Little Women - the last week
March 10-17: Surprises, umbrellas, and happy endings
Readers~!
This week (March 10 -17) we are reading Chapter 43 (Surprises) to the end ( Chapter 47 - Harvest Time). Some things to look out for -
How is grief depicted in this section?
How do the festivals and family celebrations in this section compare or contrast to the family celebrations in Part One?
Do We Like Amy Now?? Has Alcott successfully won us over?
Endings — any good ending needs to fulfill the promises that the author made earlier in the story. Do you feel the characters have had their stories end satisfactorily? Is anyone being short-changed? How are we seeing the Pilgrim’s Progress theme come up again here at the end?
We shall have one final discussion next week! - Enjoy!
OK, so I've been WAITING to join this discussion, and finally finished the book in the early hours of this morning and I have Thoughts. Prepare.
So, a few years ago, I found this BRILLIANT video essay on the four film versions of Little Women (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJGZoecSmrA). Apart from being really brilliant, it was where I first came across the idea that Bhaer was a late and unwanted addition. And I really hate that idea. I have never thought Laurie and Jo well matched (possibly because I'd grown up on the 1994 film and have never really learned to expect it), and the '94 version did a really good job (as the video also points out) of speaking to the concerns and interests I felt best suited my heroine, Jo. So I have been desperate to disprove that Bhaer is just a "funny match" meant to spite readers. And I feel the reread of this chapter (Surprises) proves that. And it may be one of my favourite chapters in the whole dang book.
So, as Steph points out in the notes, Alcott didn't smash them together at the end in a clumsy attempt to assuage editors and rabid fans. It's clear on this reread to me that from Part Two, Laurie and Jo's fates were properly set from the beginning and there can be no pining for an alternative.
Also, Bhaer is a bit of a "funny" match, but not in a "Fine, you wanted her married, so there" kind of way, but a "Well, I could have made him a knight, rich and connected, but Jo's a funny, oddball sort of person, so a match that is slightly odd -- age difference, nationality, poverty, learning -- is actually exactly her" kind of way.
One thing I went in looking for is proof that Laurie's and Jo's feelings for each other really didn't amount to anything. One gripe I have about the 2019 film is Jo's seeming to fall in love with Laurie at the end and his seeming still to only choose Amy as second best. I want better for both of them. I don't mind Jo's lonely pining for anything she might be offered, or Laurie's tenderness at the loss of his boyish dreams; but I want to be certain that they really love who they end up with. And this chapter really makes that clear. Laurie doesn't pine, and Jo's difficulty in accepting it is purely her own heartache from Beth and her career's change of path. What's more, their affection is restored from its post-proposal awkwardness to a truly sibling love (you don't feel like there's anything more underlying it) and the affection between Laurie and Amy I've always found to be and enjoyed as the most romantic part of the book.
Bhaer is not as swoony as the 1994 and 2019 versions (part of that is Alcott's insistence on rendering his accent so stereotypically), and I think that is also part of what makes him 'funny'. It is not a negative character trait, and we learn to love him for it, even as we learn to love Jo for hers.
LASTLY, it keeps astonishing me that the films decided (I think it was first the 1950s one, and it was canon ever after) that Jo would publish a major work of fiction, and the story it tells would be almost exactly the story you've just finished. I always loved that self-reflexivity, the great triumph for Jo, the validation of the domestic smallness of the life she's lead from the platform of her scintillating authorly career. I always miss that in the book. Given Alcott's emphasis on Jo's and Amy's artistic careers in Part Two (thanks Steph for helping me realise just how much this is a part of the writing), especially as distinct from a typical marriage trajectory, it feels like a MAJOR oversight from Alcott not to have been the one to come up with this.
Anyhow, I'm super grateful the films have all unanimously decided that the book should be a necessary part of Jo's storyline, whether or not it affects her Bhaer romance. This is a filmic license I'm all too happy to support, and I'll never not miss it in the book.
Sorry, long post. Final thought in answer to question. Yes, we like Amy now, pretty much from the beginning of Part Two, I think. Maybe because my name is Amy, I've never found her as annoying as others have. (Unpopular opinion: I find Beth bland.) Alcott makes a huge effort to make us like Amy, I noticed this time. Jo is the one who is quite a lot more awkward (reminds me of Austen's comment about Emma, that she'd written a character that no one but herself would much like), as if Alcott felt too many people identified with Jo and she wanted to make her more niche.
Anyway, sorry for long post. I really loved reading these updates, and was grateful to have somewhere to dump all these reread feelings, and for this book with all the new things I learned via Steph's narrative voice!