"Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents", grumbled Jo..."

I was under the impression that I had missed Little Women in my youth and that it was one of those gaps in my education that keep nagging me. Then I started reading it, and realised that I know all characters, and the story, and the feeling of the novel as a whole. So either I have developed a psychic connection to my "to-read"-shelf, or I have actually NOT missed out on Little Women in my adolescence, just forgotten the process of reading it. I wonder which one of my two types of amnesia I prefer: the one where I know I have read the book but forgotten the content, or this recently discovered other one, where I think I haven't read the book but remember the content?

Either way, I find the beginning quite fitting. The March girls are discussing the sacrifice of their Christmas tradition to honour the bigger historical event of their times: the men fighting in the Civil War. There has been a Christmas discussion in my family for quite a while too, and it has also revolved around the craziness of mass consumption in times of difficulty. In our case, the back drop is not the American Civil War, but rather the more global threat of Climate Change looming like a frustrating Apocalypse that you can't avoid by being a confessed Atheist (quite the contrary, actually, it seems that those who still take the biblical revelations for granted truth can avoid feeling bad about the Climate Apocalypse!).

And like the March sisters find their niches in a family of many wishes and needs and hopes and fears, we settle for different positions within our microcosm, enjoying a good conflict as much as any family, while worrying about each other and supporting each other in our respective dreams (and support meaning what it always does in families: partly helping, partly standing in the way of other members' interests).

So to all of you out there, trying to square the circle of personal and collective responsibilities in Christmas time: have a merry time, or if not, read a book - maybe a classic you thought you had missed?

حرف زیادی ندارم برای گفتن ولی پنج ستاره برای حس و حال خوبی که بهم داد.این روز ها زندگی خیلی سخت برام میگذره و مشکلات زیادی دارم اما وقتی این کتابو دستم میگرفتم،همه چیز رو فراموش میکردم و حالم خوب میشد.

I hate this book. I hate hate hate hate hate this book. This book is INSIPID. This book makes me feel like I need a trip to the dentist after merely looking at the cover.

I hate this book.

I hate Jo, and her supposed tomboyishness, and the fact that she is the most flat, and dull, and stupid character I've ever come across. I hate Amy, because she's a vapid idiot who contributes nothing to the story. I hate Meg, even though I don't remember anything about her. I HATE Beth more than them all combined because she is so holy-holy, and meek, and perfect, and then she goes and dies (except in the versions where she doesn't) and everyone loves her even MORE afterwards.

Excuse me while I retch.

Why must this book be so vomitous? It even starts off in this fashion - let us give our dinner to the poor, because we are so wonderful! Fuck off. Just... fuck off. If there was ever such a saintly family, I hope I never meet them. My boyfriend's diabetic and we must watch his blood sugar levels...

Updated 8/26/2016 - Update at end

So, this is going to be my most confusing review to date and I am going to need some help from people who read this, so please reply if you know! (see below)

I read this for my Completest Book Club. I am glad I did because it is a classic I hear about all the time. If you take the Never-ending Book Quiz on Goodreads, it seems like every other question is about Little Women. While for me this book was just okay, I can see why it is a classic and enjoyed by many.

My confusion is this. I am only about 50% of the way through my audio copy of Little Women. As I was posting my status update last night I was noticing some comments that led me to believe I am now in what is considered the second book "Good Wives". My audiobook does not say anything, other than that I am in Part 2. In doing some research, I found that frequently audiobooks combine the first two books. My goal was only to read Little Women, so if I am truly in book 2, I am ready to stop.

See spoiler for details about where I am: Meg just got married, and it is my understanding that is how Good Wives starts

Update: So, I did finish part two (Good Wives). It definitely had a different feel. Almost like Little Women was meant to be read by 8 to 12 year olds and Good Wives was meant to be read by 12 to 19 year olds. While my star rating did not change, I did like getting a chance to "finish" the story of the little women. It felt like there was less filler, and that was either because there was, or because I was getting used to the writing and the story.

I probably would have rated this higher if it was the type of book I would normally be into. But, I am glad that I now have this classic under my belt!

There will be spoilers.

Now, if she had been the heroine of a moral story-book, she ought at this period of her life to have become quite saintly, renounced the world, and gone about doing good in a mortified bonnet, with tracts in her pocket. But, you see, Jo wasn't a heroine; she was only a struggling human girl, like hundreds of others, and she just acted out her nature, being sad, cross, listless, or energetic, as the mood suggested.

