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3.68 AVERAGE
3.68 AVERAGE
I had a sudden need to read something other than my own books and chapters and texts for University, and so I took notes at our last Reading Seals meeting and then went online and reserved a ton of Recommended Reading. I had read Brooks’ Year of Wonders (in February) and had recommended that myself. I noted March then because somebody else had read others by her, so when it came up a second time it was highlighted somewhat for me.
Most conveniently, I was going to be spending several hours in aeroplanes over the weekend, and so I grabbed 2 of the 6 books that had come in quickly to the library. This was one of them.
One of our members thought it a bit suspect for an author to “pinch” another author’s characters. I’m still ambivalent. I enjoyed this book. I don’t know the Little Women characters – never read them when I was young, and haven’t got around to it since, though I think I ought. But it’s still taking a liberty, and also she inserts a couple of non-fictional personages, in the form of Thoreau and Emerson. Well, as Brooks tells us in the Afterword, these men were compatriots of Alcott’s father. She also models March (Mr. – of the title … and I don’t think he’s given a Christian name anywhere. Funny, I didn’t notice that throughout the book, because it’s so vitally in the 1st person (a little in his wife’s voice towards the end, but that’s all)) on Bronson Alcott.
That aside, it’s a really good book. Set in the time of the USA’s Civil War, it follows March on his determined chaplaincy to the Union soldiers. Wound through it are connections to his youth as a pedlar in the Southern States, at which time he met the beautiful Grace, a slave to an Augustus Clement, owner of a cotton plantation. Also winding in and out of the “present” is the tale of his meeting and eventual marriage to Marmee, who readers of Little Women will know as the mother of Amy, Beth, Meg and Jo.
I enjoyed the character of March. I liked his combination of bravery and of foolhardiness. I appreciated his striving to be an enlightened educator and his need to care for all living creatures, even to the extent of being emotionally unable to eat meat (Go vegetarians!). I felt his struggles to be always what he believed in, and his frailty that caused him to slip and fall. I understood his terrible self-loathing. And I’m glad that I have never had to face the things he did. Would I be able to make choices that so followed my beliefs? They say that your true colours show when the chips are down (mixing metaphors – that’s terrible – and I think the latter idiom is about gambling, which I disapprove of … so I really shouldn’t use it!), and I don’t know what my true colours are. I would hope that they’re clear and strong, but fear they’re muddied pastels.
Most conveniently, I was going to be spending several hours in aeroplanes over the weekend, and so I grabbed 2 of the 6 books that had come in quickly to the library. This was one of them.
One of our members thought it a bit suspect for an author to “pinch” another author’s characters. I’m still ambivalent. I enjoyed this book. I don’t know the Little Women characters – never read them when I was young, and haven’t got around to it since, though I think I ought. But it’s still taking a liberty, and also she inserts a couple of non-fictional personages, in the form of Thoreau and Emerson. Well, as Brooks tells us in the Afterword, these men were compatriots of Alcott’s father. She also models March (Mr. – of the title … and I don’t think he’s given a Christian name anywhere. Funny, I didn’t notice that throughout the book, because it’s so vitally in the 1st person (a little in his wife’s voice towards the end, but that’s all)) on Bronson Alcott.
That aside, it’s a really good book. Set in the time of the USA’s Civil War, it follows March on his determined chaplaincy to the Union soldiers. Wound through it are connections to his youth as a pedlar in the Southern States, at which time he met the beautiful Grace, a slave to an Augustus Clement, owner of a cotton plantation. Also winding in and out of the “present” is the tale of his meeting and eventual marriage to Marmee, who readers of Little Women will know as the mother of Amy, Beth, Meg and Jo.
I enjoyed the character of March. I liked his combination of bravery and of foolhardiness. I appreciated his striving to be an enlightened educator and his need to care for all living creatures, even to the extent of being emotionally unable to eat meat (Go vegetarians!). I felt his struggles to be always what he believed in, and his frailty that caused him to slip and fall. I understood his terrible self-loathing. And I’m glad that I have never had to face the things he did. Would I be able to make choices that so followed my beliefs? They say that your true colours show when the chips are down (mixing metaphors – that’s terrible – and I think the latter idiom is about gambling, which I disapprove of … so I really shouldn’t use it!), and I don’t know what my true colours are. I would hope that they’re clear and strong, but fear they’re muddied pastels.
