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 ?

Gabriel Byrne is hot in every movie, surely?

Northey I agree, there is no way Jo would have taken that speech from Laurie - in fact I think she would have dug her heels in over it. That was the fundamental lack in Jo and Laurie's relationship - she loved him I think but realised that she didn't respect him.

Fennel - I recall their relationship being quite balanced by Jo's Boys though?

I really need to re-read these, this thread has reminded me how much I love them.

It was only my very recent (2 weeks ago) rereading that made me quite so anti Prof Bhaer. Looking at it now after many years of adult life and a distinct Feminst perspective, the pushing of the March girls towards older, supposedly wiser men was quite apparent.

I have issues with older men/father figures, I do think there is a problem in feminist terms with women going out with much older, wiser, more experienced men. I think it stems from the idea of a man being the head of the household and assumptions about marriage being best if it's a bit unequal. Even saintly Marmee talks (in good wives, to Meg) about how she was young and silly when first married but Wonderful Wise Papa March sorted her out. A bit how John Brooke sorts Meg out when she's a bit silly and over-interested in her babies. and how Prof Bhaer sorts Jo out when she writes "silly trash".

Fennel - OTOH, isn't it Amy who Laurie credits with stabilising him? And then there's Nan, who doesn't need a man at all.

I've not seen the movie but a good-looking Prof would annoy me (might have seen one of the old ones - Brazzi waaay too good looking!). Same think with the vast majority of Mr Rochesters whenever they do Jane Eyre.

Yes, I'd forgotten Nan (it's a while since I read the later books), she was good. I get the impression LM Alcott veered between writing about feisty feminist (not using those terms back then) women and girls who didn't need men and the need to please readers and publishers, and conform to C19th notions of femininity and marriage, and sometimes one side wins, sometimes the other in the books.

Jo's choices and life course matter more than the others because she's the main character, the best loved one, the one generations of girls have related to and got hope from, so when she's married off to a (I still maintain!) domineering father figure people mind more than whatever happens to Amy.

Yes there has NEVER been a Mr Rochester who was properly as ugly as he was supposed to be in the book...Timothy Dalton played him in an 80's TV version and he certainly had the dark brooding swarthy looks right, but still a bit too handsome.

Timothy Dalton waaaaaaay to fey. Mr Rochester is a heaving mass of manhood. Not handsome, but sexy.

Agree that Rossano Brazzi also a bit too smooth, although I only see him when I imagine the Prof. I don't think I could have chosen between him and Peter Lawford!

too fey, even. "Waaay to fey" sounds like a folk band.

Yes, I was thinking about starting a song 'do you know the waaaaay to fey? Tim Dalton has gone today ... la la la' (etc).

If you've seen the really old version I think Orson Welles was a brilliant Mr Rochester even if the actress was a bit of a wan Jane Eyre it is still my favourite telling of the tale.

But does Jo end up writing? Really writing? I can't remember - her writing seems subdued, in Little Men, to being a Good Wife And Mother.

I don't really hold with being told what to write by a fatherly chap, in any case.

Yes - she ends up having people invade her garden etc trying to get an eyeful of the great lady writer.

I think they didn't love each other. But I do think Marmee murdered Beth.

OK. Take it back. But still feel a bit short-changed by her lack of pretty bloke.