Book Review: Jo’s Boys

[osprey_archer]

It is a strong temptation to the weary historian to close the present tale with an earthquake which should engulf Plumfield and its environs so deeply in the bowels of the earth that no youthful Schliemann could ever find a vestige of it.

By the time she wrote the third March family novel, Jo’s Boys Louisa May Alcott was absolutely, incredibly, 100% done with Plumfield and indeed the entire March family, as evidenced by the above quote. I strongly suspect this a redaction from a first draft in which an earthquake did swallow Plumfield, changed only when her editor begged her on bended knees not to slaughter her whole cast in the final chapter. “Think of the money,” he sobbed, tears in his eyes.

I can only assume Alcott wrote this whole book with her eyes on the money, because she has even less fucks to give than she did in Little Men, and she was already running short of fucks then. There is a certain perfunctory quality to most of it: she has to settle all these boys in professions AND hitch them up with brides and by god she’ll do it, but for the most part she’s bored. She throws in a shipwreck and a murder to try to cheer herself along but even that can’t save it for her.

Actually the best chapter is the one about Jo’s life as a celebrated authoress. At long last she has fulfilled her childhood dream of being a rich and famous writer - and it’s not all it’s cracked up to be! She’s inundated with fan letters and requests for autographs; the doorbell rings incessantly with visitors wanting to meet the literary lioness. Sometimes she climbs out the back window to escape; other times, she pretends to be her own maid, hoping that if they think she’s out they’ll move along. (Unfortunately, that party sees through the imposture, but they leave swiftly anyway, for the young girl fan is desperately disappointed in Jo’s appearance: “'I thought she'd be about sixteen and have her hair braided in two tails down her back,” she mourns.)

In general, Jo can’t stand her young girl fans: “The last time I let in a party of girls one fell into my arms and said, “Darling, love me!”,” she complains. (Apparently fans have just always been Like This.) There’s such an irony that Alcott, who wanted so much to write for boys, has come to be seen so wholly (much more so than in her own lifetime) as a writer for young girls.

In some ways Jo’s Boys is the book that certain critics want Little Women to be: Jo finally achieves incredible literary success, the book forthrightly moralizes in favor of women’s rights and votes for women (there’s a whole chapter where Nan catechizes the young men of her acquaintance on the subject), and Nan herself becomes the spinster career woman many critics yearn for Jo to be - albeit a doctor rather than a writer.

(littlerhymes and I were quite sad that the book offers no convenient girl to ship with Nan. It also does its level best to sink the good ship Nat/Dan: they get exactly one walk together, Nat cuts out early to spend the rest of the evening with his lady love, and then they don’t see each other nor, apparently, think about each other again for the entire book. I could get around the physical separation if they at least pined.)

But at the end of the day, one doesn’t just want a book to move through a checklist of desideratum; one also wants it to be compelling, which Little Women does apparently effortlessly and Jo’s Boys manages mostly when Alcott is writing about how annoying Little Women fans are. For all that she wanted to write about boys, she never seems as interested in most of them as she was in the March sisters.

Comments

[asakiyume]

There are some people who just can't stand fans and then other people, like Lloyd Alexander, who have endless, kindly patience for them. People are made different kinds of ways, and I know some people who are very private and retiring who would find it trying to have people always clamoring after them, but at first blush--looking from the outside--it just seems (to me! how many more qualifiers can I put in her to soften the judgment that's coming) kind of sour tempered to be so anti fan when it's thanks to the fans that you have, you know, the career. I guess it's partly that I myself just toil away in obscurity, but I can't imagine not being *thrilled* by people loving my books. And I mean, I could see how it could get excessive--if it was like pop star/movie star level of intrusion, if you could never go for a walk or eat a meal... but it seems like there's a lot of in-between space, there.

one doesn’t just want a book to move through a checklist of desideratum --YES. Maybe I feel this more than most people I know, but it's why I've never been able even to create a list of what I want in a book. I don't *want* a bunch of tropes**; I want storytelling that's compelling in some way and characters I want to think about and mull over.

**I mean, I have nothing at all against a bunch of tropes, but by themselves they won't be enough.

[osprey_archer]

To me at my point in my career, the idea of someone asking me to do an interview or book event sounds thrilling (universe, take note!) but I can see how after nearly twenty years of it, LMA would have had it up to HERE with autograph seekers knocking on her door at all hours. "When do they expect me to write these sequels they keep clamoring for when I'm snowed under with letters they also want me to answer?" one envisions her fuming.

I definitely can come up with lists of things I would want in a book... but the book still might not work for me if those things were badly executed, and sometimes the things that really speak to you in a story are things you wouldn't have thought to put on a list at all! There's a certain serendipity to finding the right book.

[kore]

Apparently dropping in on famous authors was this whole 19th-century Thing! I guess it might have gone along with the accepted custom of visiting or leaving cards? And even now people email/write famous authors. But I remember reading Jackson's and L'Engle's books how sick they got of classrooms full of children writing to them to fulfill an assignment, and that would have been in the 1960s, I think.

