Little Women
Mar. 6th, 2007 12:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fleaTonight 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?
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?
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Date: 2007-03-06 08:43 pm (UTC)I read it first as a child, and read it now every year or so. Sometimes I read only my favorite chapters. By now, though, I know a lot of it by heart.
I've read other Alcott, but this is my favorite. I know it's sentimental, but there's a lot of stuff in there that's valuable, I think, in what Marmee taught the girls, and it never struck me as overly preachy. As a kid, I was an incurable romantic, so it was fine with me that Jo married -- I liked the fact that Prof. Bhaer knew she was a writer, and that he was poor, and older, and that she loved him anyway. She was really marrying for love, and it always struck me that Plumfield was a real blessing -- a school full of boys getting into trouble!