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People of the Book: A Novel by Geraldine Brooks |
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Marchby Geraldine Brooks |
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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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Beautifully written book.....not so great ending. - |
March Review |
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I won't go into details about the plot; amazon has already done a pretty decent job at that. What I do want to do is address some of the other reviewers' comments and also talk a little bit about why I gave this book 4 stars and not 5.
First: This book is NOT a sequel to "Little Women." Anyone who complains that "as a sequel to 'Little Women' this book sucks" is, I'm afraid, an idiot who neither owns, nor has access to, a dictionary. "March" is what you would call a revisionist text -- it takes characters and storylines from one story (in this case, Louisa May Alcott's "Little Women"), and uses them to create an entirely new universe of the author's making. Like most people who have read it, I love "Little Women." Unfortunately, it is somewhat hampered by 19th century conventions regarding what is and is not proper to write about. Written more than a century and a half later, "March" does not suffer from any of those pitfalls. We get sex, violence, and an abundance of passion -- none of which is gratuitous. Most importantly, we get to see the virtuous figures of Marmee and Mr. March, sketched in "Little Women," in a completely new (and far more complex, interesting, and realistic) light. To get a few other things out of the way: stylistically, Ms. Brooks' writing here is nearly flawless. She has the voice of a poet, without being pretentious, schlocky, or needlessly verbose. On several occasions, her words brought me to tears. Don't trust the words of any reviewer who gripes that the book "is too long" or "drags way too much in the beginning" -- I'm fairly certain the person is either a callow teen or else a supremely ignorant adult who can only stomach things written by authors like Dan Brown. Here is my beef with this book: SPOILER ALERT! (1) I wanted to hear more from Marmee. I can't tell you how welcome and refreshing her point of view / narrative was after keeping company with the high-minded, highly naive, and somewhat exasperating, Mr. March, for so many chapters. Her realization that she has been betrayed and lied to for so many years, by her lover, her partner, and her confidante, was for me, the climax of the novel. How would she confront him, I wondered? Would she berate him, shame him, remind him of all that she sacrificed for the sake of his misguided idealism? Marmee never gets her day, unfortunately. A true martyr (more than Mr. March could ever claim to be), she bites her tongue for the sake of her daughters. She remains ever supportive of her husband during his recovery, and provides him with the love and physical comforts he needs to heal and come back home to his family. (2) I realize that Bronson Alcott (and therefore, Mr. March), was an idealist, a philospher, an intellectual -- in short, a man of the mind, and not of the world. For the most part, I was able to go with the flow and accept him for what he was without judgment or censure. But towards the end of the novel, I started getting angry. While his loyal wife and expectant daughters waited for him to come home, he slowly recovered in a hospital in Washington only to....decide that he would follow Grace, his one-time love, in her duties as a war nurse?? And here's the kicker -- because he feels he is not WORTHY enough to come home to his family?! Selfish is what he is. Basically, we the readers are told that the only reason March goes back to Concord is because Grace tells him to. What a coward. What would his precious daughters think of him if they knew about his deceit, his disloyalty, his inconstancy? In the last pages of the novel he looks at each of his daughters and sees only the slaughtered slaves he left behind in the battlefields. What a father. Don't get me wrong. This is an incredible book, and very deserving of all the accolades it has garnered. Much like its main character, however, it is imperfect. Read the novel, by all means, and revel in every beautifully crafted and heart-wrenching sentence. But do not expect to come away from the experience with anything less than the feeling that the novel, much like its protagonist, could have come to a better, and far more settling, conclusion. |
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I Loved Meeting Mr. March And Hearing His Story -  |
March Review |
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This is one of the most Pulizer-worthy novels I've read in a long while. The novel tells the previously untold story of the absent father in Louisa May Alcott's Little Women (Signet Classics). In Little Women, the reader only gets to know Peter March through his letters sent home to his family from the Civil War. Of course, in the interest of sparing his family the details of war, his letters are more cheerful than his reality. Geraldine Brooks uses the novel March to tell of Mr. March's early life as a traveling salesman, of his first kiss with someone other than his future wife, of the meeting of his wife, of his connections to Emerson and Thoreau, of his strong abolitionist sentiments, of the war that changed him both physically and mentally, and of misunderstandings and wrongs that were never made right in his life. Brooks draws heavily from the journals of Alcott's own father, Bronson Alcott, in order to flesh out the character of Mr. March. Since the "little women" in Alcott's novels were based on the members of her own family, it makes sense that Mr. March would be based on her father and that the March family would be acquainted with the same people they were. The Alcotts were, after all, contemporaries and acquaintances of many of the transcendentalist thinkers and writers of the time such as Emerson and Thoreau.
