I decided upon reading March that I would read with an open mind. Fan fiction is a risky business (although calling March “fan fiction” doesn’t feel quite right, it’s a decidedly more serious work). The reader comes in with all kinds of pre-conceived notions and expectations, and the author can quickly fall out of favor if those expectations are not met.
Having read reviews on Amazon, I knew I’d have to keep an open mind.
Taking no prisoners
March is a powerful read; Geraldine Brooks doesn’t pull any punches. Based on the mostly absent character of Mr. March from Little Women, Brooks fleshes out the character, describing his experiences as a chaplain in the Civil War and how it changed him.
Little Women presents such a sanitized version of Mr. March that the reader has no sense of what he’s been through or what makes him tick. He’s a two-dimensional mystery and Brooks seeks to remedy that.
Jumping right in
Right from the start, she dives into the heart of the matter – the consequences of the Civil War (and any war) on the individual soldiers.
War ain’t pretty!
Chapter 1 is full of very graphic descriptions of injuries and death. Being a rather sensitive soul, I find the need to read over these sections quickly. A leaden feeling in the stomach means memories that will haunt me in the middle of the night. I have a hard enough time sleeping! 🙂 War, however, is far from pretty and a realistic dose is a good thing.
Mr. March and Bronson Alcott
Chapter 2 gets into one of the major hot buttons of the Civil War – slavery and its abolition. Brooks jumps back in time to a 19 year-old March, working as a peddler in the South. This is where background reading on Bronson Alcott really helps. It so enriched the chapter for me being able to draw the parallels between Alcott and March.
The destructive force of slavery
March meets a slave named Grace whom he finds compelling and attractive – this plays out in a later chapter. He also discovers his vocation as a teacher when he is asked to teach a very bright slave girl how to read.
March and Roots
He then comes face to face with the ugliness of slavery and what it does to both black and white. Corrupting the white slave owner from within, the black slave suffers the consequences. I don’t want to give away too many details but suffice it to say I had a sudden urge to check out the episode of Roots where Kizzy is sold off because she helped a fellow slave to escape by forging a traveling pass. Sandy Duncan’s performance as the plantation owner’s niece, Missy Anne, had always impressed me. Here was the perfect example of how slavery corrupted someone from within. Kizzy felt brutal betrayal from her lifelong friend Missy Anne because Missy Anne failed to “protect her”; Missy Anne felt betrayed as well because Kizzy was “stupid” enough to help a fellow slave escape. Very haunting, just like this chapter.
What was Geraldine Brooks thinking?
It was in Chapter 4, however, where I began to figure out Brooks’ intention for this story. Here March meets Marmee; Brooks writes:
“After the service, her brother presented Miss Margaret Marie Day, whom everyone in the family called by the affectionate childhood name of Marmee.”
Her intention
Most provocative! A charming idea, but surely a stretch. Everyone who has cherished Little Women knows that the name of Marmee came from Lousia’s own use of the name for her own mother. Perhaps Brooks means for the name to be used for both as it does sound like a nickname for “mother.” Still, she took a big risk here of alienating readers.
This leads me to believe that Brooks means to be provocative. She wants to poke, prod and shake up the reader so that in no way the reader can remain lukewarm. A strong negative reaction is better than no reaction at all!
I have to admire that kind of courage in a writer; it makes me happy to suspend my expectations and go with the flow of this book.
Death and dying
I plan on using a separate post to explore Chapter 3. Brooks’ view of death is quite different from Louisa May Alcott’s view as shown in Little Women and Hospital Sketches. In the video I posted the other day featuring John Matteson, he read a chapter from his book, Eden’s Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father , where Louisa goes off to war. He cites many of the passages from Hospital Sketches that I had planned on re-reading after reading Chapter 3 of March. How timely that that video came along when Chapter 3 was so fresh in my mind. J
Have you read March? Were you able to suspend your expectations? What did you think?
Are you passionate about Louisa May Alcott too?
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I love the idea of suspending expectations rather than disbelief. It’s a subtle yet important difference. I believe that Mr. March is capable of the shenanigans Brooks creates for him because it’s pretty clear that Jo March has no clue what makes her father tick. The fact that Louisa May Alcott left him a shadowy character allows Brooks to create a fully imagined man of flesh and passionate blood — one that I think history tells us he might actually have been.
I’m looking forward to seeing what you think as you continue to read.
Indeed. Brooks obviously saw a golden opportunity for a great story. Interesting what you say about how Jo March didn’t have a clue as to what made her father tick. I’m not sure Louisa really understood her father either. Obviously it would be too difficult to try and fit him into the story as he was. Funny that she didn’t try to fabricate someone but I’m guessing she wanted it to be essentially a family of women.
I hate to put 21st century sensibilities on 19th century women, but LMA’s relationship with her father was certainly complex and one that I think it’s difficult to us to imagine. It was probably easier for her to just leave him out of the book than provoke him with an autobiographical picture as she did with her mother and sisters. Or maybe she intended to punish him by slighting him…