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

[gingerk.livejournal.com]

I am Sophia and Steph. I first read Little Women in an abridged version (the green and yellow Whitman's edition)in the second grade, and I've reread the full version dozens of times, along with just about every word Alcott wrote, except some of the shilling shockers that haven't been collected. The second half of the book is actually a sequel called Good Wives, and was written in response to the enormous popularity of Little Women.

Little Women is still my sentimental favorite, but these days I'm more likely to reread An Old-Fashioned Girl or Eight Cousins and Rose in Bloom. Almost all of her books are quite feminist for the era; they argue that women should be able to support themselves and have the same opportunities, and that men should learn household skills like cooking and sewing. The best example of this is Work, which was written as an adult novel. It's about a woman who's left with no income and struggles with sewing and other things to make a living. She because an actress, which means she's not accepted in society.

None of the romances in the books are entirely satisfactory, probably because Alcott never married and her father was hardly a model for fiction. His time was all spent talking about transcendentalism and spending their money on quixotic ventures. By her late teens, Louisa was scrounging about for jobs to support the family.