The Works of Louisa May Alcott

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I still wish Jo and Laurie would've ended up together. Maybe it wouldn't have been the romance of the century, but I think they would have had a companionable and loving marriage. Which lasts longer than mere passion.
Besides, Laurie and Amy having a passionate romance doesn't seem too likely either.
Am I the only one who thinks this?

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I don't see how Laurie and Amy had their one child, Beth. Amy was such a conceited priss; I don't think that SEX was something that she had any conception ;D of.

I thought it was so amusing when she painted things. Never Nudes! It was mainly Fruit, wasn't it? Another reason that I find it difficult to believe in that marriage. Amy would marry a Fruit. Was Laurie really Fruity? I mean he had that girlie name; but he seemed quite the Hetero around Jo.

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Even as I kid when I originally read it, it was too corny for me. The biggest kick I ever got out of that book was when on Friends, Rachel badgered Joey into reading it and he broke down over the Beth part.

The fact that they called their mother "Marmie" drove me insane, for some reason. I couldn't stand it.

[queequeg]

I always liked Little Women (mainly because I identified with Jo - she's sooo gay!) but the follow up, Little Wives, is atrocious and all the stupid baby talk? Ugh.

[dwanollah]

If she'd lived in the 20th Century, Jo would've been VC Andrews.

Lemme toot my own horn a little, too!

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Dwanollah said:

If she'd lived in the 20th Century, Jo would've been VC Andrews.

If the modern-day Professor Bhaer hadn't convinced her to turn to more worthwhile writings. (Chicken Soup for the Soul, perhaps?)
That looks like an interesting thesis, Dwanollah--especially since I'm a big L. M. Montgomery fan. But wasn't Alcott a "spinster" actually? I know Montgomery married.

[dwanollah]

But wasn't Alcott a "spinster" actually?

She was, so she knew all about the whole "literary spinster" life-in-the-public-eye thing. If she hadn't had to please readers and editors, Jo would've remained single as well.

When I was researching in the Princeton Archives, I got to root through the Mary Mapes Dodge collection of letters, and one, in very square handwriting, was a missive from LMA herself, asking her friend Mary if she had room for a "literary spinster" to stay at her NYC pad because she (Louisa, that is) had to be there to get some award or something. It was so amazing... 150 years later, to be holding something handwritten by Louisa May Alcott, that I started welling up with tears there in the freakin' Princeton Special Collections room!

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...wow...that would've given me goosebumps....

[Auroranorth]

Has anyone else read her Gothic stories? I loved A Long Fatal Love Chase (I was a teenager when I first read it and the stalker aspects escaped me, okay? Even after I grasped it, I still like the book because it's such a fabulous exposition of obsession.) She did a lot of novellas/short stories, which were usually good and sometimes scary. Her juvenile stuff is better known, which is unfortunate. I also really liked Work, a Story of Experience. My other favorite piece was an essay she did on being a spinster. She didn't make it sound like hell on earth, you know, "Oh, woe is me, I'm not MARRIED!!!" Carrie Bradshow could have learned from that piece.

[monkeypants]

I've read "Little Women" hundreds of times - (I tutor elementary school kids and make them read Alcott) - and have always come to one conclusion: I still believe that Laurie married Amy on the rebound and spent the rest of his life regretting it.

That's my story and I'm stickin' with it.