[kore]

I think part of it with Jo (and Lu) is that these are people coming to her house -- which was apparently quite a pastime with the Transcendental set! Emerson got visited a lot too IIRC -- often expecting refreshments and taking up her writing time and just really intruding. It's not quite the level of people not letting you eat at a restaurant in peace, but it sounded like something that would drive me bats.

I don't *want* a bunch of tropes**; I want storytelling that's compelling in some way and characters I want to think about and mull over.

YES THIS. I realized a while ago about myself I'm into stories for the characters, good writing, and plot way below that, in that order. I don't like stuff that checks off a bunch of boxes or very mechanically follows an outline -- it just leaves me cold. Reading for tropes or genre doesn't interest me much even in fanfiction. If a book has a staggering plot but the writing is meh and the people are cardboard, I won't like it.

[asakiyume]

Yeah, I guess dropping by your house and expecting cakes and tea would be a bridge too far even for fan-craving me.

And yeah, listing the tropes always has felt backward to me. It's not that I want bedside confessions of undying love (for example)--it's that I have enjoyed stories in which there's an intensity of connection between the characters such that one of those would make sense ... and /but actually, you don't even need to put the beside confession in--do what you want! Surprise me!

I do enjoy the writing exercises that (for example) our friend Osprey Archer will do, where she'll write to a bunch of different prompts/tropes using her characters or doing fanfic for other books. They can be great treats. But I don't want a whole book like that unless there's something else/more going on as well. (For example I adored Enemies to Lovers, which does a whole bunch of tropes, but in part for laughs, in part to explore the whole **fact** of fanfiction and tropes, and equally or more important, so that two very real-feeling characters can get to know each other and argue and explore how they relate to fiction and storytelling, and what that means.

[osprey_archer]

There are times when I read things about the nineteenth century and I'm like "people in the nineteenth century! Just like us!" and other times when I'm like "people in the nineteenth century: born in barns?" The fact that you could just drop by a total stranger's house and expect them to roll out the refreshments and entertain you!

Actually that's not so much a lack of manners as an entirely different understanding of manners (sort of Classical/Biblical view of hospitality?), but either way it's alien.

[philomytha]

I may be an outlier, but I always enjoyed Jo's Boys. I loved Nan and her adventures, and Josie diving for the bracelet, and everything about Dan, and Nat's misadventures, and the endings for most of the characters felt right - it's not Little Women, but I like it anyway, I enjoy the huge cast all finding their ways into adulthood.

But there should have been a girl to ship with Nan! Daisy isn't right for her at all.

[osprey_archer]

Josie's crush on her favorite actress who then becomes her ACTING MENTOR is just great. Truly peak 19th century wish-fulfilmment!

Daisy is the only real possibility, and she's not really a possibility at all because she's both unavailable (going to marry Nat!) and just not the right personality for Nan. Oh well. Perhaps in the course of her practice Nan will meet a girl who sweeps her off her feet.

[troisoiseaux]

Perhaps in the course of her practice Nan will meet a girl who sweeps her off her feet.

I'm sure there's a crossover F/F fic opportunity for Nan/somebody somewhere in LMA's repertoire!

[osprey_archer]

It would have to be a crossover! LMA is amazing at writing characters who could be lesbians and then providing exactly zero in-book shipping options.

[kore]

I have to confess the events of LW are always vivid in my mind, but the sequels all run together and I have difficulty remembering what happens in which book. Jo's Boys feels much more moralizing than the other books, what with Dan and Nat, and to some extent Bess. The second generation doesn't feel to me like real people once they've grown up, unlike everyone in LW.

[osprey_archer]

I remembered a few bits from Jo's Boys (mainly the chapter where Jo is all UGH, FANS, and the "I wish my editor would let me end this with rocks fall, everybody dies :(" ending), but overall they're much less memorable! And yes, Jo's Boys in particular is much more moralizing... and it's not like Little Women was short on moralizing in the first place... but it's much better integrated into the story.

[littlerhymes]

For all that she wanted to write about boys, she never seems as interested in most of them as she was in the March sisters.

Remarkable how unconvincing her boys and their arcs are compared to the original March sisters. But even in this book, Nan and Josie were more fun to read about than most of the boys!

Oh, she heard me, there she goes out the window again. Sorry LMA, I'm one of Them.

[osprey_archer]

Nan really fell to the wayside after Tommy Bangs stopped pursuing her, and it was a great loss. Can't we have a Nan showcase chapter, LMA? Also maybe an entire chapter about Josie's summer with her actress friend instead of just a paragraph...

Oh, drat, she's out the window AGAIN. Sorry, LMA!

[oracne]

Thank you for this entertaining review.

[osprey_archer]

The book really did most of the work for me! Hard to beat "I wish I could end this book with ROCKS FALL, EVERYBODY dies but I guess I can't."