[Victoria]

Originally Posted by issybird

Wow, I’ve been thinking about this since you posted and I could go on and on, so people should feel free to skip my witterings here.

The short answer is no, I haven’t reread it. As with Anne, I don’t need to; I read it so many times as a girl. Also as with Anne, I’m aware of issues I now have with the text, so it’s probably just as well I don’t revisit.

The basic outlines and issues in the two books have a lot of similarities. Although Anne is a generation later, both feature feisty surrogate heroines with literary ambitions. Admittedly, Little Women is more serious and much grimmer and doesn’t have the laughs or cheery outlook. I don’t want to be too spoilery for those who will go on with Anne, but ultimately both Jo and Anne are broken by societal expectations and the imposed need to be “good”; for which read selfless and subsuming their personalities to a man’s ambition and woman’s destiny as a wife and mother. Faugh!

And yet when I read them, I was able to take what I needed from them, about being true to yourself and wanting to be in charge of your own destiny. There weren’t a lot of serious girls’ books which provided that same “scope for imagination.” So I know I’m better off not reading about how Professor Bhaer humiliated Jo and destroyed her confidence and kept her from what was turning into a lucrative career (and she needed the money as she supported her family!) and Jo married him anyway.

Thank you - I’ve been wondering for a while. I haven’t reread it either, for similar reasons.

What you say about the disappointing paths of Anne and Jo, and yet being able to take from them what you needed is so true. Of course, both authors were female and subject to the same social expectations as their characters. And as authors, each had qualms about what they’d written, but financial pressures propelled them to keep writing. So even though Anne hasn’t stood the test of time for many, she was absolutely her own person. There had to be something quite authentic at the core of both books, to have fed so many generations of young women.

Rereading Anne has me wondering about the influence of contemporary boys’ books. Would the adventure stories like Tom Sawyer have inspired young men in similar ways?