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

[silverbay]

I'm just not convenced by the whole 'Oh, I'll just marry her sister' approach, especially as Amy was so different to Jo.

and I wonder if Jo 'settled' on Professor Bhaer ?

If memory serves, in March', Mr March nearly cheats on Marmee with a slave woman.

Marmee features in the book as well, and is veeery feisty.

May I recommend this for some interesting points?

Wow. That sounds - interesting.

I thought it was pronounced like the plane.

at whoever pasted that line from when Beth dies!

I remember the first time I read that, I was convinced that she was going to be ok, and then she wasn't. I was staying with my grandma and reading her copy, and I remember coming running downstairs and throwing myself at her wailing. I was about 11.

My young self was gutted that Jo didn't marry Laurie. My older self thinks the Prof. was much the better choice :)

I love these books, I haven't read them for years but I think it is time for a re-read.

The whole set for 77 pence on Kindle!!!!!! I just bought it.

Ooh, nice link, Greythorne.

According to the Introduction to the Penguin Classics edition of the book, Louisa May Alcott wrote to a friend, Alf Whitman, "Jo should have remained a literary spinster, but so many enthusiastic young ladies wrote to me clamorously demanding that she marry Laurie, or somebody, that I didn't dare refuse & out of perversity went & made a funny match for her. I expect vials of wrath to be poured out upon my head, but rather enjoy the prospect."

Just remembered something which really, really makes me cross.
The name of Little Women in the French translation is....wait for it...."Les Quatre Filles Du Docteur March" i.e. "Dr. March's Four Daughterrs"

if you don't believe me

Bloody French misogyny!!!!

Oh, that is annoying!

I just noticed she was born in Germanstown, so I wonder if that town had lots of families of German origin and that is why she has such a big soft spot for her German characters?

Gosh .. just googling idly and came across this about her father:

'Bronson Alcott's belief that children were tabulae rasae blended and clashed with his other belief that lighter coloring (like his) betokened a deeper spirituality and closer connection to divinity (Saxton 205). "'Two devils,' [Bronson] confided in his journal, 'as yet, I am not quite divine enough to vanquish, the mother fiend and her daughter'" (qtd. in Sanderson 43). Since Louisa, like her mother, was born dark-haired and "willful," Bronson viewed her as a challenge, sometimes going so far as to call her the "Possessed One" "pathetic," and "bound in chains . . . which she could not break" (qtd. in Sanderson 43).'

That's pretty awful, isn't it?!

From this site, FWIW: www.womenwriters.net/domesticgoddess/lma.htm

Oh Beth's death - how I cried. i first read it on holiday with my family when I was 11 or 12. I stayed in the car to read it whilst they frolicked and I cried till my eyes were stuck together.

Mmm. And Jo cuts off her hair (her 'one true beauty' to quote Amy) ... and Laurie (who surely is also dark-haired, wot with being Italian and all that) goes off with the blonde ...

And Bess is perfect and blonde whereas the much more interesting and feisty Josie is dark.........

Ahh, yes, trib, hadn't thought that one through but you're right.

It just seems awful that a father would say that sort of thing, and it seems she idolized him in spite of it.

And Dan is dark, dark enough Jo thinks he might be part Indian, and I suspect he's her second stab at writing a Laurie character.

Oh God Grimma, I'd forgotten about John Brooke's death - I never liked him much but that scene is heartbreaking! For me it's only matched by Matthew's death in Anne of Green Gables, I can never read that without blubbing either!

And don't forget the throw away but heartbreaking line "For Marmee's chair was empty now"

God she was good at schmaltz, that woman!

How does John Brooke die? Am having a complete mental blank.

Hmm, not keen on John Brook, very passive agressive when he cancels the order for his new greatcoat because Meg has bought a frock "I can't afford it, my dear".

and sulking because the kitchen was in a mess when he brought a friend home, and dinner wasn't ready.

and staying out late at his friend's house because Meg was too busy looking after infant twins to put a ribbon in her hair and gaze adoringly at him.

Yes, Meg and John's marriage is the bit where you can really feel the age of the book, isn't it? We'd have a field day with them on AIBU.

Not sure it's ever actually said how John Brooke dies - he seems to come down with a sudden fever (typhoid or similar?).

Bronson Alcott was an absolute twat, useless with money and utterly feckless with a new bonkers scheme every week. His wife Abigail was always having to pick up the pieces.

Mr March is clearly a rewriting of how Louisa would have liked her father to be - sensible, settled and loving.

Absolutely must buy and read Little Men and Jo's Boys.

He did die in the middle of the night- Daisy and Demi were oken up to say good bye.

Can't remember a harrowing quote- you'll be glad to know!