Little Women

[flea]

Tonight is book club, and we read Little Women, which I had never read before. At least, I read Little Women; I rather suspect, from the emails that I received, that precious few of us finished it. In any case, we are watching the movie (Hepburn version, 1933; not the 1949 version with a BLOND Liz Taylor as Amy!) tonight.

I can't decide if I would have loved this as a girl or not. I was a cynical 12 year old, but I did love Anne of Green Gables and things of that ilk. As an adult reader, I am distanced from the text by my understanding of history and knowledge of the Alcott family (my mother volunteered at the Concord Museum for a while; I've been to Orchard House and seen 'Amy's' drawings on the walls.) I can certainly see how many girls at the time, and still today, would love it. I wasn't spoiled for who Jo and Amy marry, though I did know Beth died (is there anyone in the world who doesn't know Beth dies? If so, I'm sorry; you do know now.)

It falls strangely into the two pieces (book one ends at Meg's engagement). The first book is more truly girls' literature - full of promise, and romantic - one is sure that Jo and Laurie will marry. The second book feels a little antifeminist - the trials of Meg as a new wife and mother make her seem very weak and silly; Amy is redeemed from being a brat and snags Laurie, who is both rich and virtuous, showing us the triumph of the ladylike; Jo seems to give up her dreams of being a novelist to look after little boys and a shaggy German academic. The first book is all about the girls and the family and Marmee and the boundless possibility of their adult futures; the second book sees their lives narrow to their relationships with (future) husbands.

Another odd thing is how completely absent the father is, even when he does come back from the war. Bronson Alcott was an oddball; one of the critical essays suggests she left him out because his philosophy would be unpalatable to the mainstream readers she hoped for. My mother has a rant about how completely irresponsible he was as a parent; I guess they nearly starved and froze to death one year when he decided to live off the land (without actually knowing how to.)

Did you read it, as a child or as an adult? Do you love it?

Comments

[gchick.livejournal.com]

And (just as interesting) I know all that to be true, and can see it in other Alcott work that I've read (which is admittedly random bits and pieces, since I'm not a big enough fan to really seek her out). But my reaction to LW is so tied up with (1) that feeling of being just gutted by book after book that -- in my utterly unobjective eyes -- more or less character-raped the only interesting people in the book, and (2) the very conflicty feeling I had as a wants-to-please-the-grownups nerd that I was really under some kind of pressure to think this stuff was the greatest thing ever, that I've never been able to read it later with a more rational perspective.

[sophiabrooks.livejournal.com]

I feel a little like this with other things-- but my family didn't really know children's books, I think. My mother bought just about everything and I read it all, however, she loved a) The Old Man and the Sea, b) The Snows of Kilamanjaro, c) Tropic of Cancer and Capricorn and d) all Ayn Rand-- all of which I felt some pressure to have my life changed in the same ways my mother did, when really I wanted to throw them all across the room, especially Ayn Rand!