I first read this book as a tween, and had a real love-hate reaction to it, love of the first half, and I pretty much hated the last half. Beth's death made me cry, and I loathed sad books passionately, but most of all I loathed Professor Bhaer, for two reasons. The minor one was that he was ugly and forty, which was utterly disgusting to me, as my grandparents then were in their forties. Euw! But the real reason I felt utterly betrayed by Alcott was because my own limited experience laid a palimpsest over the story, distorting Alcott's meaning. Well, but even if I hadn't been twitted by the well-meaning adults in my life to stop writing silly fairy tales and concentrate on Real Life if I must scribble stories, I could not have taken her meaning, as my lack of life experience was exactly what she was talking about in those scenes.

I read the book again at another period of my life when I probably shouldn't have, as the sorrowful parts overshadowed the rest.

Then I recently reread it, and hey, it was a completely different book from the one I'd read as a kid. Funny, that, how much a text changes over the decades. To me, that is the sign of a great book.

The first thing I noticed was the humorous skill of the narrator, who sometimes, in true nineteenth century fashion, comes right out and talks to the reader, then vanishes again, and lets the characters talk and think for themselves.

I saw this time how skillfully Alcott set up Amy's and Laurie's romance. How splendidly Alcott painted Laurie's and Jo's friendship, and her courage in maintaining that hey, a man and a woman really can be good buddies. Yeah, Laurie goes through some heart-pangs, but he gets over it, and finally gets some emotional growth while being thwarted for the first time in a life of getting pretty much what he wanted all the time. There were occasional falters that showed the author's hand. Like I found it hard to believe that Laurie, as a teenage boy, would moralize quite so much over Meg prinking at her first party. I could totally see him being uncomfortable, but that's a small thing.

As a kid I'd been bored stiff by Amy's and Laurie's courtship, but this time, I loved the images of Europe, and appreciated how skillfully Alcott had brought the two through the years to their shared delights. I found their courtship one of the strengths of the book.

And then there was Professor Bhaer. The scene where he rejoices in Jo's giving up her writing after her humiliation over his opinion of trashy stories that I took as such a betrayal as a teen read utterly differently to me now. What he resented was Jo pandering to the modern taste for sex, violence, and melodrama, especially when she knew so little about sex and violence. Jo was perpetrating cliches, empty calories, because it was easy money, and he thought she could do better.

I had to laugh when I recollected that not so long ago I critiqued a teenage-written manuscript, suggesting that that writing about forty-year-old married people might wait until more was known about what marriage actually meant. What I had taken as a tween (because sex went right over my head) was that Professor Bhaer was anti-fantasy. Wrongo, but I didn't have the life experience to see where he was going about lack of life experience.

As for his being forty, that seems to have been a nineteenth century tic. Hello Mr. Knightley! And not just in fiction--just a couple days ago I was reading Horatio Nelson's dispatches. In winter of 1800 he is smirking about Sir John Acton, well into his sixties, marrying his thirteen year old niece. Smirking, not exclaiming in horror and disgust, the way we would now.

In short, Jo and the Professor's romance took on all the charm that had completely passed me by.

Meanwhile there were all the old scenes I'd remembered so well, still funny, and poignant, and beautiful. Alcott does get preachy, but she's aware of it; at one point, after encouraging young people not to make fun of spinsters, she gets on with the story after wondering if her audience has fallen asleep during her little homily.

These homilies all point toward love as well as acceptance, faith as well as resignation. Caring for one's fellow-being, whether it be a poor person, as the dying Beth made little gifts for poverty-stricken children and dropped them out of the window just to see smiling faces. There is so much beauty in this book, and so much appreciation of beauty, as well as illustration of many shades of love.

It was also interesting to get visual overlays, for last autumn I'd visited Orchard House, where May (Amy) had drawn all over the walls in her room and a couple of other rooms, carefully preserved, where Jo's room was full of books, overlooking the garden; between two tall windows was the writing desk her father had made for her. Beth's piano. You could feel wisps of the love the family had for one another, which Alcott had put into the book, along with her personal struggles to be a better person; she gave her alter ego, Jo, a happier ending than she actually managed to get. (And though she didn't know it at the time, a happier ending for her artist sister May, as well.)

I won't wait so long for my next reread.

