'Little Women' by Louisa May Alcott

Following the lives of four sisters on a journey out of adolescence, Louisa May Alcott's Little Women explores the difficulties associated with gender roles in post-Civil War America.


Genre: Young adult, classics, family stories.

This review is of the first installment of Little Women. It ended up being placed in a volume with its sequel, which was initially called 'Good Wives', but I'll review that one separately as I have separate older volumes. And I think you will agree that this review is long enough.


MY THOUGHTS:
This is a beautiful and timeless memorial to the lifestyle the author lived with her sisters more than a century ago while many men were serving in the Civil War. I think it's a great book to get us out of a bad mood. The March sisters all had their grumpy moments, but they used the attitude tools their parents showed them to move forward.

Marmee comes across as the wise and loving mentor everyone considered her to be. “The girls thought that the gray cloak and unfashionable bonnet covered the most splendid mother in the world.” What an incredible introduction and tribute. I noticed something interesting this time when she talked to Jo about overcoming her bad mood. I always remembered it wrong, thinking that Mrs. March had achieved a total personality transformation. But what she actually said was, 'I've been trying to cure it for 40 years and I've only managed to control it. I'm angry almost every day of my life, Jo, but I've learned not to show it. Wow, this is different than I thought. Maybe we are being unrealistic whenever we try to transform ourselves into someone else. Maybe our weaknesses are just part of our fabric and we need to focus on managing them rather than eliminating them completely.

'Little Women' makes me think about the nature versus nurture debate. At first glance, it seems like nature has its way, as the four sisters are so different from each other. However, it cannot be denied that birth order can have a bit of an influence on your family. Beth and Amy were treated with a little more leniency and leniency than Meg and Jo. These two were often called 'the children' even though there were only four years between them all. Would Amy still have tried to impress people with her ridiculous and confusing words if she had been born first? Or would Meg have felt the need to lecture others so much if she had been the youngest? Interesting to reflect on.

I'll be happy to move on to the next book when Amy's vocabulary mistakes are over. It got to the point where she was dating one every time she opened her little mouth, and then, like a Pavlovian dog reaction, Jo would always make some sarcastic, superior correction. I felt like saying, 'Come on, guys, can't you two stop?' When weirdness turns into predictability, it's not so cute anymore. However, I remember that on my first reading of Little Women when I was very young, the comedy was completely lost on me, as I also didn't know the meaning of the actual words or Amy's wild hunches.

It's helpful to be familiar with some of the older books that the girls refer to along the way, as they have impacted their lives in such a good way. For example, Pilgrim's Progress and Pickwick Papers become the basis for all types of games and leisure. It's good to see how the girls used other people's writing to shape their own characters. They didn't even realize they were doing it, as it was all in the name of fun. So Bunyan and Dickens did for them exactly what Louisa May Alcott herself does for us. I love that pay-it-forward aspect of a good story.

This time, I felt my heart lean more towards Meg than ever before. I remembered her as the know-it-all older sister who seemed to have it all together, but she leaves behind some of the most touching quotes that could come from someone straight from the 21st century. 'I'm going to have to try hard all my days, with just a little fun every now and then, and get old and ugly and sour because I can't enjoy my life like other girls.' She also says: 'We dig in, day after day, without a little change and very little fun. We might as well be on a treadmill. My own teenage daughter has said similar things, in different words, and I totally understand them.

For a girl who appreciates luxury and leisure like Meg, her choice of fiancé seems a bit counterintuitive. She knows that agreeing to marry a modest, hard-working man like John Brooke will keep her doing the same things she's always done. If she really wanted the riches and beautiful things she so admired, she might have done better to choose the elegant Ned Moffat after all. But common sense and true love win, and we have to love her and her choice.

This brings me to Jo's situation, which is my biggest complaint. The first part of the story ends with Meg's engagement and March's return. If I were a new reader, I would be anticipating Jo and Laurie's romance in the sequel. I would be assuming that Alcott was clearly headed in that direction. This pair had common interests crying out to be noticed. Both were fun-loving with a penchant for generous gestures, a tendency to be impulsive, and a love of simple pranks and sass. They shared a mutual disregard for some of society's more delicate maxims and always managed to calm down when necessary. Jo was convinced that she would never be swept away by anyone, but she longed for 'Teddy' whenever she felt alone. If I didn't know what was coming, I would be expecting her to fall in love with the boy next door. I know many people have felt deceived over the years into thinking that Alcott played a mean trick on us all. There's a place for platonic friendships, but these two could have been great.

The first installment ends like this. 'Thus grouped together, the curtain falls on Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy. Whether it will rise again depends on the reception given to the first act of the domestic drama called Little Women. Wow, what a direct shot into the text itself! It definitely worked for Louisa May Alcott, but it would be interesting to see the writers try a line like that now.

Even though the writing style may be a little dated by modern standards, I still want to give it full marks for what it is, because Alcott wrote a fantastic book for a Civil War girl when there probably weren't that many others around. I'll continue with 'Good Wives,' which takes place three years later.

5 stars

Update: I have now reviewed the second part of the story, Good Wives.
And here is my review of March, the Pulitzer-winning novel written by Geraldine Brooks about her father and how he fared in the war.