From Louisa May Alcott’s beloved classic Little Women, Geraldine Brooks has taken the character of the absent father, March, who has gone off to war, leaving his wife and daughters to make do in mean times. To evoke him, Brooks turned to the journals and letters of Bronson Alcott, Louisa May’s father — a friend and confidant of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. In her telling, March emerges as an idealistic chaplain in the little known backwaters of a war that will test his faith in himself and in the Union cause as he learns that his side, too, is capable of acts of barbarism and racism. As he recovers from a near mortal illness, he must reassemble his shattered mind and body and find a way to reconnect with a wife and daughters who have no idea of the ordeals he has been through.
11 comments:
Excellent choice. Although then I'll read "Little Women" again after that.
Whoa, I just happened to buy that book last night!
(OK, so kc told me ... and I'll probably be renting Little Women).
Oh, that's good! But I have heard that you don't have to have read "Little Women" to enjoy "March."
This book is beautiful.
Does anyone know how to make it so that new comments on a post appear in a sidebar or whatever, so if you think of something to say about an old post people will be alerted to the comment without having to scroll down and check?
I don't think you can do that. We could probably set it up so that people are e-mailed automatically, or you could e-mail people manually, or you could post a new comment that says hey, look at an old comment.
OK, I don't want to be pushy, but where is everyone on this book? I am not quite half way through, but it is fucking fantastic. I haven't been this excited about a piece of contemporary literature in ages. It's lovely, classically good writing, and great story-telling.
I read a book by this author called "Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women," which she wrote as a Mideast correspondent. It was awesome. Written with cultural sensitivity but unflappably feminist. When I heard she wrote fiction I was a little dubious because I am suspicious of reporters' abilities to make up good stories and shake their reportial simplicity.
Her husband, by the way, is a fantastic travel writer. Tony Horwitz. I think he's Australian, but he tramped all over the world with her, and with various friends. I read "Baghdad Without a Map and Other Misadventures in Arabia" and "Blue Latitudes," which traces the voyages of Captain Cook in moder-day vessels. He went everywhere Cook went and does a then-and-now comparison. BUT he has also written a book called "Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War," which might be a good companion piece to "March."
I've only read the first chapter so far, but you're right, it's fantastic.
Oops, I almost posted this comment with a certain other name.
Do we have a due date on reading this? Has everyone at least started?
Yes, let's get a move on. Should we aim for a week from today?
A week from today sounds good to me. I'm 100 pages in; that should be enough time for me to finish.
But I might try to finish quickly. I think cl is waiting on the copy from the library. I'll send her my copy if I can finish soon.
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