DNF
This is a truly great book, but sadly I just cannot concentrate on it, maybe later I try to pick it up…

Apparently I'm an awful person. I just completely hated this! which came as quite a surprise. I was expecting Jane Austen-ness, whom I love, but while the language was similar, the sentimentality was cloying, the moralizing unrelenting, the plot lurching (serialized, I'm guessing), the characters caricatures, the themes of goodness, love and moral responsibility revolting. THIS is what our foremothers at one time believed was the ideal for womanhood? (No wonder they eventually revolted, but) THIS is what American women aspired to? Flaccid, be-ribboned, personhood-less dolls? Shock and outrage!
I concede that I must read about Alcott and the historical context of this book that everyone else loves, but I doubt that could reverse my interpretation.
One positive: is Jo March the first transgendered woman in American literature? The constant harping on Jo's boyishness and frustration with her female lot was authentic and just a little too... distinct. Methinks Jo March, circa 2000s, would be taking hormones, adding an E, and being a lot happier.

Although Louisa May Alcott's Little Women is probably one of my all time favourite books (and which I have read at least fifteen times since 1979), I actually have never managed to pen a review, simply because I really do not think I can (in my opinion) post a review that would do sufficient honour to either book or author. And with that in mind, this here review will in fact not be a standard review of Little Women either, but rather some personal and academic musings about both Little Women and questions such as censorship as well as influences of Little Women on Lucy Maud Montgomery’s The Story Girl and it’s sequel The Golden Road (and thus my review might also end up being a bit rambling, but I do hope that I will keep potential readers engaged all the same).

LITTLE WOMEN AND CENSORSHIP

Now it is really quite amazing to and for me that a children's novel written in 1868 can still (in this day and age) be so fresh, enchanting (often even socially relevant) and truly, for 1868, Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women is not only quite progressive and strivingly feminist, it is actually much more so than many books (especially books meant specifically for girls) written in the late 19th and even early to middle 20th century. And with that in mind, it just astounds me to no end (and massively infuriates me) that there there have actually been moves and petitions to have the novel banned and censored (since according to certain "activists" Louisa May Alcott's Little Women is supposedly not feminist enough and thus, due to its lasting popularity, inherently "dangerous" to girls/women, and thus supposedly warranting official censorship). Yes, Little Women is not a novel I would ever label as feminist in the late 20th, early 21st century way and manner of thinking, but for 1868, it was and remains exceedingly progressive indeed, a novel that not only promotes gender equality to a point, but also, and this is one of its prime advantages, Little Women pleads for and strives for true freedom of choice, especially for women (Meg is happy being a homemaker and wife, but that is her own choice, it is not in any way forced on her, while Jo goes alone to New York City, and supports the family with her work, and even Beth is not forced to attend school when it is reaslised that she is much much too shy and too afraid of strangers for this).

LITTLE WOMEN AND ITS INFLUENCE ON TWO NOVELS BY L. M. MONTGOMERY

So while I was recently rereading Little Women, I was also at the same time rereading two of my favourite works by L.M. Montgomery (of Anne of Green Gables fame), The Story Girl and its sequel, The Golden Road. And having now completed these two novels, it becomes rather obvious at least to me how much both of these stories have in common with Little Women. Especially the character of Cecily King is very much akin to Beth March, both personality wise and her eventual fate (that she is also doomed to die young like Beth does). Now, I am NOT IN ANY MANNER saying or even insinuating that Montgomery actively plagiarised from Louisa May Alcott, and Cecily is also not just a replica of Beth March either (although the latter might well have served as a bit of a model for the former), but yes, the similarities are, for me at least, striking enough to believe that Montgomery was in all likelihood more than a bit influenced by Little Women when she wrote The Story Girl and The Golden Road (which also becomes rather apparent when one realises that both the March family and the King family create their own magazines, and that both of these magazines are similar in both style and content to a point, with the March girls' magazine being perhaps a bit more literate, which makes sense though, as the March sisters are from a literary and academic family, while the King family are basically simply and mostly PEI farmers).

SHOULD JO HAVE MARRIED LAURIE INSTEAD OF PROFESSOR BHAER?

