Little Women Sunday

[osprey_archer]

littlerhymes and I have been rereading Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, and I thought that other people might enjoy chatting about the book too so I'm going to do a weekly post just about wherever we've gotten up to in the book, comparisons to the movies etc., just whatever comes to mind.

Today seemed like a good time to start because we just got through the MOST DRAMATIC chapter in the book, by which of course I mean the chapter where Amy BURNS JO'S BOOK and Jo in retaliation doesn't tell Amy about the weak ice in the river, and Amy falls through it and ALMOST DIES.

Critics give nineteenth century novels a lot of guff for their focus on teaching their heroines to control their tempers, but honestly I think it's much more noteworthy just how much temper these heroines get to display in the first place. How many novelists today would have the guts to have a girl burn her older sister's prized possession in a fit of temper? Or to have said older sister retaliate in a way that might have got her little sister killed? (Or an Anne of Green Gables style "breaking a slate over that obnoxious boy's head," for that matter.)

I think a lot of modern day people are theoretically in favor of "women's anger," but not actually in favor of the real fruits of losing one's temper, or prepared to think particularly deeply about the fact that women (just like men) sometimes get angry for reasons that are neither just nor righteous. (Ask anyone working retail.)

Anyway! I just recently watched the 1934 Katherine Hepburn adaptation, which cuts this scene entirely. (I still haven't seen the 1949 adaptation, but it's on the docket.) In Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy, Amy Boyd Rioux complains that the Hepburn adaptation shortchanges Jo's writing career, which I don't agree with - we actually see quite a lot of that, including Jo's entire melodramatic Christmas play that she and her sisters put on for the neighbors. What the movie ends up cutting are scenes like Amy's burning of Jo's book, which focus on the more complicated aspects of relationships between the sisters.

Comments

[osprey_archer]

It's PEAK sibling drama honestly. No one can make you as mad as your siblings! No one's possible death can knock you dead like your siblings'!

To be fair, if I were in charge of two hot-tempered children and one of them had just BURNED THE PRECIOUS MANUSCRIPT and the other retaliated by ALMOST LEADING HER TO DROWN, I too would be focusing hard on the importance of controlling one's temper so one does not commit a murder in a red haze of rage.

[kore]

To be fair, if I were in charge of two hot-tempered children and one of them had just BURNED THE PRECIOUS MANUSCRIPT and the other retaliated by ALMOST LEADING HER TO DROWN

LOL, excellent point! Especially since there are two other daughters to raise as well!

The combinations are fascinating, too -- Jo and Beth are soulmates, but total opposites; Meg and Jo don't really get along but are together as the oldest; Jo's real foil is the pretty and manipulative Amy, who could be the heroine in a more conventional novel. And I don't think Amy and Meg are that close, but they both love the good life, only Meg's marriage pretty much cures her of that.

[troisoiseaux]

Jo's real foil is the pretty and manipulative Amy, who could be the heroine in a more conventional novel

Jo and Amy are definitely the most interesting sister combination; despite their opposite personalities they have similar goals vis-a-vis Art.

[kore]

And it's fascinating IRL that Lu supported May's art career, too, and May got married and had a child, and that was the end of her and Lu basically adopted Louisa May (Lulu) until her too-soon death.

Butyeah, Amy and Jo are the artists, Meg and Beth are the homemakers. I don't remember if Amy has the success that May did in the real world -- all I remember is how she models a figure of her sickly little girl and wants to do it in marble, so WHATEVER HAPPENS, she can have the image of her child. DDD:

[osprey_archer]

Have you read Lousia May Alcott's Diana and Persis? IIRC she based Persis (who goes by Percy) loosely on May, to the point of either modeling Percy's letters from Paris on May's, or possibly just inserting May's letters into the text more or less verbatim, I can't recall which.

[kore]

NO. I got some of those thriller collections as they were coming out (Alcott Unmasked, A Whisper in the Dark, Plots and Counterplots, &c &c) but that one does not sound familiar!

I wonder what May thought of that, hah. And clearly some of the family writing, like the play and the Pickwick magazine, just got used in the book verbatim (or it reads like that anyway!).

[osprey_archer]

Diana and Persis is an unfinished partial novel, but it's also an absolute TRIP and I hope you get the chance to read it someday. Here's my review, with copious quotes from all the !!!!! going on.

Sadly, May died while Louisa was writing the book (which may be part of why it remained unfinished; I think she didn't have the heart to continue after), so she may never have had the chance to find out Louisa was reusing her letters this way.

[kore]

Sadly, May died while Louisa was writing the book (which may be part of why it remained unfinished; I think she didn't have the heart to continue after), so she may never have had the chance to find out Louisa was reusing her letters this way.

Aww man. The early deaths in that family are pretty heartbreaking. (I wonder whatever happened to Lulu....)

[kore]

I forgot to add, you're totally right re Art: in the castles bit, Amy wants to be the best artist in the world, and Jo wants to be rich and famous through writing (and Laurie wants to be famous through his music, too -- his own art gets overlooked a lot). Jo tries a serious novel that doesn't do well (Alcott's "Moods," possibly) and then writes cheerfully for money, and winds up writing something that sounds like Little Women and does become rather famous, but Alcott satirizes it. Amy says flatly that talent isn't genius, and Laurie agrees with her, and they go into philanthropy! Sort of like Alcott supporting her giant extended family with her writing.

[osprey_archer]

I've noticed in Little Women Discourse (tm) that people are very invested in Jo/Laurie (either for or against) but often not that interested in Laurie as a character - they overlook the fact that he's an artist too, don't notice or care much about the fact that he's a foil for Jo in that they both fit uncomfortably into the norms for their gender... It's an interesting dynamic! There aren't a lot of canons where most people are so squarely more interested in the girls than the boys.

[kore]

Yes! Isn't he supposedly based on that dashing young Polish man Alcott met in Europe? He's such a totally Romantic figure -- gifted, orphaned, lonely, well-off and idle, even sickly. And he gets adopted by this bunch of hale and hearty New England girls brought up with a work ethic made of iron.

Bhaer (much as I don't like him, lol) is artistic too -- he's also associated with music, "Mignon's song" or "Kennst du das Land?" (I had to look this up) which is Schubert's setting of Goethe, and he knows and teaches languages, and he gives Jo his own Shakespeare, so he's associated with learning and culture as well even if he's an immense dick about her writing. But he's as much of a father figure as Laurie is a brother, neither of them are conventional suitors -- Alcott makes a big deal out of Jo and Bhaer both being clueless about love and doing it their way, as opposed to Laurie and Amy's almsot fairy-tale marriage.

[osprey_archer]

Yes, he's at least partially based on the dashing young Polish man. I think Alcott mentioned a couple of other influences (Rioux discusses it in her book) but I can't remember them now.

Also of COURSE Jo has to marry an artistic man. Alcott purposefully designed a funny match for her, but even she couldn't bring herself to inflict some kind of Philistine on Jo.