new land was not a hospitable place for gods. The gods from the old world were soon abandoned by their former followers, who created an array of shiny new gods to worship in their stead. Some of the old gods went mad, some killed themselves, but most continued to eke out an existence on the fringes of human society.
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