I know that there are some, perhaps even more than some individuals who are not quite at ease with the fact that in Little Women Jo does not end up marrying Laurie, but Professor Bhaer. Now for me, I have always thought that while Jo and Laurie would make and do make great friends, they would have made horrible and even intensely problematic lovers, and the concept that Laurie and Jo are too similar in and with certain perhaps less than admirable parts of their personalities has always made sense to me. For if Laurie and Jo had married, I do believe that their personalities would have clashed, and not because they are so different, but because they are so similar with regard to willfulness, stubbornness, desire and emotionality. And the professor, he complements Jo and she complements him. Professor Bhaer calms her personality, even giving Jo’s writing a calming edge, while she, in turn, makes his own calm personality a bit more outgoing. And also, one has to think of the fact that from an academic standpoint, Jo and the Professor are actually much more complementary and complimentary than Laurie and Jo would and could ever have been. For Jo thrives on writing, literature, education, something that Professor Bhaer also exibits, but something that Laurie only shows marginally (mainly artistically and musically, and in this, he is actually much closer to Amy, and not Jo). And yes, in particular from an artistic and societal point of view, Laurie and Amy suit one another and much more than Jo and Laurie would have or could have meshed. Yes, Louisa May Alcott might indeed have originally envisioned in Little Women for Jo to not have been married at all (and there are actually some critics who consider her love for her sister Beth, her devotion to her, lesbian, and while I most certainly do not, it is indeed a common thread in some secondary analyses). And then, when the publishers clamoured for Jo to also marry, it makes sense, at least to me, that Alcott had Jo not end up marrying Laurie, but Professor Bhaer, an older, more mature man perhaps, but also someone whose intellect, whose philosophy, whose education and ideas regarding education, corresponded to and with Jo. For yes, I actually do think with Laurie, that Jo would not only have had too many battles and arguments, I think she also would probably have found the life of relative leisure that Laurie and Amy end up enjoying, rather tedious, even monotonous in the long run, when compared to and with the life that Jo and the Professor end up creating/having with their school at Plumfied, as demonstrated and described in the two sequels for Little Women, in Little Men and Jo's Boys.

Now I do hope that my musings and ideas regarding Little Women have proven to be entertaining, but also, that they have provided food for thought and perhaps a desire for a reread and for those of you who have not yet read this lovely and enchanting novel, a first read (it is a rewarding and emotional reading experience, but then again, I admit to being majorly biased).

Finally (and indeed, really and truly), there are indeed many many editions of Little Women. And my favourite at present is the Norton Critical Edition, as it also includes background, literary analyses (as well as a short bibliographic of Louisa May Alcott) and an extensive bibliography. Now if you are just desiring to read Little Women for its own sake, any edition (as long as it is unabridged and contains both the first and second part) will likely suffice. However, if you are interested in also perusing information about the novel, its historical background, reviews and critical literary analyses, give the Norton Critical Edition a try; you will not be disappointed (at least that is my hope).

ADDING FOR DECEMBER 29th, 2022

Honestly, while I guess I am glad that literary critics are still reading and analysing Little Women in the 21st century, I am also both massively annoyed and hugely frustrated that on December 24th, 2022, in the New York Times, journalist and author Peyton Thomas was trying to argue that Louisa May Alcott should somehow be considered as not a woman but rather a transgender man (and the same of course also for the character of Josephine March in Little Women). But really and in my opinion, ANYONE trying to portray either Louisa May Alcott or her Jo March is transgender is both anachronistically ignorant and also totally and utterly trashes both Louisa May Alcott as a person and what she achieved textually with Little Women, how avant garde and how feminist Little Women was for the 1860s/1870s. And no, Josephine March being described as a rather a tomboy in Little Women and the fact that Louisa May Alcott never married, this for me totally and utterly does NOT IN ANY WAY make either transgender (and that some literary critics are doing this, to truly makes me want to laugh derisively and also rather to scream and do a mayor eye roll).

First Re-Read of 2019

Well, my hardcover edition of this American "classic" written 151 years ago was first read by me when I was 13 years old( such a great age as I read so many great books that year). One of the Goodreads groups I belong to decided to read this as our February 2019 selection and I managed to smuggle this one admidst all my February/March ARCS.

* SPOILERS AHEAD*

As an adult reader, I find myself thinking back to what I thought that very first initial read. First, I was Jo March + Theodore " Laurie" Laurence= Relationship goals. I couldn't believe that she ended up with a 40 year old man with a beard!! But it's 2019, I am a Canadian girl that gets weak in the knees at the mere sight ofa man with a beard and a nice plaid shirt. I totally see all the reasons that it wouldn't have worked between Jo and Laurie. Second, I hated Amy March with a passion when I was a kid( Kristen Dunst did make me feel a bit of empathy for the character in the 1994 film), but now as an adult I actually enjoyed the character. It's eldest sister, Meg, that I find a bit insufferable now. Especially after she and John Brooke get married, just one eyeroll after the other.

The only characters that I still feel a great love for are Marmee and fragile Beth. Although with a little bit of reluctance, I do have to concur with my fellow readers that they were perhaps a tad too perfect. Who knew there could ever be such a thing?

