Reading Little Women for a book group and hating it so far

[FatherFintanFay]

I've read an awful lot of things in my lifetime - I'm a big reader, love the classics generally, but for some reason I've never read Little Women. I don't know why, but now I've been obliged to read it for a book group I'm in, and - my god, the preachiness! The saccharine! I usually manage about two chapters before I have to put it aside in disgust.

It's just that each chapter is like a little sermon about proper womanly behaviour. Nobody seems to grow or develop very much overall, but they always learn something over the course of the chapter and vow to mend their unladylike ways by the end. So far, Meg has been slut-shamed for wanting to look nice at a ball, and Jo has had to forgive Amy for burning the book she spent years writing because SHE MIGHT DIE AND THEN YOU'D WISH YOU HADN'T BEEN SO ANGRY! Not to mention all the talk of Marmee having to squash down her unseemly anger when she gets given a particular look by her as-yet unseen husband.

It is awful, isn't it? It is regressive even for the time in which it was written? Does it get any better? I know vaguely what happens by the end because I saw the adaptation on TV last Christmas, so I'm all ready for meek little Beth to stop existing. I only wonder how long it will be before anyone else notices she's no longer there.

I reckon classic fiction is quite useful as a means of fostering appreciation for our current freedoms. DH, who had never read Austen, had an overdue epiphany on the reality of women's lives in the past (and elsewhere today) after watching a couple of serialisations. It wasn't anything he'd not been aware of at a factual level, but the stories made it tangible. Which is one of the main purposes of literature and drama, I suppose!

loved it as a kid, started reading it with dd and we both found it dull, preachy and sentimental. we gave up.

I’ve never liked that book or understood why so many people do!

Or why oh why they keep making films of it.

I preferred the second part (published as Good Wives in the UK). I have to say Jo's romance brings a tear to my eye, especially the bit where her lover turns up at their house just when she is feeling at her most miserable.

Isn't there a bit where Marmee tells the girls it's better to be happy and single than married unhappily? Quite unusual for a book written at that time.

I rather preferred 3&4 to the more romantic 1&2.

I'm with you, OP! I loved it as a child but when I read it again, fairly recently, I was appalled! Absolutely get the need for context etc, but even still ...

Clawdy Yes - and then from memory the author comments later on that at 25 women start to resign themselves to spinsterhood and at 30 they accept it. But it's OK because you can still be a loving aunt to your siblings' DC and, should their mum die, your nieces and nephews will turn to you for comfort.

Chickeny Jo is appealing at the start because she seems to be a freer thinker than the others and is quite headstrong. But her strength seems to be getting chipped away incrementally and it's framed as something that isn't desirable for her to have.

I could probably enjoy it more if it wasn't so overly sweet. Not all literature from that time was as sentimental as that, so I don't think it's an "of its time" issue.

I remember thinking that Laurie was a twat for how he treated Meg at that party, I thought I was the only one.

It was my favourite childhood book. I didn't find it particularly preachy but then again I went to Catholic school/did church youth club etc.

Meg was my favourite.

This was written in the 1860s so massively typical for it's time. I remember liking the first book but the second not so much. I agree when they grew up and had to be 'women' that's when it starts becoming more problematic. When the older girl got married I couldn't stand the whole thing about her submitting to her husband!

Also Jo is amazing when you think it was 1868 so pretty impressive in some ways!

I remember thinking that Laurie was a twat for how he treated Meg at that party

He did try to warn her about getting a hangover, though.

@Clawdy I agree there are some bits I found quite powerful considering the rom com sexist stuff we still get coming out in 2019!

I loved it. But I was about 12 when I read it.

Moralising? LMA's a pussy cat! If you want REAL moralising, try Charlotte Yonge's The Daisy Chain, which is the UK equivalent of LW. I love them both

Seriously, OP, thanks for an interesting discussion. Can't stand Bronson Alcott, even though Louisa adored him. Do have a try at the Winona Ryder film. I'm horribly picky about dramatisations, but it really is fab. And the June Allyson is a classic.

I haven't read it for years, but I did many times as a child. It was one of those books I turned to when I had finished all my library books and it was late Saturday afternoon, when the library had closed.

I didn't find it particularly preachy but then again I went to Catholic school/did church youth club etc.

Ditto but Nonconformist - starting off with a game based on Pilgrims Progress (which I'd read a child's version of) didn't seem odd in the way it did when I read it to DD and had to give her a brief précis.

Talking about books that are of their time, I was once lent a book by Bunyan - I can't remember if it was the second part of PP or one of his other works, I didn't get very far in before being horrified by its extreme anti-Catholicism and returning it.

It’s a children’s book, I don’t think adults are expected to like it, or have it in their book clubs. Maybe suggest a new rule of only adult books after this?

Susan Coolidge's Katy books a have similar level of moralising, but the characters don't come across as self-sacrificing types in the same way as Alcott's girls - possibly because, although they don't have money to throw around, they aren't poor. If you haven't read them, OP, they make an interesting comparison as they are set in the same period, although a different area of the USA.

I've lost count of the amount of times I've read it and the sequels. I get it, I really do get it that's infuriating when you re-read it as an adult and want to wring some necks. Amy! Pompous, snobbish little book-burner! Etc.
But what it does do is show the limitations and restrictions placed upon women back then. Jo rages and rages against the injustice of her being a girl/young woman, and the bitter pill is that she knows there's nothing she can do about it.
When I was a romantic teenager I hated it that she rejected Laurie and hated that she ended up with the 'old' professor.
Apart from that, the young pre-feminist me had her eyes opened to how limiting life must have been for those young women. Yes, it's preachy and saccharine in places, but it's full of life and fantastic insights into their family life. Still love it!

Someone mentioned 'What Katie Did'. I'd forgotten about those; I read them all many years ago. Was it Cousin Helen who was the saintly pain-in-the-neck.

The thing is, there are other books written around the same time that AREN'T preachy and sickly in the same way as this, so I'm not buying that as the whole explanation.

I'm not going to finish it, anyway, because I can't be arsed and there are so many other things to read. I might just watch the film and improvise from that.

I don't set the books, unfortunately - the library gives them to us. I don't mind reading things that I wouldn't normally pick up, but I'm not going so far as to force myself to stick with books that I'm actively not enjoying!

I found What Katy Did was if anything more disturbing. The message of that story was that if a young girl flies too high she will fall off and injure herself. Icarus for girls. There's also a religious bit in the middle that didn't alarm me as a cradle Catholic, but I can see might put a lot of readers off.