Why is a raven like a writing desk?

mk2norwich

This is a 'riddle with no answer' from Lewis Carroll's 'Alice's Adventures In Wonderland'. This riddle is very famous, although it is the rarefied kind of fame that entails most people never having heard of it. It comes from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. Alice is at the tea party with the March Hare, the Mad Hatter, and the Dormouse, when apropos of pretty much nothing the Hatter pops the question above. Several pages of tomfoolery ensue, and then: 'Have you guessed the riddle yet?' the Hatter said, turning to Alice again. 'No, I give it up,' Alice replied. 'What's the answer?' 'I haven't the slightest idea,' said the Hatter. 'Nor I,' said the March Hare. Alice sighed wearily. 'I think you might do something better with the time,' she said, 'than wasting it in asking riddles that have no answers.' Jun 02 03, 5:24 PM

KingTT

Poe wrote on both of them. Jun 02 03, 10:02 PM

gmackematix

Some suggestions... One is good for writing books, the other for biting rooks. They both have inky quills. They can both slope with a flap. I'll stop there before we all quoth 'Nevermore' Jun 05 03, 1:11 PM

magisch

Finally someone with the same question as I have! My friends and I have come to the conclusion that Lewis Carroll must be alluding to a complex answer. In other words, the answer is more than "What did one firecracker say to another? My pop's bigger than your pop!"; it's an answer that one has to think about to comprehend. We believe it may have something to do with feathers. At the time Carroll wrote "Alice in Wonderland", a quill, or a feather-pen typically made from the feather of a goose or...*gasp* a raven, was not an uncommon sight on a writing desk. Ravens, being birds, also have feathers and, as stated previously, frequently "donated" thier feathers to people's writing desks. P.S. to mk2norwich: "If you knew Time as well as I do, you wouldn't talk about wasting it. It's HIM" Nov 06 05, 9:43 PM