Still a 5 star read after all these years though!

n  n    “I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship.”n  n

So far, I only knew these Little Women from the film adaptations that were inspired by Louisa May Alcott's novel – the 1933 version with Katharine Hepburn and Joan Bennett, the 1994 version with Susan Sarandon, Claire Danes and Winona Ryder, and of course the irresistibly compelling 2019 adaptation by Greta Gerwig with Saoirse Ronan, Emma Watson, Eliza Scanlen and Florence Pugh in the leading roles. Hence, I was already well aware of the nature of the story and the characters, but finally I decided that it was about time that I got to know the novel that spawned these memorable adaptations. And well, let's just say this was far from disappointing.

n  n   

“Don't try to make me grow up before my time…”

n  n
In Little Women, author Louisa May Alcott immediately guides her readers into a delightful pool of exquisiteness. With a story that is accessible and meaningful to all ages, Alcott teachers generations upon generations of young readers the lessons that Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy themselves learnt during the course of the novel.

The (melo)dramatic, often sentimental familial dynamics are brightly interwoven with American history to construct an endearing, captivating portrait of the bildungsroman that teaches moral lessons and values by having its core characters grow from adolescence to adulthood and make their own decisions, sometimes precipitately, sometimes unwisely, almost always with new moralistic insight to be gained. Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy, as well as all the endearing secondary characters (of course, none of them more endearing than Laurie) become your close friends during the reading experience, rendering Little Women an all the more winning endeavor that effortlessly passes the test of time.

And finally, the novel is so beautifully written that if I hadn't listened to the audiobook, but acquired a used copy instead that went through dozens of hands before (which, to me, screams to be the most compelling way to read this novel), I am sure I would have highlighted a sentence on every page. There are many other authors whose works are just as quotable, of course, but in my sentimental rush right after finishing this novel, I want to say that no other author managed to inject one novel with so many quote-worthy phrases.

n  n    "Because they are mean is no reason why I should be. I hate such things, and though I think I've a right to be hurt, I don't intend to show it."n  n

If I had to criticize anything about the book, it would be that it seems a little bit too intent on spreading happiness and optimism. Granted, blows of fate and (minor) conflicts occur frequently, but they are mostly solved rather quickly, highlighting the sentimental approach Louisa May Alcott went for. That approach seems to obstruct depth, for most of the moral conclusions taught in Little Women are spelled out explicitly rather than allowing the reader to make their own deductions. However, Alcott apparently wrote the novel directed towards a target audience of young girls, obviously not yet knowing the timeless success that her writing would achieve, so I hesitate to criticize the author for not opting for a more subtle approach at times. Because ultimately, as a sentimental, nostalgic, heartwarming appeal for love and friendship, Little Women is effective on all levels, and sometimes that is all that counts.

n  n    “Be worthy love, and love will come.”n  n

خوبی کلاسیک‌ها اینه خوندنشون مثل دنبال کردن رد تاریخ می‌مونه. از داستان‌های خودشون صحبت نمی‌کنم که اون‌‌جا هم تکه‌های تاریخ دیده می‌شه، از اینکه معروفیت و محبوبیت این کتاب‌ها در مورد خواننده‌هاش، طرز تفکر زمانه و اون کشور چی میگه حرف می‌زنم

زنان کوچک هر چه که نداره، نشان دهنده‌ی اینه که جامعه پذیرای یک داستان با محوریت زنانی بوده که همشون دست به انتخاب‌های یکسانی نمی‌زنند و به طور واضحی متفاوت زندگی می‌کنند. ۱۵۴ سال پیش که این کتاب نوشته، دیده و پذیرفته شده، ایران کجا بوده؟ ما چی می‌نوشتیم و می‌خوندیم؟ مسیر ما و اون‌ها از همین‌جا در حال شکل‌گیری بوده

بی‌دلیل نیست که حالا یک قرن و نیم بعد فهمیدیم که چه شعاری باید سر بدیم تا به جلو حرکت کنیم، کلماتی که در تک‌تک صفحات این‌ کتاب ساده دیده میشه
«زن، زندگی، آزادی»


پی‌نوشت‌
یک. این کتاب در دو بخش چاپ شده که کتاب کامل در واقع در برگیرنده‌ی هر دوی این بخش‌هاست. کتابی که نشر جنگل چاپ کرده در واقع نصفه هست

دو. کتاب صوتی دراماتایز شده و توسط مجموعه خوانده شده که بسیار جذابه

کانال تلگرام ریویوها و دانلود کتاب‌ها و صوتیشون
Maede's Books
۱۴۰۱/۸/۲

I was considering writing a lengthy review for this novel, but I just can’t find the words to express how much I enjoyed this.

❤️