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Original poster

So I finally read Little Women (with spoilers)

62 replies

Flamebat · 06/10/2008 18:38

hell of a struggle I might add - please someone who loves it tell me why?!

Anyway, googled Good Wives to see the outcome - and how did Jo NOT marry him eventually????

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SweetPea99 · 05/11/2008 15:36

If you are having a Little Women moment, also try 'March', it won the Pulitzer Prize a few years ago, telling the story from the father's perspective, with lots of slavery and American Civil War stuff thrown in. Definitely more of a grown up book, with some surprising insight into Marmee's character...

FlameThrowersKillZombies · 25/10/2008 11:16

Right. Have finished Good Wives (I am stubborn and NEEDED a proper ending )

I enjoyed it a lot more than Little Women Still felt Laurie and Amy was wrong, but Jo and Bhaer is ok iyswim.

tribpot · 07/10/2008 07:46

Oh no, I loved Gilbert, he must have had charisma to carry off such a silly name. Poss image formed by cute guy who played him on telly (a reverse Shatner if you will). Which reminds me, has anyone seen the Anne telly mini-series where she gets arrested as a spy in the First World War? Bit off-piste for LMM methinks.

If Prof Bhaer looked like Gabriel Byrne I could sort of buy it but he didn't. He was a great guy but not Laurie.

Cloudhopper · 06/10/2008 22:14

The sentimentality curdles a bit when you get older. Because it is written from a child's perspective, it works for you when you read it as a child, but comes across as overly earnest when you are grown up

procrastinatingparent · 06/10/2008 22:04

Yes, Emily very serious about her writing - always wondered if LLM was drawing on her own feelings there. I alwas though Emily was more fevered, though, with that weird 'second sight' thing, which is only hinted at with Anne. I feel that they are a bit more Gothic, which is not usually my thing, but I do love them.

Anne was my first love though; I remember crying when I realised Rainbow Valley (which I thought was a random story) was actually about Anne grown up. I went downstairs and pulled my mother out of a dinner party because I was so upset.

Now I'm going to have to read them again.

phdlife · 06/10/2008 21:57

hmm never thought about it that way.

think you may be right though. probably I loved Emily so because I am so straight myself. but also because her dreamy wafting about in pine forests never seemed as...I dunno, fevered, as Anne's doomed heroines. that gave me the pip.

and I liked Emily's writing. Anne was just a dabbler, Emily meant it.

Original poster
Flamebat · 06/10/2008 21:55

So, do I go find a copy of Good Wives to make it complete., or will my life be ok without it?

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procrastinatingparent · 06/10/2008 21:54

I wanted to be passionate Emily but thought that I was in fact imaginative Anne with her sensible streak.

But I did love Teddy much more than Gilbert, who has always seemed rather characterless to me - probably why she makes him into a hard-working doctor in the later books to keep him out of the way.

phdlife · 06/10/2008 21:50

oh I loved Emily much more than Anne!

fishie · 06/10/2008 21:45

i would add
milly molly mandy (to soften up younger girls for lw etc)
king of the barbareens (for afterwards)

there is something so foreign about lw and katy. a pickled lime. a swing in a shed.

procrastinatingparent · 06/10/2008 21:43

But almost (but not quite) better than Anne are the three Emily books by LMM, with the most fantastic hero, and Byronic anti-hero as well.

Simplysally · 06/10/2008 21:42

I've got and have recently re-read all the Little Women stories. I must have been about 8 or 9 when I read them (annd What Katy Did) as it took me ages to twig that they were set in America. I was also bemused by shops being open on Christmas Day.

Ditto the Anne of Green Gables series but she got too prissy in the end. I preferred her in the first book . Has anyone read Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm? Quite similar to Anne.

moondog · 06/10/2008 21:39

Anne
Katy
Little Women

Heaven
Shherr heaven

Feenie · 06/10/2008 21:36

Wow, thanks procrastinatingparent!

Original poster
Flamebat · 06/10/2008 21:33

I have just realised why I was thinking that Jo's bloke must have completely passed me by, or you had the two books confused... No-one told me that Little Women & Good Wives are meant to be one bloody book!

I would have been much more inclined to read it had it all been one volume. It also explains how I knew about Beth, but she was all bright and perky at the end of my book.

Grrr.

Now, as much as I struggled my way through LW, I feel like I have only read half a book. I don't wanna spend hard earned cash on another one though!

B*stards.

OP posts:
phdlife · 06/10/2008 21:32

who, Anne? prissy?

mind you I read pollyanna as a child too, maybe Anne just seemed a wildchild compared to her

procrastinatingparent · 06/10/2008 21:28

Feenie, you can read the last two online here.

Feenie · 06/10/2008 21:27

Nah, she pissed me off. Too prissy.

phdlife · 06/10/2008 21:25

I never got the hang of Katie.

I had to re-read the Anne of Green Gables series recently, though, and let me tell you that took some tracking down!

georgimama · 06/10/2008 21:20

That's it, I'm going to buy the lot that I can find, may even get friendly old bookman who can find anything to find me the others, if at all possible.

Katy rocks.

Feenie · 06/10/2008 21:18

I loved What Katy Did, georgimama, and it's still ace. I still love What Katy Did at School aswell, but What Katy Did Next I never really liked. There were apparently two more after that, but they aren't in print.

I've said too much again, haven't I....

georgimama · 06/10/2008 21:14

No no no I take it back - 1978 William Shatner as Professor Bhaer. Aarrrggghh how is that possible?

phdlife · 06/10/2008 21:13

phew!

because, you know, it would be deeply wrong and disturbing to have imagined that myself!

georgimama · 06/10/2008 21:08

There was a film version in 1933 and in 1994. I don't think William Shatner was in either.

Where did you get that idea from? It's intriguing.

georgimama · 06/10/2008 21:05

I was wondering, will check.