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Dear readers, this is now the third time in that many days I’ve made this confession (although the event in question only happened twice):  I didn’t finish the reading.  I didn’t finish (and barely started) the reading for (virtual) Advent study.  And I didn’t finish reading Little Women before book club.  I still haven’t in fact, but I’m thoroughly enjoying it (and expect to finish later today).  I’m in good company because not only was it the first time Ashley and I didn’t finish the book, it’s also the first time no one, that’s right, NO ONE finished the book!  To be fair, it was a reread for everyone, and we still had a great discussion (more on that below).

We don’t have a full line up of 2021 Virtual Book Club Selections, but we do have your mission ready for you, should you choose to accept and join us at 7:30 p.m. CST on February 12, 2021:  Sarah J. Maas’s A Court of Thorns and Roses trilogy, and the follow up novella, A Court of Frost and Starlight.  Does it make total sense to follow up a book club where zero people finished the book with a trilogy plus a novella?  No not at all.  Here’s what does make sense though: we’ve been raving about these books for years, several of our regular virtual book club attendees have already read them (including all of Friday’s attendees), and THE NEXT BOOK COMES OUT FEBRUARY 16!  Is this self serving?  Yup.  Do Ashley and I really need to read this series a sixth (I think) time?  Also yes, a thousand times, yes.  Also, darlings, when we get together to chat about this, there will be spoilers.  It’s happening, so prepare yourselves.  You have just shy of two months, but if you read the description and think this is up your alley, maybe wait until you have a few days off and then consume the series.  I *may* have read the trilogy and then immediately started over and reread the whole thing again.  If you get stuck on a piece of it, DM us.  We’ll help you through, as we’ve done for one reader already.  We are pumped for the new book and want you to join us for this wild ride!  Sign up here to let us know you’re in, or at least considering it!  

Back to our book club recap on Little Women:  In addition to being the first book club where no one finished the book (recently), this was also the first book club where we didn’t talk as much about the book.  We discussed the sisters and the family and what drew is to the story originally, but we focused more of our conversation on the movies.  There were some loves and hates for the 2019 film, which Ashley and I saw together in the theater, after having a brunch meeting in public (remember when we could do these things?!).  There was conversation as to the merits versus nostalgia of the 1994 adaptation.  Here’s the thing – the movies are very different from each other and from the book.  It’s a 19 hour audiobook (read by Christina Ricci), so cutting it down to a 2 hour or so movie means cutting a ton of content.  Like any true bibliophiles, we decided the cutting was suboptimal, even if we did (mostly) enjoy the films.  I may have been partially joking in the book club section of our posts about Little Women with the pickled limes and such, but as I type and listen to the soundtrack to the 1994 film, it warms me up from the inside out and brings me such joy as well as showing me the film in my head as the score plays on in the background.  I got the VHS one Christmas, and not just any, but the one in the nice plastic case, and I watched it SO, so many times (the paper case would have been destroyed).  The nostalgia is real because the film is good, and I still adore it, but the text is SO much better (as it usually is, le sigh).  

One piece I have especially enjoyed about rereading Little Women is finding the passages of dialogue from some of the more memorable scenes (like when Amy burns Jo’s manuscript or when Jo refuses Laurie) and remembering that the screen writers used the original lines, which says they were paying attention.  I also am reading an edition with a very interesting forward that I thoroughly enjoyed.  This forward includes details like notes on the editing that occurred as new editions were published, specifically that the 1880 version included “innumerable text changes….Alcott’s vigorous slang, colloquialisms, and regionalisms were replaced by a blander, more refined and ‘ladylike’ prose.”  According to the editor, the 1880 version is the edition most modern readers know, with the now smoothed edges of Alcott’s imagination that were formerly rough, and her voice toned down.  The note on the text states that the editor decided to present the text in its original, uncorrected form, using the 1868 and 1869 texts with renumbered chapters due to the inclusion of the two volumes in one book.  It was / is delightful, and although 20+ years later, I can’t swear to the version I read back then, there are definitely parts of this edition that feel brand new to me, and what a gift that is in a classic, especially knowing I’m reading an original version of the text rather than one that feels dolled up for a dance.  

I am so glad that Ashley chose Little Women as our focus this month, and really pleased with the edition I chose to read.  I give both a solid four stars and am likely to reread this again, probably in less than 20 years this time, and I want to watch the 1994 and 2019 versions again.  The soundtrack I keep mentioning is also likely to join me in the coming weeks as I continue to hold up at home with my little men.  

What well-loved book have you reread and been pleasantly surprised to love more after a reread?  (Little Women and A Court of Thorns and Roses are both included in my answer!)  

