March | Geraldine Brooks | "Little Women" From Anothor P.O.V

March | Geraldine Brooks | Adding dimension to a one-dimensional classic...

books:

March

	March Geraldine Brooks Penguin (Non-Classics), 2006 - 304 pages average customer review:based on 140 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

From Louisa May Alcott?s beloved classic Little Women, Geraldine Brooks has animated the character of the absent father, March, and crafted a story ?filled with the ache of love and marriage and with the power of war upon the mind and heart of one unforgettable man? (Sue Monk Kidd). With ?pitch-perfect writing? (USA Today), Brooks follows March as he leaves behind his family to aid the Union cause in the Civil War. His experiences will utterly change his marriage and challenge his most ardently held beliefs. A lushly written, wholly original tale steeped in the details of another time, March secures Geraldine Brooks?s place as a renowned author of historical fiction.

?A very great book... It breathes new life into the historical fiction genre [and] honors the best of the imagination.? ?Chicago Tribune
?A beautifully wrought story about how war dashes ideals, unhinges moral certainties and drives a wedge of bitter experience and unspeakable memories between husband and wife.? ?Los Angeles Times Book Review
?Inspired... A disturbing, supple, and deeply satisfying story, put together with craft and care and imagery worthy of a poet.? ?The Cleveland Plain Dealer
?Louisa May Alcott would be well pleased.? ?The Economist

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"Little Women" From Anothor P.O.V

"Little Women" is one book that is a big sentimental favorite with me. It's the first book I reviewed for Amazon and I still re-read it occasionally,because it's like visiting an old friend. I think Ms. Brooks has done a wonderful job with her back-story of Mr. March,the family patriarch,who is really a minor character in the original. He is shown as a highly idealistic man(especially for the times he lived in) A strict vegetarian,extremely intelligent ,unique in his spirituality(the real-life father was a Transcendentalist.) I also really liked how "Marmee" is portrayed. Almost saintlike in "LW",here she is shown as a smart,intense woman. Outspoken and at times,very temperamental,yet still likable,much like her daughter,Jo. Finally this book truly shows the horrors of war and slavery,a subject the original book lightly touched upon,as the LW was written a book for children,girls in particular. I wouldn't reccomend this book to anyone younger than 12 or 13 as there is a lot of graphic depictions of Slavery and the war itself,the injured especially,that are a far cry from Alcott's genteel writing. Overall,I found this book a fast,fascinating read and both a plausible and worthy successor to the original story.

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Adding dimension to a one-dimensional classic...

The "horror", "shock" and "dismay" by reviewers who found March an aborhent departure from the classic that inspired this beautifully conceived novel seems more aptly suited to pre-teens than mature adults. Is it really so amazing that a decent man can be flawed? That a happily married man might, in extraordinary circumstances, stray and break a wedding vow? Or that an idealist's certainty may crumble under the grim reality of war's carnage.

This is fiction people. It uses the skeleton of a story to add flesh and bones to a character who is "the absent presence" in Little Women. It is the novel Louisa May Alcott might have written if she were not constrained by 19th century convention. If one wants that convention perpetuated, I suggest sticking to the "sequels" to Gone With The Wind and Pride and Predjudice. I for one don't care to know what a balding Rhett or a Darcy with arthritis might have been like. But I do greatly appreciate a nuanced portrait of the 19th century with all its idealism and venality. It seems to be a century very much like our own.. And that is historical fiction at its very best.

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Unanimous favorite

This book was a big hit with my book club. Well-developed, interesting characters and a good story. Good historical fiction by an accomplished writer.

very well written and insightful.

excellent historical novel with recognizabile lead character. worthy of the pulitzer that it won.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

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