Louisa May Alcott

[burlingtonbertram]

I remember reading Little Women when I was about eleven. My mother had bought me a whole series of so called classics to get me to read something other than Enid Blyton.
I remember really enjoying it and begging for the sequel so she bought me Good Wives.

SPOILERS.....

I started reading it hoping that Jo and Laurie would get together and when she turned down his proposal I cried in frustration. But remembering Anne and Gilbert from the Green Gables series (Mum had bought me some of those, too) I kept reading.
Beth's death devastated me! Why couldn't it have been Amy? I loathed and detested Amy's character from the moment she had burnt Jo's papers and wished she had drowned when she fell in that hole in the ice.
When I came to the page where it was revealed that Amy had married Laurie I, literally, threw the book across the room! After that I refused to finish it and was devastated.
It wasn't until the 1940s version came on TV about a year later and I sat down to watch it, not knowing it included Good Wives as well, that I was able to see how the book ended.
I actually enjoyed the character of the Professor and his relationship with Jo, and Elizabeth Taylor made it hard to hate Amy as much as the book had.
After that I went back and finished Good Wives. I didn't enjoy it as much as Little Women but it was bearable. I even bought Little Men and Jo's Boys. I loved the former and detested the latter. I found the repetition of the Jo/Laurie situation with two of the next generation characters very frustrating.

I wasn't too bothered about Beth; she was just another casualty of that hidden killer of the 18th & 19th C: soppiness! Here's a few examples of the top of my head:

- Little Nell (Old Curiosity Shop)
- Arthur (Tom Brown's Schooldays)
- Clarissa Harlowe (by Samuel Richardson)
- 2 of Frances Burney's eponymous heroines; the other just went mad for a bit
- the boy in Our Mutual Friend who was to be adopted (John?)

All died of being too soppy. Amelia Osborne in Vanity Fair was a near miss; she pulled through.

The bit I didn't like as a kid was Jo marrying Professor Bauer; wholly inappropriate and not what the readers wanted at all.

[Courtenay]

I wasn't too bothered about Beth; she was just another casualty of that hidden killer of the 18th & 19th C: soppiness!

You're right... I suspect (at least in the world of literature) it claimed more lives than consumption.

[snugglepot]

I'm glad I am not alone in my dislike of Amy and my desire for Jo to marry Laurie. I always used to feel I was the only one who felt so devastated when Laurie married the "nasty" Amy.
Interestingly, when I watched the modern movie version with Winona Rider, I hated both Laurie and the Professor. I especially hated that foreshadowing scene of Laurie with young Amy in the carriage.

[burlingtonbertram]

No, you are not on your own. Rather cynically though I would say that Laurie had a typical male reaction "Right, she's dumped me; I'm going to pull her sister". In real life, family parties would have been real flash-points after that marriage...

In that film version, the Professor didn't seem old enough somehow. Funny how you get these perceptions as a child.

[Daisy]

It's a long time since I read any of the books but I do recall feeling disappointed that Jo and Laurie didn't make it as a couple. I too disliked Amy very much. Beth's death was tragic, but sadly quite a common occurrence in those days - my father lost his mother and four of his seven sisters to the disease.
I have read all four in the series but remember almost nothing of the last two. Maybe one day I should return to them.

[Katharine]

Split from another topic.

I've just started reading Little Women. I did attempt it a while back, but couldn't really get into, however I decided to give it a go. Bit gloomy and very 'preachy' is my opinion so far.

[Daisy]

It's years since I read it - I must give it another go sometime. I seem to remember quite enjoying it though.

[Rob Houghton]

I quite enjoyed Little Women when I was younger. I had an old copy, which had been my mom's in the 1950's. I liked the evocation of life in the Civil war era, but agree it was maybe a little preachy in places. However, I did find it enthralling, as it was based quite heavily on Louisa May Alcott's childhood, and Jo is based on her, so I felt that added an extra layer of interest. I also read Good Wives, which was also my mom's, followed by another Alcott book, An Old Fashioned Girl, which was quite good, and finally Little Men.

[Katharine]

I'm not sure when my copy dates from, the 1960s or 70s I think, but I don't know if the text has been changed at all. It mentions an editor in the front, but possibly that is to do with the foreword, rather than the actual book.

I can't help wondering if Enid Blyton ever read it, as I keep making comparisons between Jo from Little Women and George from the Famous Five.

As I know practically nothing about the Civil War and life in America at that time, I'm hoping it won't be too difficult to follow.

[Rob Houghton]

I think its fairly easy to follow, and the civil war is not really a major part of the book, except that Father is away fighting. I think its a nice homely story and paints a cosy picture of life at the time. I agree Jo is very like george. I think she even cuts all her hair off, if I remember rightly!

[Katharine]

I'm about half way through Little Women now. Normally I don't care much for tomboy types, but I'm finding that Jo is the best of the bunch so far. I know Amy is the youngest, but I don't like her at all. Just read the chapter where she burns Jo's book - what a spiteful thing to do, just because her sisters didn't take her somewhere that she had no right to go to anyway. Not sure what happens in the next chapter, but I sincerely hope she's not allowed to go to see the play as a punishment.

While I know Jo was in the wrong for not letting Amy know about the weak ice, I hope Amy has it dinned into her, that if she hadn't been such a brat as to follow Jo and Laurie, she wouldn't have been on the ice in the first place. Somehow I suspect though that she's going to be one of those indulged characters that always gets away with things.

While I'm all for children pulling their weight around the house, I can't help thinking that maybe the mother should be around a bit more often, if she had been, she would have told Amy she wasn't to go out with the older girls, and therefore prevented the destruction of the book.

[Rob Houghton]

I was always under the impression that Beth was the youngest? Maybe I'm wrong. She always came across as the youngest to me.

Amy is one of those spoiled characters, although I think she does get her comeuppance - several times, and does try to become a better person eventually. Jo is the best and most realistic character, being based on the writer herself.

[Daisy]

Amy was the youngest, Meg the eldest.

[Katharine]

Was amazed to just read that Jo had forgotten to put the milk in the refrigerator. In 1868?? My family didn't get a fridge until the 1970s!

[Boatbuilder]

Home and domestic refrigerators were only invented in 1913, although forms of commercial refrigeration had been in existence since the mid-18th century.