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Book Review: Little Men
Apr. 21st, 2022 08:16 amLouisa May Alcott wrote Little Men because the real-life Meg needed money after her husband died (an event that also occurs in Little Men, although unlike the real husband, John Brooke leaves enough to keep Meg!), and this absolutely shows in the writing: you really feel that Alcott gave maybe two-thirds of a fuck about the book, at most.
Of course, two-thirds of a fuck from Louisa May Alcott is worth more than a whole garden of fucks from most of the rest of us. As always, Alcott is drawn to the “bad” children, the ones who don’t fit the mold. There’s sharp-tongued tomboy Nan, a romping child who discovers a passion for medicine and decides to become a doctor; talented musician Nat, so gentle and sensitive that Professor Bhaer calls him “daughter,” a sweet boy who sometimes lies because he’s afraid of the consequences of the truth. (In nineteenth-century novels, lying tends to be considered a feminine vice.)
And of course there’s Dan, Nat’s friend from his time on the streets, a rough, short-tempered boy who smokes and drinks and swears and just in general bears the rules of a school poorly, because he’s not used to any restraint at all. But he has a soft spot for animals and a great loyalty to his friends: when Nat is suspected of a grievous lie, Dan takes the blame onto himself. When Nat realizes what a sacrifice Dan has made for him, he feels “a strong desire to hug his friend and cry. Two girlish performances, which would have scandalized Dan to the last degree.”
However, there are also parts where Alcott clearly decided to plump up the word count with the nineteenth-century equivalent of Tumblr imagines. As “there is no particular plan for this story, except to describe a few scenes in the life at Plumfield,” Alcott spends a chapter describing a bunch of games that the Plumfield students play. Later on she devotes a whole chapter to the harvest of every single one of the twelve little student garden plots which are, of course, metaphors for the garden of Character that each child is cultivating.
Alcott herself clearly got tired of cultivating the gardens of Character: about half the twelve students get at least a stab at characterization, while the other half get one single defining trait. Jack is obsessed with money, Stuffy is fat, Dick is hunchbacked, Dolly is boring. No, really, that’s his characterization: he’s “a good little lad, quite uninteresting and ordinary.” Honestly I respect the sheer chutzpah.
But speaking of chutzpah! Let’s hear it for the fact that Jo named her second son Teddy after Theodore Laurence, her best friend who repeatedly proposed to her! Fascinated to know what Amy thinks of this development, but Amy (indeed the whole March family) is Sir Not Appearing in This Book, so we never know.
Professor Bhaer, on the other hand, is in this book quite a lot (bearing an ever more eerie resemblance to Mr. March), and he is apparently fine with it when Laurie shows up at Plumfield and flirts up a storm with Jo. In turn, Jo “stroked the curly black head at her knee as affectionately as ever, for, in spite of every thing Teddy was her boy still.”
I cannot tell if Alcott was tossing Jo/Laurie shippers a bonbon or amusing herself by twisting the knife one last time. It may have been both at the same time. I have the strong impression that she got a kick out of trolling her readers.
Of course, two-thirds of a fuck from Louisa May Alcott is worth more than a whole garden of fucks from most of the rest of us. As always, Alcott is drawn to the “bad” children, the ones who don’t fit the mold. There’s sharp-tongued tomboy Nan, a romping child who discovers a passion for medicine and decides to become a doctor; talented musician Nat, so gentle and sensitive that Professor Bhaer calls him “daughter,” a sweet boy who sometimes lies because he’s afraid of the consequences of the truth. (In nineteenth-century novels, lying tends to be considered a feminine vice.)
And of course there’s Dan, Nat’s friend from his time on the streets, a rough, short-tempered boy who smokes and drinks and swears and just in general bears the rules of a school poorly, because he’s not used to any restraint at all. But he has a soft spot for animals and a great loyalty to his friends: when Nat is suspected of a grievous lie, Dan takes the blame onto himself. When Nat realizes what a sacrifice Dan has made for him, he feels “a strong desire to hug his friend and cry. Two girlish performances, which would have scandalized Dan to the last degree.”
However, there are also parts where Alcott clearly decided to plump up the word count with the nineteenth-century equivalent of Tumblr imagines. As “there is no particular plan for this story, except to describe a few scenes in the life at Plumfield,” Alcott spends a chapter describing a bunch of games that the Plumfield students play. Later on she devotes a whole chapter to the harvest of every single one of the twelve little student garden plots which are, of course, metaphors for the garden of Character that each child is cultivating.
Alcott herself clearly got tired of cultivating the gardens of Character: about half the twelve students get at least a stab at characterization, while the other half get one single defining trait. Jack is obsessed with money, Stuffy is fat, Dick is hunchbacked, Dolly is boring. No, really, that’s his characterization: he’s “a good little lad, quite uninteresting and ordinary.” Honestly I respect the sheer chutzpah.
But speaking of chutzpah! Let’s hear it for the fact that Jo named her second son Teddy after Theodore Laurence, her best friend who repeatedly proposed to her! Fascinated to know what Amy thinks of this development, but Amy (indeed the whole March family) is Sir Not Appearing in This Book, so we never know.
Professor Bhaer, on the other hand, is in this book quite a lot (bearing an ever more eerie resemblance to Mr. March), and he is apparently fine with it when Laurie shows up at Plumfield and flirts up a storm with Jo. In turn, Jo “stroked the curly black head at her knee as affectionately as ever, for, in spite of every thing Teddy was her boy still.”
I cannot tell if Alcott was tossing Jo/Laurie shippers a bonbon or amusing herself by twisting the knife one last time. It may have been both at the same time. I have the strong impression that she got a kick out of trolling her readers.
