Sunday Story Ratings #12: Little Women

[aesmael]

Originally published at a denizen's entertainment. You can comment here or there.

Little Women by Louisa M. Alcott

Originally published 1868; this edition 1991

Publisher: Exart Pty Ltd

 

G

(L, D)

Minor Coarse Language

Minor Drug Use

 

Representations

Gender:

Almost all the characters are female, leading to thorough Bechdel-passing. Notions of ideal womanhood are strongly tied to self-denial and sacrifice for others, and duty. Jo struck me as rather delightfully genderqueer (at least), and very disappointed to see her praised for gradually losing this aspect of herself.

Sex:

Implicitly heterosexual only.

Race & Ethnicity:

When I read the book I had a strong suspicion their maid is black, but I did not notice any direct indication or acknowledgement of race or ethnicity, apart from some US-English rivalry in which the English characters unsurprisingly came off worse.

Disability, Physical Diversity and Health:

One character suffers a serious illness during the course of the story.

 

I was rather puzzled when I finished reading this (on New Year's Eve, at Sydney Harbour waiting for the fireworks), because much of what I had picked up about the book from popular culture did not seem to be present. A possible reason presented itself when I tried to add the book to my library on LibraryThing - despite claiming on the cover to be 'complete and unabridged', the copy I read was missing the sequel volume Good Wives, which seems to be pretty consistently packaged together as part of the same novel, to which further volumes are considered sequels. So, it could be that much of what I thought would happen actually takes place in that volume.

 

While I often enjoyed the characters and their interactions, and especially Jo, I don't think I'd like to read any further of this. The moral thread of the story was a bit too dissonant for me to want more.

Comments

[coniferous_you]

I was surprised to see that Good Wives was a companion volume when I first encountered it. I saw a nice hardbound copy at a bookstore and I almost bought it but then I think I didn't because it was leather? I don't remember, but it also wasn't a great example of Alcott's writing. Little Men is generally the accepted "true" sequel, although Jo's Boys isn't awful and is an okay interpretation of masculinity for the time.

One character suffers a serious illness during the course of the story.

And twice at that! It was heart-wrenching that it happened a second time.

Although I don't think we can effectively apply the Queer Theory lens to things that existed before the first real iteration of this branch of literary theory in the sense of labeling characters that predate the theory, there was something reactionary to Jo's tomboyish nature persisting into adulthood. The reformed tomboy was a popular trope, and was one that persisted into the work of later writers, such as LM Montgomery (who had many of her characters follow this pattern). I personally think that it is the imposition of editors to make the girl "grow up" (i.e., assume a more feminine role) - but that's because I know that's what happened with Anne Shirley and I want to suspect the best of Alcott because I like her writing.

The movies all kind of played with the events of the book in their own ways. The 1933 one emphasized the drama; the 1949 version emphasized the comedy; and the 1993 remake really ran with the latent feminist elements. Maybe that's why you have phantom memories of this book before reading it?

Great post; I was surprised to see that this was a book I not only recognized and have read, but one that I really enjoyed (both in the sense that I liked the story and, similar to Paradise Lost, one that I return to for other reasons).

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

For some reason, US editions of Little Women usually include both "books" in one volume, but English-language versions outside of the US are often sold as two separate books, Little Women and Good Wives. (Or is it Young Wives?) I do not know why, but it is annoying.

[aesmael.livejournal.com]

The US version seems a bit more sensible from what little I have read (which is not much). It seems like Alcott sold Good Wives as volume 2 of the story, and the others as sequels. Which I did not know at all beforehand. But now that I do, would expect and prefer them to be sold together.

Well, except I am a bit glad they weren't because I didn't have to read about anyone dying.

(I think I am correct in reading you as saying it is annoying for non-US English editions to have them separated, which I agree with)

It is also a bit weird as Alice's Adventures in Wonderland had both books together, but not the third.

[aesmael.livejournal.com]

I am a bit glad I didn't get Good Wives included in this book (which I actually borrowed from my mother's shelves) when I found out it wasn't, because I would have been very sad to read that second illness. It was tense enough the first time, and relieving to see the apparent recovery. Did make me wonder how - if - family members got through family illnesses without falling sick themselves, and how common it was among those who lived to adulthood, if they were more often fortunate not to get sick, or if they fell ill and recovered. Certainly plenty of examples of people who never did quite recover and may or may not have died young consequently.

Aya, I do feel a bit uncomfortable calling Jo genderqueer, but I also felt tomboy seemed a bit insufficient as a term. This may well be inexperience on my own part of course and Jo matches tomboyishness far better than I realise, but ah well if so. It does bother me that of all the stories I've done ratings for, and even in the past before I started numbering over again, I think Jo may be the only viewpoint character I've felt could get away with being described as having a queer identity. That's rather disappointing.

I think you might be disappointed as well, because I have a run of trashy fiction lined up after this. Don't know when will be the next you're likely to have heard of, let alone read. Especially since most of the ones that are called classics which we have in the house I've already read. Very much enjoyed reading your commentary too, which makes me sad to expect you won't have much to add on books I read for a while again. (I think our reading is most likely to overlap with things called classics, but maybe I will get lucky with something newer?)

Haven't seen any of the movies, fairly sure. Most of the impressions I got came from shows like The Simpsons and Friends.

Hm. Forgot to mention there were a lot of typographical errors in the copy I read, that was disappointing. Am assuming those are not canonical.

Trum-ti-tum-ti-tum, time to post another.

[coniferous_you]

I think labelling Jo is just difficult because we don't have any current terms that suit entirely. But she is clearly dissatisfied with the status quo for women at the time, and in some ways it might be possible to argue that she is a mouthpiece for the author, as their lives are similar in some critical ways. I like to think that Jo is Jo or Jo is Louisa May Alcott; it's just easier that way.

Aha! Well, it's only trash if you make it that way. An imaginative, critical eye can make meaning out of anything. But you're possibly right in that we'd have "Classics" in common. Otherwise, I read YA and Canadian fiction.

Typographical errors are why I enjoy having multiple copies of books. Typos in the first edition make me feel like not enough work was applied to the copyediting phase, but typos in reprints make that particular reprint stand distinct to its similarly-contented brethren. (One of the more recent re-prints of LM Montgomery's entire canon is filled with very strange typos, for instance).