~Nikki 

Book club was excellent, and I loved discussing Little Women with my people. But there comes a time, on most days of the week/month/year, when I don’t have those people at my beck and call to discuss the wonderful world of the March family.  And in those times when I feel the pull to be with the Marches, the screen is where I find solace. I’m not talking about my kindle screen, though I have been known to watch movies there when necessary. I love to watch how others have interpreted these characters and made them come alive for audiences around the globe.

My first experience was in 1994, seeing the Gillian Armstrong directed version where Winona Ryder plays Jo, Christian Bale plays Laurie, and Susan Sarandon plays Marmee. This is, I think, the movie version most people between the ages 60 and 25 talk about when they discuss the movie Little Women. It is, for both myself and Nikki, a whopping bowl of nostalgia when watching this film or listening to the soundtrack. It would have been 3rd or 4th grade when I saw this movie in the theatre for the first time, a theatre that has now been turned into a church, but I digress, which was right around the time when I first read Little Women in its entirety, not the abridged version many classics have undergone. Let’s be real, I wanted those 36 Accelerated Reader points like nobody’s business, and look where it got me. We love the 1994 version for the romance and the sisterhood and the handsome male lead who looks rather debonair with either a book or weird facial hair covering half his face. But, we tolerate how Kirsten Dunst grows up to become Samantha Mathis, and neither one truly conveys the facets of the youngest March sister who in the book changes and grows so very much. But, why don’t we get to see the end of the book? Where’s the family at Plumfield celebrating Marmee? If you love this version as much as I do, you can watch it for free with commercials through Prime and IMDB at the link above.

Last year at this time, Greta Gerwig’s interpretation of Louisa May Alcott’s most popular novel was released in theatres and Nikki and I went on a field trip in January to see it together. There are pictures, we can prove it. We wore our Puffin in Bloom shirts. And we’ve admitted that the first time you watch this version, and it’s nothing like the 1994 version you’re expecting, you can be a little shocked, a little intrigued, and then you ponder over your feelings for a few days, and realize that the point of this movie is not the same as the point of the Gillian Armstrong version. Gerwig assumes going into the movie that you know what’s going to happen in the end, so the jumping of timelines as you watch Jo March reflect on her own life, as played by Saoirse Ronan, while she watches her book be published is a dare, and it pays off. I appreciate that there is only one actor playing one role, rather than how Armstrong ages Amy by choosing another actor. Florence Pugh is top notch and quickly becoming one of my favorite actresses. (So ready to see her play Yelena Belova in Black Widow like, now, damn it pandemic that must not be named.) I have much more respect for Amy as a character. She undergoes the changes of both age and place and can still be childlike and fun in the scene where she meets Laurie in Europe and then demands his respect as a grown woman in the following scenes. Worth watching the dressing down of a 19th century man (who looks like a boy, sweet, sweet, Timothée Chalamet) by signing up for a Starz trial, free for seven days.

During my time in California, when Nikki and I were obsessing over Poldark and other PBS Masterpiece shows, I signed up for PBS Passport to catch up with the seasons I had missed. During that time I also decided to watch the 2017 three episode mini-series of Little Women produced by the BBC.  You can currently watch it free on Amazon Prime, and you should if you’re remotely interested in watching Michael Gambon as Mr. Laurence and Angela Lansbury as Aunt March. The acting is great but it’s a much quieter interpretation of the book than Gerwig’s, and for me, less memorable. Though it could have something to do with my watching it while I folded laundry.

Now, for those versions I haven’t seen that I would be remiss to not mention so let’s view them in reverse chronological order:

2018: A modern interpretation of the lives of the March sisters featuring no actor I have ever heard of.

1986 – 1987: Japanese animated 4 season series directed by Fumio Kurokawa found on Amazon Prime Video as Tales of Little Women

1978: A 2 episode mini-series with William Shatner as Professor Bhaer. I bet I can get Adam to watch it with me. The DVD cover states that it won an Emmy. Things you learn late night on the internet.

1970: BBC Series of 9 episodes where it’s reported some b-roll is obviously from the modern era cause there are some cars on the streets of Europe. Whoops.

1958: Film Version where Florence Henderson of Brady Bunch fame plays Meg March.

1949: Where Elizabeth Taylor plays Amy.

1933: Academy Award winner Katharine Hepburn plays tomboy Jo March.

1918: Tagline: A Picturization of Alcott’s Immortal Story.

1917: United Kingdom Silent film.

And now, dear readers, you’re not going to have to scour the internet for more information and links about these versions because I have happily provided them for you. If ever you want to dissect a version, let me know, I’ll do my best to accommodate your theories and interpretations!

~Ashley

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