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

marshmallow, I think that's what bothers me about the Prof and Jo - he holds the moral superiority in the way that St Dad March does over Susan Sarandon/the fabulous Marmee. These men don't make mistakes or struggle with passion a la Laurie.

I must say Clover seemed to do an absolute shitload of housework for someone who'd grown up with servants. Some kind of proto Anthea Turner perhaps??

Prof Bhaer was definitely the intellectual match for Jo - although as ever with LM Allcott there had to be a bit of preachiness in there; I remember hating the scene where Bhaer realises Jo has been writing potboiler style thriller stories and makes her feel all unholy and wicked about it. (I think she throws all the stories on the fire in remorse?). Ugh - it still sticks in my throat.

Laurie and Amy were definitely rebound...or rather holiday romance turned rebound. Never bought into it at all.

joan I somehow missed your brilliant summary of what should have happened and have just dashed up to Dh to read him the whole thing.

He wasn't quite so amused as me. Strange bloke.

Am so going to read them again, will start at nap time tomorrow I think!

I think I will introduce my God Daughters to those books, infact am thinking as an additional christening present to the one I have in mind!

I loved What Katy Did.

Sigh.

There's lots of examples of unconventional behaviour in alcott's books, not just Dan, but all the orphans, Jo's very outrageous behaviour for that era and even back in the first book where they give their Christmas breakfast to the destitute German immigrant family. Agree it's more an east coast view of the time, and definitely influenced by christian values, but still find the stories incredible for the ideas they push through.

Thanks trib!

PFM - oh, I am jealous, we did Snow Falling on Cedars which is one of the most boring books I have ever ploughed through!

I love books from family members - there is something really lovely about that. My brother's godmother bought us all lots of lovely classic books and I am now buying them again for his little daughter - it's a great legacy to pass on.

An Old Fashioned Girl is GREAT. I need to find my copy of that again.

Not Heathcliff per se just the passion, I always thought Cathy was a bit of a stupid spoilt cow tbh, but the book - oh that book - its entwined with my life and my enjoyment of my life at the time. Which is weird because I did it for A'Level and thought I would always hate it!

But the Alcott novels, just fabulous, I haven't read them for a long time but I genuinely think they were the first books I picked up and read truly alone that weren't younger girl books iyswim. I remember my Godmother giving me her copy of Good Wives. She didn't have girls and her boys were never interested in it. That book meant a lot to me as she has subsequently passed away but I think of Alcott and think hof her and how bloody wonderufl that woman was and how much I truly loved her. She was the first person I was close to and adored who died and cried for days and days and had a moment at her wake where her sister came and said hello to me and I thought she had come back from the dead to say goodbye to me as they looked so similar....................

So I love those books, they remind me of the most fab woman and that is why the films just don't do it for me.

Thinking about the timelines, I think the books take place over roughly a similar period of history but written at very different times and in very different places.

According to Wiki Mr March gets wounded in 1862; Little House in the Prairie is set in 1870, so in theory Jo is about 10 years older than Laura (maybe less). But Massachusetts is very different from the pioneer territories that Laura lived in (and Alcott probably had no actual experience of?). The Dan stuff would have been c. 20 years later, I guess?

On top of that, Little Women was published in 1868, and Little House on the Prairie in 1935.

I agree with MI that Jo should have ended up in the group of independent women. Failing that, she should have been with Laurie, even if he should have lead a dissolute life in london.

Ron and Hermione are perfect together, btw, even if Neville rocks (though not as much as Snape)

Right thanks to you lot I have downloaded the complete set for my Kindle (my beloved books are at my Mum's I think...)

So instead of preparing for my Viva in 4 weeks I will be knee-deep in March joy. If I fail, it's YOUR FAULT mmmkay?

Motherinferior, I think that's An Old-Fashioned Girl?

I think Laurie should have moved to London and lived a Dissolute Life being a patron of the arts and shagging loads of lovely chaps. Mrs March should have moved there with him as a veneer of respectability and been slowly corrupted a la Henry James. Mr March would have conveniently struck gold and stayed in California sending back nuggets occasionally.

John Brooke should have fallen through the ice leaving Meg a very young widow before his appalling personality had time to rub off on her. She then should have married Prof Bhaer, obvious match.

Amy should have married Garibaldi's son (if any?) and designed coins for the new Italy.

Jo should have married Mac from Eight Cousins, I think they would have been a hot couple. (Why did Mac's eyes 'give out' from too much reading?)

Poor Dan.

Does anyone know, would it have been unusual to write about someone defending the Indians? I have no idea about the history, just drawing on all that not-at-all-concealed racism and fear about Indians in the Little House books (vaguely the same time??? ).

I never knew Alcott wrote more stuff, off to Amazon for that!

Dan and Nan. That could have worked.

So what is a pickled lime? Has anyone actually seen one?

LOL at Hermione and Snape. Rickers not faring quite so well as in Sense and Sensibility.

I think Laurie was young and used to getting his own way (apart from, presumably, the matter of his parents dying when he was young) and he needed the jolt from her refusing him when he was sure she would say yes. But the whole bit where he comes back and goes 'oh yeah, I realised that actually I don't love you as a wife, I love you as a sister, and I love your sister as a wife, what a result' is just highly implausible.

THere's another Alcott, and I can't find which one, which has a group of independent young women making a living in an unspokenly lesbian way, which is quite fab, and I really wish poor old Jo could have ended up walking out into that one.

Dan falls in love with Bess, but he knows he can't ever marry her so he goes away one last time to live with the Indians. He dies defending them.

Damn this thread! I'm now going to have to go and re-read the whole series and all of my copies have pages falling out and tear-stained patches.

The Prof is a minor character who only comes into his own late on - so it's really more like Hermione ending up with Neville. Or Snape. And either of those would be much nicer than Ron.

Just sayin'.

swanthingafteranother
the music in the Winona film when Beth dies is so beautifully sad without being OTT.
If you listen to the director's commentary she mentions that when poor old John Kennedy Jr died, one of the news programmes at the time used the Amy deathbed music to accompany images (sob) of the accident "scene" (well, the sea, I suppose). She found it very appropriate given the Kennedy family's long association with Massachusetts.

I dunno trib, I think I just felt that they would never be able to alter their relationship into a romantic one because it was so perfectly, utterly fixed in their hearts the way it was ....

I liked the Prof. But I don't think he would ever have meant a fraction of what Laurie did. He was sort of....part of her.

Dear God. 32 years old and I can remember how upset I was

He just sounds like a spoilt two-year-old.

Sometimes it's not right to be with your soulmate: sometimes you're just too close, and know each other too well

Next you'll be saying Ron and Hermione shouldn't have ended up together! It's like Hermione ending up with Harry as a consolation prize - wrong on so many levels.