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

I think CD was perfect too, - gawky and endearing.
I thought Amy and Laurie in Europe very very romantic - I despise you, what a great chat up line...

The prof was awful.

Of course Jo should have married Laurie.

Amy, who cares?

But Beth (sobs) ....

When you read the biography of Alcott, I think I am right in thinking she married neither of them so really....she was ending up with second best in the book, because it wasn't as if her real life had produced a Professor who had made her happy. The Winona film made the relationship with the Professor much more romantic than it is in the book. I think Laurie isn't even a love interest, he's just a part of her youth that she renounces when she writes that bit of the book. The happy, wild, carefree part. A sort of second self allegory. When she marries she is just being dutiful and happily dutiful.
I read the Pilgrim's Progress for the first time recently and was bowled over to realise the entire book was based on it all those chapter headings.

The wind blowing the window open when Beth dies! Wow, and the music. I could listen to the music of film over and over again. And I love the way the sisters really quarrel.

Louisa was poisoned by mercury in RL. The calomel Beth takes in the book was a remedy based on mercury.

Duh, the prof was gabriel byrne. He would have been a viking.

Btw, charity, I reckon the Prof was a bit of alright in bed. Laurie OTOH would have been over very quickly, if you know what I mean.

I am sure Jo and her Prof were good together. I have a sneaking suspicion I married Dh as a result of reading about them.

I think Laurie married Amy because, really, one woman is pretty much as good as another, and you get married more or less on a whim because after all, what else would you do if you had 'talent' but not 'genius'.

Frankly I don't think Alcott liked Amy very much, what with all the snipey comments about her being not quite artistic enough to succeed, and I think she wrote her off with a boring conventional ending.

La la la

Claire Danes was lovely you horrid pair. And in no way has a large face.

evil

I know all the words to Puff the Magic Dragon too............

i totally agree with Remus about bad casting for Beth in the latest Little Women.
Jo should have been with Laurie of course

You meanie seeker.

"and on the breast where she had taken her first breath, Beth quietly took her last, with no farewell but a little sigh, and a loving look"

Even as a child, I felt subconsciously sad that Jo had thrown away her chance of a good sex life. The Professor! Blee!

I agree that Amy was a rebound job for Laurie. I think that Laurie did still love Jo and I HATED Jo for ages as a child for saying 'No' to him - but the Prof is so lovely too.

I think she should have married the Prof and kept Laurie for a bit on the side. That whole thing of Laurie and Amy as lord and lady of the March universe just doesn't sit right with me - Amy is such a cold fish that she couldn't possibly make Laurie happy.

Oh and talk of the films has reminded me of that horrible, horrible casting of Clare Danes as Beth. Big faced lumbering looking Clare D as fragile little Beth? Sooooooo wrong.

I like the June Allyson version best as well.
All the 3 main versions have the same score. I had not seen the Katherine hepburn version until recently, but it seemed so familiar and realisrd it was because of the music.

Pepprabbit the Beth death scene from the book is scorched on my brain just like the death of ginger in black beauty.

Can I just say Christian Bale as Laurie = perfection? In fact that whole film was perfection.

They wouldn't have made each other happy. Jo was right.

I was too young the first time I read Little Women - I didn't actually realise that Beth had died ..... , it was couched in such gentle language the fact she'd popped her clogs escaped me entirely.
I was sooooo upset the second time I read it and the penny dropped.

Did anyone see the 70s version on one of the movie channels (I think it was True Movies?)

William Shatner as Professor Bhaer.

I kid you not!

I also prefer the June Allyson one, there is just something about the feel of it that seems right. The Winona Ryder one was awful!

Oh yes MeSugar that has me in bits every time too!

The thing about the little women was also the extent to which they were trained to follow their heads. I'd say Jo might well have been in love with Laurie but felt it was not a sensible match (other than financially obv).

Though one of my favourite bits as a sentimental teen was where the Prof said he'd nothing to give her "but these empty hands", and Jo puts hers into them and says "not empty now".

There's no way Laurie would have run Plumfield with Jo in the way that Professor Bhaer did, and he was also on her level intellectually. Laurie studies and goes through the motions but seems a bit of a lightweight!

Amy and Laurie appear to share their love of the finer things in life but not much else apart from being a bit spoilt although Amy does seem to soften in the later books.

It did always seem as though Laurie would have settled for any of the sisters just to become part of the March family but I agree that Jo's feelings towards him were more as a brother than a lover.

What medical attention do you think they could have got her? I thought she had tb which was a death sentence in those days.

SDTG - I remember that bit in Jo's Boys, too. I was rather disappointed - I was convinced that there would be an illicit clinch between Laurie and Jo at some point, but I suppose that would be a different kind of book!

In fact, in my favourite film version of Little Women, the 1949 one with June Alyson (ok, so it's not accurate) every time I see it I hope that they'll fall into each other's arms.

Then there's 'Little Men' and 'Jo's Boys' too, anonacfr. If you lived near me, I'd lend them all to you.