Little Women / Good Wives - do you think Laurie still loved Jo, or Jo loved Laurie, when they married other people?

OK. Take it back. But still feel a bit short-changed by her lack of pretty bloke.

I think they didn't love each other. But I do think Marmee murdered Beth.

Yes - she ends up having people invade her garden etc trying to get an eyeful of the great lady writer.

But does Jo end up writing? Really writing? I can't remember - her writing seems subdued, in Little Men, to being a Good Wife And Mother.

I don't really hold with being told what to write by a fatherly chap, in any case.

If you've seen the really old version I think Orson Welles was a brilliant Mr Rochester even if the actress was a bit of a wan Jane Eyre it is still my favourite telling of the tale.

Yes, I was thinking about starting a song 'do you know the waaaaay to fey? Tim Dalton has gone today ... la la la' (etc).

too fey, even. "Waaay to fey" sounds like a folk band.

Timothy Dalton waaaaaaay to fey. Mr Rochester is a heaving mass of manhood. Not handsome, but sexy.

Agree that Rossano Brazzi also a bit too smooth, although I only see him when I imagine the Prof. I don't think I could have chosen between him and Peter Lawford!

Yes there has NEVER been a Mr Rochester who was properly as ugly as he was supposed to be in the book...Timothy Dalton played him in an 80's TV version and he certainly had the dark brooding swarthy looks right, but still a bit too handsome.

Yes, I'd forgotten Nan (it's a while since I read the later books), she was good. I get the impression LM Alcott veered between writing about feisty feminist (not using those terms back then) women and girls who didn't need men and the need to please readers and publishers, and conform to C19th notions of femininity and marriage, and sometimes one side wins, sometimes the other in the books.

Jo's choices and life course matter more than the others because she's the main character, the best loved one, the one generations of girls have related to and got hope from, so when she's married off to a (I still maintain!) domineering father figure people mind more than whatever happens to Amy.

Fennel - OTOH, isn't it Amy who Laurie credits with stabilising him? And then there's Nan, who doesn't need a man at all.

I've not seen the movie but a good-looking Prof would annoy me (might have seen one of the old ones - Brazzi waaay too good looking!). Same think with the vast majority of Mr Rochesters whenever they do Jane Eyre.

It was only my very recent (2 weeks ago) rereading that made me quite so anti Prof Bhaer. Looking at it now after many years of adult life and a distinct Feminst perspective, the pushing of the March girls towards older, supposedly wiser men was quite apparent.

I have issues with older men/father figures, I do think there is a problem in feminist terms with women going out with much older, wiser, more experienced men. I think it stems from the idea of a man being the head of the household and assumptions about marriage being best if it's a bit unequal. Even saintly Marmee talks (in good wives, to Meg) about how she was young and silly when first married but Wonderful Wise Papa March sorted her out. A bit how John Brooke sorts Meg out when she's a bit silly and over-interested in her babies. and how Prof Bhaer sorts Jo out when she writes "silly trash".

Gabriel Byrne is hot in every movie, surely?

Northey I agree, there is no way Jo would have taken that speech from Laurie - in fact I think she would have dug her heels in over it. That was the fundamental lack in Jo and Laurie's relationship - she loved him I think but realised that she didn't respect him.

Fennel - I recall their relationship being quite balanced by Jo's Boys though?

I really need to re-read these, this thread has reminded me how much I love them.

Even if Laurie didn't like the schlocky stuff, I can't imagine Jo taking the reproof/guidance from him. I think she would have fought him over it, rather than thinking it soberly over, like she did after Prof B's words.

This is the problem - Gabriel is ridiculously hot and the Prof is resolutely not meant to be. So you have no trouble imagining anyone frankly preferring him to Christian Bale, even if he doesn't come off as quite such a twonk as he does in real life. But Laurie in the book would definitely not have supported Jo in writing trash, he was very artistic - if not quite as moralistic (or overtly Christian, perhaps?) as the Ole Prof.

"bossy, dictatorial father figure who disapproves of her wilder side and encourages her to tone down into conventional wife-hood"

DISCLAIMER this is based on me having seen the movie, rather than reading the book so I may be way off

but I didn't get that either. I thought that he disapproved of her writing novels that weren't worthy of her, trashy vampire shhlock horrors (though, now she'd probably be minted: see Twilight) and encouraged her instead to find her true voice and be a better writer. Laurie would probably have been all "whatevs love" and she would have continued writing books that were aimed at pleasing editors, rather than showcasing her true talent. That's what makes a good partner - someone who helps and encourages you to reach your full potential.

And in the movie, Gabriel Byrne is HOT.

I just don't get any sense of Jo fancying Laurie, whereas I can actually imagine her and Prof B in an enjoyable sexual relationship.

bossy, dictatorial father figure who disapproves of her wilder side and encourages her to tone down into conventional wife-hood

I don't read it like that at all! He's not a 'father figure' - Jo doesn't need one, she's got an exemplary father of her own. I can't remember any instance of 'bossy , dictatorial' either. He tactfully discourages her from writing trash - good for him! As to 'conventional wife-hood' - setting up an unconventional school and developing a successful literary career - hardly!

I agree with Fennel that Jo and Laurie's taste for arguments would have been irrelevant to the success of their marriage. They would have made a great couple.
And as a child I was spooked by the fact that she married an older man, also because I used to watch the 1949 movie and Rossano Brazzi was quite wooden in that role!

I don't agree Grimma, I just re-read Good Wives after many years (as part of my so far unsuccessful attempts to get my dds interested in the series). And while as a teenager I accepted Jo and Prof Bhaer as a reasonable match, now I read it and find it quite distasteful that Jo is discouraged (by Marmee etc) from pairing up with her friend and peer, Laurie, and instead she ends up with a bossy, dictatorial father figure who disapproves of her wilder side and encourages her to tone down into conventional wife-hood. I really didn't like Prof Bhaer this time.

Not at all convinced that Jo and Laurie arguing is a problem, I see arguing as a sign of a healthy egalitarian relationship :-). better than the women submitting dutifully to the older wiser man.

I think the series is more apt for older (secondary age) kids than younger ones, except for Little Men which is more about Jo's tribe of boys and their goings-on - not all the 'lovering' !

Ironically Alcott never even liked little women! She wrote it because her publisher asked her too. She felt it was bad for children to read. Can you tell I just wrote an essay on her and little women?....

I reckon anyone who doesn't realise Jo got the right man for her is a bit, well, immature . Abs, you really should read the rest.

I point blank refused to read past Little Women, knowing that Jo and Laurie didn't end up together but then saw it in the movie

Maybe I should get the other books and read them. I do love Little Women. It's amazing.

I still feel sad that Jo and Laurie did not marry - can remember my childhood shock that two people who seemed so right for each other did not end up together. Hated it when he went off with Amy. Always found the prof boring and patronising and old.
Time to read it again and see if Laurie really was shallow and immature ( and in the closet)..