★★★★★ Jo March is the heart of Little Women

Little Women

Louisa May Alcott

** spoiler alert **

I first read Little Women somewhat late in life, by which I mean not as a child -- I was already a college student. That was still a LONG time ago, around 1975 at a guess. As usual for books I read long ago, I remember the characters better than the plot. (And actually, my memory of the plot of Little Women owes more to Greta Gerwig's 2019 film, which, while excellent, is not entirely faithful to the book.)

The main characters, of course, are the March sisters. The definitive word on the sisters is this quote from Beth,

Dear little bird! See, Jo, how tame it is. I like peeps better than the gulls. They are not so wild and handsome, but they seem happy, confiding little things. I used to call them my birds last summer, and Mother said they reminded her of me—busy, quaker-colored creatures, always near the shore, and always chirping that contented little song of theirs. You are the gull, Jo, strong and wild, fond of the storm and the wind, flying far out to sea, and happy all alone. Meg is the turtledove, and Amy is like the lark she writes about, trying to get up among the clouds, but always dropping down into its nest again. Dear little girl! She's so ambitious, but her heart is good and tender, and no matter how high she flies, she never will forget home. I hope I shall see her again, but she seems so far away.

(A peep, by the way, is a sandpiper. Had to look that up.)

For me Jo March was the heart of Little Women, the reason to read the book. She is obviously autobiographical. Reading Little Women as a college student, I was immediately drawn to a comparison I might not have made had I read it as a kid: Laura Ingalls. As Beth so aptly describes, both Jo and Laura are gulls, "strong and wild, fond of the storm and the wind". But they are birds in cages. The later Little House books, particularly Little Town on the Prairie and These Happy Golden Years, read to me as shrieks of desperation. It is so obvious that 16-year-old Laura wants nothing more than to be free, but her alternatives are two: she can teach school, or she can marry. Almanzo Wilder was a lucky guy -- he was an OK fellow, but he didn't deserve her. He was her escape. The real Jo, Louisa May Alcott, contrived a better escape for herself as a lifelong spinster author (self-description), but she couldn't manage it for Jo.

Little Women is not without faults. Beth is so saccharine as to be nigh-unbearable. Also, the ending, in which Jo marries Professor Bhaer, is just weird and virtually comes out of nowhere.

Still, I mostly judge books by their strengths, not their weaknesses. And Jo makes Little Women great.

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