This is definitely the best prequel written by a different author that I've ever read. I remember being completely disappointed trying to read sequels or prequels by different authors for books such as Gone with the Wind. The author's journalistic background definitely helped her to give attention to the proper details needed to research such a book. I initially did not recognize the name of the author as being the author of Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women, a book that I loved so much that I ... er ... bought it from the library pretending that I'd lost it (in the days before amazon.com made any book accessible for purchase). Nine Parts of Desire is a work of non-fiction that she wrote as a journalist. So I'm thrilled to see that she has such a beautiful piece of fiction out there as well. Halfway through the book, I found myself saying to myself, "wow, this is a good book" and hoping to read something else by her soon. |
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LIttle Women Grows Up - |
March Review |
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This book can be appreciated on two levels. First, it is an enthralling novel of the Civil War filled with well-researched details about the people and not the battles. Second, and the reason I bought it, is that it is the adventures of Mr. March, the rather vague and saintly father from Little Women. Little Women was one of the very first books I had ever read and I fell in love with the March family. Reading MARCH was like discovering things about your parents' pasts that both shocked you and made you admire them. I had just finished "Eden's Outcasts", a biography of Louisa May Alcott and her father Bronson Alcott and this book was so close to Bronson Alcott that I had to keep reminding myself it was a novel. Some readers might be disturbed by the nature of Mr. March's fall from grace. But his sins serve to illuminate his goodness. If you want to preserve your images of the March family from your childhood reading, don't read this. If you want to find out more about Alcott herself and what might lie behind the stage dressing of her novels, read it. |
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What War Does to Families - |
March Review |
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Brooks' revision of the beloved classic tale of the March family fills in the gaps that Alcott could not provide: the devastating effects of war on both the soldier and the family members waiting at home. I disagree with other reviewers that the book spoils the beauty of the close-knit March family we know from the original tale. Instead, I believe both narratives can exist side by side. Brooks has written a hauntingly beautiful book that you will think about for a long time. |
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Moving, Thought, Provoking, Insightful - |
March Review |
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I previously read Geraldine Brook's 'People of the Book' and 'Year of Wonders'. 'Year of Wonders' is one of my all time favorite books. I really enjoyed this story as well.
Brooks has created a moving account of Mr. March's experience during the Civil War. Mr. March is the father in Louisa May Alcott's Little Women. This was our book club's book choice for September. I had every intention of reading Little Women before I started reading March. I never read Little Women and I thought I should have the back story before reading about Mr. March's. I checked out Little Women from my local library and started to read about the four March sisters but I didn't make it very far. I think with books, like many other things in life, 'timing is everything'. Little Women is clearly written for young girls and I am not a young girl, I feel certain that I missed my chance to love Louisa Alcott's classic by about thirty years or so. And from the sound of the reviews from people who loved Little Women, perhaps my experience or lack thereof helped me enjoy this story better than I would have if I had read Little Women. I didn't have my own ideas about Mr. March and how perfect he was and so, I didn't feel betrayed or disappointed by anything he did. I thought that Brooks painted a vivid picture of the complications that a man like Mr. March would endure as a chaplain during the civil war and as an idealist. I thought the characters Brooks brings to life were realistic with both their strengths and weaknesses portrayed. Many times we think we understand these characters and their motivations only to discover we were wrong. I enjoyed March's narration and perspective. I thought it was very clever of Brooks to give Mrs. March a chance to narrate and give us her perspective, there are two sides to every marriage and I was interested in hearing hers. I found it to be a moving and insightful story that I would recommend to fans of historical fiction and I would say this would be a great choice for a book club that enjoys intellectual discussions. |
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