To not merrily give away my Christmas lunch to a German family I've never even met?

[HarrietKettleWasHere]

Ok not me but Jo March.

I'n watching the travesty BBC adaption of Little Women.

The mum comes home and makes them feel awful just as they are about to tuck in to all the lovely food, because of the poor immigrant family, who are, by all accounts, having a really horrible time. Even though Marmee has already given them all her firewood. And they skip out the door so jolly, with all their bacon, sausages and maple syrup, and cream that they get only at Christmas to bestow upon the family. Even selfish Amy!

I was just wondering if I'd have been quite so joyful about doing that at a similar age

Beth then gets scarlet fever from the baby, which goes to show no good deed goes unpunished.

It looks like it'll be a clementine for dinner, 1 segment apiece, but luckily the rich family from down the road then take pity on them and send a lovely ham.

This is lighthearted by the way. It can't be serious really because the adaption is quite awful.

I don't know is where they filmed it but it can't be Massachusetts as I keep hearing a Great Tit call and they don't have those there pedantic

Also Amy is supposed to be 12 and she looks 27.

What other classics has television managed to ruin for you with their adaptions?

That's true. Shape would have been early 30s which Alan rickman couldn't have played but he was perfect

How peculiar, I'm sure I read that J K Rowling had Alan Rickmansworth in mind when she was writing the books.

Mind you, he might have been about the right age when she started writing?

She was writing in the early 90s wasn't she?

That's about right then. In 1995 he would have been about 40

I never liked that James and Lily were having babies at 20 in the middle of a war anyway - is there no wizard contraception?

Let's just pretend that Harry's parents were grownups, and split the difference in the actors' ages.

They wanted to have children in their early 30s, but there was the war, then as they got older they thought "by the time the war ends we might be too old" so they had Harry when they were 37, and were 38 when they died.

This also gives them a chance to have done something useful during the war.

Snape, Sirius, Lupin, Pettigrew etc are the same age, but have of course aged ten years by being alive, and have had stressful lives through being a double agent/in prison/a werewolf/a rat so they may look older than then 48 they should be in the first film.

I imagine that being a werewolf could be quite ageing

If a dog year is 7 human years...
And 3 days out of the month he's a wolf...

Good point.

I hadn't read LW since I was a teenager, but watching this adaptation I wondered if Jo is a lesbian as she spends most of the time stating that she doesn't want to get married. OK, she marries Prof Whatsit at the end, but that was probably put in to fulfil expectations of the audience at the time for some sort of marriage denouement. And that's more of an intellectual match. Otherwise the structure - i.e. to introduce the male lead early on and not have him marry the main female protagonist - makes no sense really.

And I reckon Aunt March was a lesbian too and recognises it in Jo and bequeathes her house.

Just googled Louisa M Alcott and apparently she never married.

Just a thought.

Doesn't the birth rate tend to go up during times of war? Something about it being a basic instinct to keep population numbers up.

TheXXFactor

Well, I'd always assumed that she was independent - and like I say it's several decades since I read the book, so I can't remember many details. It was just the interpretation I picked up from this latest adaptation.

They are all quite young having babies in Harry Potter. Even Harry himself. (I think 24 - maths ropey - which is young if you consider that witches and wizards live for ages).

Also don't think JO was a lesbian. Agree it was she just wanted independence.

According to the HT adaptation Aunt March was a widow who had lost a child although that doesn't preclude her also being a lesbian I suppose.

OK. It seems it's just me then.

Jo does have children in the later books, at least a couple of them from what I remember.
I do think they are young to have kids in HP, but they tend to pair up young too so maybe they just jump to the next step quickly.
Is there wizard college?

No, me too mardy , I said it a couple of pages ago. I think anyone who hadn't read the book would be surprised to see Jo with a man at the end. It's not implied in the book but I did think it was being hinted at in the adaptation.

I did have a skim read of the thread but missed that piggy

I used to like the duologue with Jo and Amy acting out one of Jo's plays. I did it with my sister at a couple of speech festivals and it always did well.

I cannot take Elizabeth Taylor seriously as Amy as she is wearing SO much makeup! I am surprised she could move her face with that lot on it. In a era when even wearing a little rouge could get a young lady a reputation for being 'fast' it is ridiculous that she is made up like Belle Watling.

And on the lesbian thing - on Wikipedia LMA is quoted as saying she had fallen in love with many pretty girls but never with a man and that (rather sadly) she thought she might be a freak of nature.

I hated the book as a child. So preachy and the girls are pretty much all unlikable. Whereas I loved Anne of Green Gables and any Nesbits, despite some preachiness. I think it's because both of those authors could capture real childhood thought processes, but Alcott cannot.

I wish people would stop rehashing books that are not that good into films / series. There are plenty of great books that are begging for a look that still have the looks of period drama without the naffness. Thursday's Child, The Diddakoi, I'd love a new Carries War series. It can be done. I capture the castle is a great example. Even some of the great teen fiction from the 60s and 70s would look vintage now. I read a stack of Judy Blume and Paul Zindel late 70s, they would be fantastic! Not heritage enough perhaps.

Think you are showing your age there so I shall test you!

Do you not remember the TV adaptation of The Diddakoi in the 79s?
Who remembers The Swish of The Curtain and The Phoenix and The Carpet?

Has anyone ever done When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit?