Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

If Little Women were a comestible, it would be like milk and honey: wholesome, mild, and nourishing, to be sure; but sweet, so sweet, almost unbearably so; and moreover, replete with biblical connotations. Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy are the March girls, and Alcott, drawing on her childhood, chronicles a turbulent year in their lives. Their father is a Union soldier in the Civil War, and the family's finances are precarious, so the girls and their mother manage as best they can while maintaining their moral fortitude and love and commitment to each other.

The book is soaked with the flavor of the 1800s, evoking an era in which a girl could reach the age of sixteen without ever having looked at a boy as more than a friend, and then at seventeen become engaged. But though Marmee and Papa take the traditionally staid views of propriety in relationships, their position on women's rights is strikingly progressive. They accept the necessity of sending the older girls to work, and encourage useful endeavor. When Papa returns home, he commends Meg: "I remember a time when this hand was white and smooth...this hardened palm has earned something better than blisters."

Altogether the girls are excellent examples of solid Protestant work ethic. They assume their duties as cheerfully as they can, and though they err from time to time, they are quick to amend their follies. They entertain themselves well and get along most of the time, performing plays, hosting clubs, and assembling newspapers. Even their leisure is admirable. When asked about her plans for summer vacation, Jo replies, "'I've laid in a heap of books, and I'm going to improve my shining hours reading on my perch in the old apple-tree.'"

Alcott based Jo on herself, reflecting her penchant for literature. The novel is full of educated allusions, from Shakespeare to Dickens to Thackeray. But it is apparent that the author was rather young when she wrote the book. Many passages suffer from facile sentence constructions and a wordiness awkward even for the time in which they were written. Alcott seems to be afraid of "said;" one finds, in the first chapter alone, to wit: "grumbled," "sighed," "added," "cried," "began," "advised," "returned," "observed," "sang," "continued," "answered," "announced," and "exclaimed."

Much of Little Women reads like a primer. The tone tends toward didactic and the moral lessons are quite overt. The girls face adversity, but they are steadfast, and everything comes right in the end. Characters are developed admirably. The story is exceedingly instructive, suitably nutritious for the children it was obviously written for, but perhaps too treacly for the likes of me.