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Monday, June 15, 2015

Literary Movement Reading Challenge 2015: June Victorian Check-In



It’s a bright June afternoon…. I can hear Roxette’s voice in my head this afternoon, when I am writing this post. June has always been a promising month for me, but not this year…. I am so hectic on a project I am preparing, and tt has been taking a lot of my time and energy, that my reading target must be reduced this year.  However, the Literary Movement Reading Challenge must go on! I will still read for each movement, but only one book each.

How about you? Hope you are still having fun with this challenge… Meanwhile, June Victorian for #LitMoveRC begins today! The linky for June Victorian is now opened; you can submit your reviews/posts until July 15th. ==UPDATE== For some reasons I could not create the linky today; I don’t know why/what happened, but I’ll try again tomorrow.

Now, our monthly question:

Who is your most favorite Victorian author?

Mine is, of course, Charles Dickens. But sadly, I won’t be able to read any of his books this year. I’ve been meaning to pick Bleak House for Lit Move Challenge, but… besides its thickness, I don’t think I have the mood to read it right now.


Friday, June 5, 2015

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

The only reason I read Little Women was because high praises have been attributed to it by most of my fellow book-bloggers. My first encounter with Alcott was in Eight Cousins, which left me no impression at all. With Little Women, I had a slight expectation that it might have something more meaningful than Eight Cousins. Plus, I picked it because Alcott had influence in Transcendentalism, which I am tackling this month for Literary Movement Challenge. But after finishing it, well, I still can’t see why people praise it so much. It was really an enjoyable reading, and I think Alcott is a good writer, but that’s all to me. It left my mind as soon as I opened another book, and I even have to google it right now to write this review (I finished reading about a few weeks ago).

Maybe my favorite part of Little Women is the family bonding of the Marches. It is always great to be accepted and loved as we are, and to have a home where we are belonged to. The characters are memorable, but sometimes seem unreal. But unrealistic—angelic in this case—characters, like those of Dickens, are indeed memorable.

From the four sisters, I think Amy is the most natural one, for her age. Beth is too good to be true; she is more like an angel than a little child! Megan and Jo are typical contradiction in books’ characters; they even reminded me of Anne and George in Enid Blyton’s The Famous Five. It seems that girls are mostly divided into two categories. The feminine ones love pretty dresses, play with dolls, like to cook, and always think about getting a husband. While the tomboy ones like to be called with boy’s names, dislike dresses, and do boyish games. Amazingly their names are always similar to boy’s names… Georgina to George, Josephine to Jo. Plus these tomboy girls are usually hot-headed and stubborn. These childish stereotyping is sometimes annoying!

Apart from that, Little Women taught us to place virtues over vanity, which was the theme of Enlightenment literature. In every event of their lives, Mrs. March always reminded her family to keep praying and practicing Christian values. It’s good, but sometimes I think it’s a bit patronizing. I prefer books that don’t tell us to do something straight to the point, but hide ii between the lines. The finding of the hidden moral is often the most valuable point of the reading.

Three and a half stars for Little Women.

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I read Puffin Classics paperback

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