Like Alice, it's been a long, long time since I read this. And again I am amazed by the genius of the writer. I have read and reread it since I was very young - I was probably in single digits when I read it the first time and have never failed to cry over Beth's death and Jo's rejection of Laurie and to be charmed by Meg's romance, and amused by Jo's.
The amazing thing is that all of these characters seem so vital, so real, in spite of being surrounded by as incredible a weight of moralizing I have ever read. If the sermons were removed, the book would probably be reduced by half. And yet - who can forget the plays performed for an audience seated on their bed and the Pickwick Club. And then there are all of Marmee's gentle lectures and the object lessons that each of the girls picks up along the way. Perhaps Marmee's confessions of her own faults help lighten the lectures.
The least persuasive character is their father, who is endowed with saintly wisdom and virtue and apparently without fault or flaw. Did the Alcott girls actually see their father in that way, do you suppose? In many ways Papa March is supposed to be patterned on Bronson Alcott - Certainly in that he reduced the family to financial ruin.
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