A question about Little Women.

[CurlewKate]

That scene at the beginning where they each find a book under their pillow. What book is it? I ask because I have always thought one thing-and I discover my best bookish friend thinks something else….

I thought so too!

I do hope it’s the NT as my copy of PP had the most terrible illustration of burdens. Great bulbous fleshy loads holding onto our shoulders with long fingered hands. They still feature in my nightmares.

Where?

No.

Why on earth did the woman not simply just say?

I mean, I'm being silly in a way, but actually maybe that's the most interesting thing about it all. What is at stake in naming the book, and why mightn't you? Why would it all be so coded like this, in a way that clearly intimates that the reader ought to know, but also refuses to commit to words? That, if anything, is the most compelling argument for its being the Bible or parts of it, actually. Even though I've been team PP all along so far.

God, yes, you're giving me flashbacks. Though I think I'm actually thinking of my first introduction to PP, which was in Enid Blyton's retelling for young children, The Land of Far Beyond, which had terrifying illustrations.

What is at stake in naming the book, and why mightn't you? Why would it all be so coded like this, in a way that clearly intimates that the reader ought to know, but also refuses to commit to words?

I suppose she thought that many of her readers would have similar - Sunday School prizes and so on - and would know what she meant without needing explanations.

'The best life ever lived' must mean Jesus, though - otherwise it's open to debate.

Well I think it’s already open to debate. Death at 33 by crucifixion is not my idea of the best life ever lived!

It doesn’t mean best as in ‘most enjoyable’!

Obviously not 😅

I'm sure it was NT. It would be much more likely than PP to be available in different coloured editions. Also, PP is fiction, not a record of 'the best life ever lived.'
Dismal present. And then breakfast carted off to the even more dismal Hummels.

It was Pilgrims Progress by John Bunyan.

I doubt she thought it was coded or needed to be explained. What sort of heathens would be reading the book and would not know? It would be unthinkable, like not knowing what the Good Book is, or what the Golden Rule is.

Yes, this is it. It wouldn’t have needed explaining to anyone at the time what the ‘greatest life ever lived’ referred to.

Well yes but I mean if you're going to go by that rule, why would you need to explain that snow is cold or hunger not very nice? I do think there's a level of cloak and dagger about it which is almost preachy. And which makes me lean a little bit more to the possibility of it being NT, as though she's saying 'now of course, boys and girls, you all know what this book would be, don't you?'

I do think there's a level of cloak and dagger about it which is almost preachy.

Well, it is an incredibly preachy book! 😄

The whole damn book is preachy. It's sort of the point.

Quite

Pilgrims Progress. I think it is referred to.

Now I’m going to have to re-read the first chapter!

The Hummels get their revenge later by their baby nearly killing Beth.

A dish best served as cold as the breakfast brought through the snow would have been ....

Yes, but the preachiness is presented as deeply lovable. Even someone as bolshy and sparky as Jo is reduced to floods of filial tears by some repellently preachy letter from their father about his ‘little women’ making him proud..

All the girls are depicted as having to be preached at and cut down to size — poor Meg, with her hardly unnatural thirst for dressing up and the occasional bit of fun rather than sharing a pair of gloves and giving her breakfast to the Hummels on Christmas Day, gets taken to task by the younger, spectacularly wealthy Laurie for once drinking champagne and wearing her friend’s nice dress.

Jo is rebuked by Professor Bhaer from trying to make a living by writing pulp fiction.

Amy only bags Laurie once she’s given up her selfish artistic ambitions and become all patient and womanly.

Even Marmee is lectured about her temper by her ghastly husband before he disappears off to war, leaving her to raise four children on a shoestring.

Only Beth is perfect, because she never has any desires whatsoever other than dusting, playing the piano and hanging out with the cats.

Well yes. The girls accept and embrace the preachiness - exactly the point.

I have always loathed Mr March. He lost all his property helping a friend, apparently (like Bronson I think?). And the women are all supposed to be not only ok with this but respect him all the more for it!
Aunt March had a point - arguably the real heroine of the story who gets a bit eclipsed in the Plumfield annals later on I think, despite making Jo’s school project possible.