March Sisters: On Life, Death, and Little Women
by Kate Bolick (Contributor), Carmen Maria Machado (Contributor), Jane Smiley (Contributor), Jenny Zhang (Contributor)
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On its 150th anniversary, four acclaimed authors offer personal reflections on their lifelong engagement with Louisa May Alcott's classic novel of girlhood and growing up. For the 150th anniversary of the publication of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, Kate Bolick, Jenny Zhang, Carmen Maria Machado, and Jane Smiley explore their strong lifelong personal engagement with Alcott's novel--what it has meant to them and why it still matters. Each takes as her subject one of the four March show more sisters, reflecting on their stories and what they have to teach us about life. Kate Bolick finds parallels in oldest sister Meg's brush with glamour at the Moffats' ball and her own complicated relationship with clothes. Jenny Zhang confesses to liking Jo least among the sisters when she first read the novel as a girl, uncomfortable in finding so much of herself in a character she feared was too unfeminine. Carmen Maria Machado writes about the real-life tragedy of Lizzie Alcott, the inspiration for third sister Beth, and the horror story that can result from not being the author of your own life's narrative. And Jane Smiley rehabilitates the reputation of youngest sister Amy, whom she sees as a modern feminist role model for those of us who are, well, not like the fiery Jo. These four voices come together to form a deep, funny, far-ranging meditation on the power of great literature to shape our lives. show lessTags
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This is an interesting examination of each of the March sisters. The chapters on Meg and Jo are interesting enough, but the chapters on Beth and Amy are innovative and provoking.
All four essays were quite different, and quite good. Each brought quite a personal touch to the discussion of one of the March sisters, comparisons with the author's own lives from larger things like a whole upbringing, to smaller things like choosing a single dress to wear to an awkward social function.
Got some nice kicks of nostalgia just from remembering Little Women itself, and it was interesting to learn about Louisa May Alcott's life, which I didn't know much about before, besides the fact that she based the Marches heavily on her own family.
I don't think the essays were too short, exactly, but the book is a thin volume and it did speed by-- it makes me want essays on Marmee and Laurie and Aunt March too! The only one of the four show more authors I had read before was Carmen Maria Machado, but this makes me want to go out and pick up the other essayists' previous work. show less
Got some nice kicks of nostalgia just from remembering Little Women itself, and it was interesting to learn about Louisa May Alcott's life, which I didn't know much about before, besides the fact that she based the Marches heavily on her own family.
I don't think the essays were too short, exactly, but the book is a thin volume and it did speed by-- it makes me want essays on Marmee and Laurie and Aunt March too! The only one of the four show more authors I had read before was Carmen Maria Machado, but this makes me want to go out and pick up the other essayists' previous work. show less
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Carmen Maria Machado is a LibraryThing Author, an author who lists their personal library on LibraryThing.
Jane Smiley was born in Los Angeles, California on September 26, 1949. She received a B. A. from Vassar College in 1971 and an M.F.A. and a Ph.D from the University of Iowa. From 1981 to 1996, she taught undergraduate and graduate creative writing workshops at Iowa State University. Her books include The Age of Grief, The Greenlanders, Moo, Horse show more Heaven, Ordinary Love and Good Will, Some Luck, and Early Warning. In 1985, she won an O. Henry Award for her short story Lily, which was published in The Atlantic Monthly. A Thousand Acres received both the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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- Canonical title
- March Sisters: On Life, Death, and Little Women
Classifications
- Genres
- Literature Studies and Criticism, Fiction and Literature
- DDC/MDS
- 813.4 — Literature & rhetoric American literature in English American fiction in English Later 19th Century 1861-1900
- LCC
- PS1017 .L53 .B65 — Language and Literature American literature American literature Individual authors 19th century
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 101
- Popularity
- 320,620
- Reviews
- 2
- Rating
- (3.88)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 3
- ASINs
- 1
