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.
~~~~~~~~~~~
I read Puffin Classics paperback
This book is counted
for:
92nd book for The Classics Club Project
I'll take a stab at explaining it a bit, if that's OK. It's true that LW comes off as extremely didactic to us. But it was partly so popular because it was actually *less* didactic than the usual stories for young people of the day. Jo is literature's first tomboy, and thrilled a million awkward girls with her relatable scrapes.
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