Apparently Few People Know or Care About the Pedophilic Man Behind that Great Book. Do You?

Superstardom’s brightness can be blinding — especially when it becomes legendary. While many fans of a scandalized big celebrity seem content to indefinitely remain in denial, many others will shrug and continue consuming the celebrity’s product. Nowadays, some fans will even make anonymous threats, often via social media, to scare off potential threats to the star’s reputation.

While many will be content to indefinitely remain in denial, many other big-celebrity fans will continue consuming their favorite stars' products, as superstardom’s brightness can be blinding  —  especially when the product becomes legendary.

Michael Jackson’s questionable history of having young boy sleepovers at his Neverland Ranch comes to mind as a significant example. There were the enormous organized vicious attacks via various media on anyone, including big TV producers, who dare suggest that the legendary pop-music artist was a pedophile at heart. He simply was  —  and still is  —  that great and greatly loved.

As a pre-broadcast-era artist example, many people to this day have great difficulty accepting, or perhaps even caring, that acclaimed author Lewis Carroll  —  writer of the Alice In Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass children’s novels  —  enjoyed having little girls pose nude for his camera. He was/is just that great and greatly admired.

A few years ago, I asked four peers whether they were aware of this rather unorthodox photography hobby enjoyed by Carroll, penname of Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. All four had no idea.

One, though, became agitatedly apologetic and diversionary in her defense of the author: “So what? Woody Allen had sex with his [adopted] daughter!” Another peer replied similarly.

Astounded, I felt sure they would not be so dismissive had they viewed just a few of the many shots of unnaturally seductive poses involving small child subjects. (The ones I saw left me disgusted.) Again, it seems few know or care about the real Lewis Carroll.

Acclaimed writer and commentator Will Self stated the conundrum thus: “It’s a problem, isn’t it, when somebody writes a great book but they’re not a great person.”

Still, some mothers of girls Lewis also wanted to photograph apparently did not mind:

“[Carroll] would ask mama if it was alright for him to photograph the little girl; and later on he would ask if he could photograph her in a costume; and eventually he would work his way up like a lover to, if he could photograph the child in the nude,” says retired Temple University English professor emeritus Donald Rackin, in a Great Books documentary (a copy of which I own and watched many times to accurately record comments and information).

“We know that of course he was refused sometimes, but it was astounding how many mothers said, ‘go ahead’.”

Another Lewis Carroll academic theorizes that with Through the Looking Glass the author had himself in mind as the White Knight who rescues Alice as the pawn about to become a queen, an act that may represent the author’s love for little Alice Liddell that could never be formally realized.

Regardless, as a prestigious figure, instead of being reprimanded or thrown into a Victorian-era prison, he continued taking his child photos. Carroll’s ability to get away with his perverted predilection for such photography may have been but indicative of the societal entitlement he enjoyed, even as an oddball loner.

Says the documentary’s soft-spoken narrator, actor Donald Sutherland (who narrates the entire Great Books series): “His girl photos were troubling to some, pure genius to others … sensual portraits.”

Yet some feel Carroll was unfairly misunderstood. According to Hollywood Reporter guest columnist Will Brooker, who also authored Alice’s Adventures: Lewis Carroll in Popular Culture:

“Lewis Carroll is treated [by his critics] like a man you wouldn’t want your kids to meet, yet his stories are still presented as classics of pure, innocent literature … Compared to some of our celebrities  — the sportsmen, film directors and singers who commit real crimes like assault and abuse and are still welcomed back by fans  —  Lewis Carroll was a regular saint.”

Possibly as the perspective of a man of the cloth, Carroll himself wrote down about his girl photo subjects, “Their innocent unconsciousness is very beautiful, and gives one a feeling of reverence, as at the presence of something sacred.” (Letters 381)