A terrific premise well-executed. Also well-researched.
One wee possible quibble would be the depiction of Marmy. Robert. March is hardly in Little Women at all. But Marmee, the mother, is featured throughout. So it seems to me that whatever Brooks does with Robert is pretty much fair game, as long as what she does doesn't change his occupation, etc. But it also seems to me that Marmee's characteristics from Little Women, as far as we know them, need to be maintained in March. I'm not sure that they are.
In addition, although we have an entire section narrated by Marmee, we don't get to hear from her regarding scenes earlier narrated by Robert, in which he describes her behavior. It would have been nice to have heard her side of the story. To the extent that we get it, it seems to conform to Robert's telling, but that doesn't always feel hoest or fair.
Highly recommended.
One wee possible quibble would be the depiction of Marmy. Robert. March is hardly in Little Women at all. But Marmee, the mother, is featured throughout. So it seems to me that whatever Brooks does with Robert is pretty much fair game, as long as what she does doesn't change his occupation, etc. But it also seems to me that Marmee's characteristics from Little Women, as far as we know them, need to be maintained in March. I'm not sure that they are.
In addition, although we have an entire section narrated by Marmee, we don't get to hear from her regarding scenes earlier narrated by Robert, in which he describes her behavior. It would have been nice to have heard her side of the story. To the extent that we get it, it seems to conform to Robert's telling, but that doesn't always feel hoest or fair.
Highly recommended.
Not often impressed with prize winning literature, but in this case, I am a devotee. I love the humanity of March. It's a story beyond race, war, and morality. Rarely in life do the light and dark recesses of my soul get to celebrate alternately from page to page.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. At times it was terrifying in descriptions of the Civil War. What a gruesome war it was. Although [b:Little Women|1934|Little Women (Little Women, #1)|Louisa May Alcott|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1309282614s/1934.jpg|3244642] spoke nothing of Mr. March's affair with Grace, it had a strong effect on the story here. I am very glad to have read this book.
Some thoughts. . .
1. I've hiked Ball's Bluff Battlefield (where the book begins) so that was kind of cool.
2. I appreciated Ms. Brooks's research and interweaving, but then she confesses to not sticking to the dates LM Alcott gives in the book? What the heck?
3. And then the March house is a stop on the underground railroad? Um, no. That's not in the original. And I get it, the Alcotts did, but not the March family.
4. And last: why did that story need to be told? Mr. March was at turns whiny, preachy, and weak, and I couldn't find anyone else to like in the story.
5. I'm sorry -- I know it's a Pulitzer Prize winner, but it's still "meh."
1. I've hiked Ball's Bluff Battlefield (where the book begins) so that was kind of cool.
2. I appreciated Ms. Brooks's research and interweaving, but then she confesses to not sticking to the dates LM Alcott gives in the book? What the heck?
3. And then the March house is a stop on the underground railroad? Um, no. That's not in the original. And I get it, the Alcotts did, but not the March family.
4. And last: why did that story need to be told? Mr. March was at turns whiny, preachy, and weak, and I couldn't find anyone else to like in the story.
5. I'm sorry -- I know it's a Pulitzer Prize winner, but it's still "meh."
This book was devastating. I couldn't read another book for about a month. It was so powerful, so intense and I had no idea I was so invested emotionally until the end of the book when I was just blown away. I tend to have emotional reactions after particularly intense books but this takes the cake. I think the next book I picked up after that was a romance or something light. It was a GREAT book - highly recommended. I could't read it again, though.
A novel as dark as it is beautiful. This book will utterly transport you into the Civil War and the morally conflicted mind of Mr. March, chaplain in the Union army. This literary journey into the war and its ambiguities is stunning.
Geraldine Brooks is the queen of historical fiction.
Geraldine Brooks is the queen of historical fiction.
I’m a Louisa May Alcott fan, but you don’t have to be one to enjoy this tender, engrossing historical novel. The author has borrowed Mr. March, the father of Alcott’s “Little Women”, and imagined what could have befallen him during the year when he left his family to be a chaplain in the Civil War. Mr. March himself was based on Bronson Alcott, Louisa’s father, an interesting character who lived according to his beloved, progressive, marginally crackpot ideas. How would the experience of war change such an idealist, such a true believer? It’s worth the telling.
I enjoyed reading of the perspective from Mr. March the father of the girls in Little Women and how it might have been to be away from family during the Civil War,