The title, Out Of The Way Things, is a reference to a line from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
Alice.. is one of my favorite books of all time.
I read Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland for the first time as an adult. I loved it from page 1, when the narrator acknowledged that Alice took in stride the appearance of a rabbit in a waistcoat, with a pocket watch as he hurried past her, and only later did it occur to Alice that she should have thought it was strange. It was absurd and so relatable. There are so many charming moments: Alice seeking advice from the Cheshire Cat and visiting the tea party. There are dozens of fantastic quotes: “She generally gave herself very good advice (though she very seldom followed it)…”, preach.
At the time I was reading it, I was teaching 6th grade in an elementary school. It was a great job. I loved my kids and I loved Alice. And so, of course, I wanted to share the book with my class. When I told them I was going to read it aloud they were excited. Because, it turns out, everyone* likes it when someone reads to them. So, I started reading it to them. And they hated it. I did the thing that one does in these circumstances, I promised them, if you just stick with it, it will get better, you will love it! Nope. Nope. No, they never started to like it. I gave up and read them some random tween book that was popular at the time. I don’t even remember what book it was. You might have been expecting an uplifting ending to that, where we persevered and the students were inspired to become passionate consumers of classic children’s literature. Nah. Not so much. The moral to the story is that 6th graders are a lot of fun, and have questionable taste in books.
I digress. Which, to be honest, I do a lot. That is a thing with me. I love a good diversion. Or a mediocre one. Or any at all.
To the topic at hand, the title of my book, Out Of The Way Things, comes directly from Alice. It is the way that Alice describes the extraordinary. Though Alice’s story and mine are quite different, Alice inspired aspects of my writing. I love the unexpected encounters, and sometimes absurd characters in the book. They’re a lot of fun; however they are made far more compelling by Alice’s reaction to them. Wonderland is improved by Alice’s perspective. That was something I wanted to try with my story.
Like Alice, the hero in Out Of The Way Things, Win, chooses to turn away from the ordinary world in order to explore something dark and unknown. Win tells us the story, so as readers, we don’t know anything more than Win does. We are free to draw our own conclusions or assemble the puzzle pieces into a bigger picture. However, we only have the pieces that Win has, our perspective is shaped by hers.
Recently, a friend mentioned the Lewis Carroll poem, Jabberwocky. My love of Alice is well known, so of course, I knew the poem. I said that it was a good example of how well we understand how language works, because the poem is comprehensible even though many of the words are invented for the poem. And she pointed out something I had never thought about before. The poem can be understood, invented words and all because it follows English syntax. That I knew. But it also illustrates how deeply our perspective affects our thoughts, and how invisible it can be. Because the poem reflects the sounds, spellings, and conventions that we use without thinking. Even the words that are made up follow patterns that are invisible to us. And I thought about how that manifests in a story.
Just as Alice does, Win discovers a world that is wonderful, frightening, confusing, frustrating. To me, the story is as much about how she responds and changes throughout her journey as it is about the world she sees, the people she meets, and the trials she endures. In that way, Win is anyone who has left behind a familiar, comfortable life to try something new.
*Alright, not everyone likes to be read to, I suppose. But most people do. I like when people read stories to me. It’s lovely. Maybe I don’t have anything more than anecdotal evidence, I have done literally no research on this topic. But audio books are a thing, they seem popular. Imagine a live audio book. We could call it a read aloud. It might be the next big thing. Just saying.