March
by Geraldine Brooks
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Book Reviews of March
Book Review: Disappointed
Summary: 2 Stars
I started out trying to like this book but I couldn't even finish it. I don't know how Ms. Brooks could take a high-minded chaplain, circa 1860, and turn him into an adulterer who "married" his minister-sister's wife out in a tryst in the pine-laden woods, just coming off doubts of whether he wanted to marry her at all. The marriage was thus born of blind passion, not of thoughtful love? The novel, to me, is just so inconsistent with the thoughtful, gentle original. I agree, Louisa May Alcott must be rolling in her grave. This book turns Mr. March into a man of the twenty-first century, dressing him with modern sensibilities. With all the research that the author is lauded for doing, why can't she seem to get it right on the morrays and morals of the time. She simply takes a historical situation and outfits it with characters that fit more aptly into the present. As for plot, I got half way through the book and still didn't know where it was going. And as for trying to put words in Emerson's and THoreau's mouth--well, I don't feel the stilted dialogue is consistent with what I know about these great writers and thinkers. Overall, I think the novel a desecration and completely out of step with Alcott's gentle and moral tale.Book Review: are all our best intentions in vain?
Summary: 3 Stars
It seemed to me that I was being told one thing in this novel, and shown an entirely different one. That even the best intentions will fail in the realisation. That for every gain, there is a loss. For every misery there is some good. It is not a message that leaves me with much hope. It is just too hard - balancing a myriad of potentialities with a myriad of outcomes. How can we not be swamped by the negatives? This novel nearly did swamp me. Fortunately most of it was sufficiently remote so as not to be personal.
Was there any other way of getting rid of slavery in the southern states as described in this book? Surely there had to be a better way than what is described here! Was there any better way of getting rid of Hitler - consider the losses? A victory was achieved, but..... Was there a better way of getting rid of Saddam Hussein? It is a challenge for all of us to try and work out the other way - perhaps Christ, perhaps Gandhi, perhaps Mandela suggest ways. But I think there must be less submissive, and certainly less damaging ways if only we can find them.
This book did get the thoughts going - but so much of it is ugly and self-pitying. I'm not sure what I can do with it.
Book Review: "Little Women" From Another P.O.V
Summary: 5 Stars
"Little Women" is one book that is a big sentimental favorite with me. It's the first book I reviewed for Amazon and I still re-read it occasionally,because it's like visiting an old friend. I think Ms. Brooks has done a wonderful job with her back-story of Mr. March,the family patriarch,who is really a minor character in the original. He is shown as a highly idealistic man(especially for the times he lived in) A strict vegetarian,extremely intelligent ,unique in his spirituality(the real-life father was a Transcendentalist.) I also really liked how "Marmee" is portrayed. Almost saintlike in "LW",here she is shown as a smart,intense woman. Outspoken and at times,very temperamental,yet still likable,much like her daughter,Jo. Finally this book truly shows the horrors of war and slavery,a subject the original book lightly touched upon,as the LW was written a book for children,girls in particular. I wouldn't reccomend this book to anyone younger than 12 or 13 as there is a lot of graphic depictions of Slavery and the war itself,the injured especially,that are a far cry from Alcott's genteel writing. Overall,I found this book a fast,fascinating read and both a plausible and worthy successor to the original story.Book Review: An ingeniously crafted tale of terribly tragic times!
Summary: 5 Stars
Geraldine Brooks has produced an ingeniously crafted tale of terribly tragic times and has successfully drawn some of her principal characters from Louisa May Alcott's classic, 'Little Women,' creating in the process an elaboration of the life of the Revd. Mr March, father of the little women, who, whilst being an aggravating and hypocritical Yankee clergyman, nevertheless leads an extraordinary life, both in Connecticut and in The South during the American 'Civil War' (or 'War for Southern Independence,' depending upon personal preference: I prefer the latter). The fact that the author cleverly introduces Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson and even John Brown (he of the body and the soul that marches on), all most effectively but without particular surprise in the context, is a tribute to her story-telling skill. The fact that Mr March learns a lot of the complications of that frightful conflict of 1861-1865 is a reflection of the author's fine research and scholarship. The fact that the mid-19th-century language seems to be 'spot-on' to one who reads and enjoys such stuff also reflects well on Ms. Brooks: she has produced another riveting tale, which I could not put down, and I congratulate her!Book Review: 2006 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
Summary: 3 Stars
This book won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. It was written by Geraldine Brooks, author of "The Year of Wonders," which is a wonderful book.
"March" is well written as can be expected. It is the story of Peter March, father of the "Little Women" (Louisa May Alcott). In "Little Women" the father is away while the girls anxiously wait for letters from him.
In this book, Ms. Brooks tells her version of where Mr. March has been and what he has been doing. In this account, Mr. March, a preacher, is off in the civil war, helping as much as he can spiritually. He can't help but get caught up in the fighting and gore, as well as the cause. Mr. March is an avid abolishonist and he finds the attitudes in the South appalling. He becomes a teacher of former slaves and becomes close to many of them.
At the end, Mr. March struggles with emotional uncertainty and guilt.
I recommend this book. It's fun to read an account of Mr. March from another reader's (albeit author's) perspective and imagination. I was just a little disappointed in that I was expecting more after reading "The Year of Wonders" and because this book won the Pulitzer Prize.