March by Geraldine Brooks Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of March
Book Review: Civil War Period
Summary: 5 Stars
I have read a couple of Geraldine Brook's other novels, "People of the Book" and "Year of Wonders" (the story of the Plague) and loved both of them. This novel, "March", is different from her previous works, but equally as interesting and thought provoking.
Mr. March, the fictional father who went off to the civil war in Louisa May Alcott's novel "Little Women", is the main character in this book. It is interesting to see the male perspective of war from a man who is compassionate and hates the very idea of slavery and everything it entails. He realizes that intelligent people can still harbor so many misconceptions and can actually justify slavery and the raw, horrible treatment of human beings. I truly enjoyed this book.
Book Review: Could have been mawkish
Summary: 3 Stars
March- an "outtake" from Alcott's Little Women- could have been a sentimental and mawkish tale of the father's experiences while seaparated from his family during the Civil War. But it was much less so than I had feared. The war and hospital events were rather straightforward,showing the uneven and primative care the injured military received, and the stories of the "brave girls" back home were not too intrusive. The protagonist's motivation for going to war was his idealism, and the unreality of that was made very clear in the course of the novel. Some of the people in my book group were bothered by father March's less than ideal character, as they had been hoping for a continuation of the Alcott novel. They were particularly disturbed because he did not tell the whole truth to his family in his letters- surely characteristic of men and women in extremely trying circumstances. Perhaps the side-bar love story was too easily solved, but other than that, I found the story reasonably good reading.Book Review: Definitely not Alcott's "Little Women"
Summary: 2 Stars
I started reading this book expecting to like it - it's historical, related to Little Women, won the Pulitzer, doesn't feel like fluff, etc. However I had a really difficult time getting into the book.
For one, the language sounded much more pretentious than historically accurate. I've read other works from the time period she's supposed to be writing in, and rather than feeling in keeping with that era, this book felt indicitive of someone who makes full use of her thesaurus.
Also, I haven't read her other book so i didn't enter this novel with a trust for the author. Consequentally, I found that as she mentioned connections to Little Women, I became defensive. She had not proven to me that she had the right to use this work. In some of her character choices, such as one of the first encounters between March and Marmee (I'm not going to go into details so as not to spoil the scene), I believe that she made a radical departure from anything that Alcott would have written of her characters, and that Brooks really did not stay true to the original.
The first half of the book is also really dry. This could just be my personal taste, but the first half moved so slowly! The book started to pick up about half way through. Overall, the story being told and the Civil War aspects weren't bad, and could be a decent story in their own right if she'd just speed things along at the beginning.
However, I think Brooks did the book a major disservice by linking it to Little Women. I bristled every time she mentioned an individual from the book, because she was really changing their characters (other than Aunt March). The choices that Brooks' characters made were not in keeping with choices they may have made in Alcott's book.
In the afterward, Brooks discussed her research and how she actually based the March family and particularly Mr. March more on the Alcott family itself than on the characters from Little Women, even commenting how the March Family in Alcott's book isn't very interesting, and how "Nobody in real life is such a goody-goody as that Marmee." If she felt that way, then why use them as the basis for her book? Seen in that context, her earlier *huge* liberties with Marmee's character seem to just be a way to "stick it" to Alcott: "ha ha, look how much more realistic Marmee is now!"
Book Review: Depredations, agues, bruits, opprobriums and things chimerical, exigent and profligate...
Summary: 3 Stars
Before reading Geraldine Brooks' Pulitzer Prize-winning work of fiction about a family - primarily the head of the March family of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, about another family - that of Alcott, you may want to dust off your dictionary. As in her previous novel, she uses old-fashioned words extensively and effectively. Like Alcott's father, A. Bronson Alcott, March is portrayed as an abolitionist and teacher. Unlike Mr. Alcott, March heads off to war as a military chaplain (Brooks having taken a decade off of his age), although in the novel, Little Women, he does go "south to minister to Union Troops." The story of March's past; his pre-marital life as a goods peddler, first encounter with, courting of, marriage to, and family life with Marmee, is told in flashback, alternating with his current day life as a Civil War chaplain and teacher. Although some of the choices he makes may cause Little Women aficionados to cringe; March is a well-researched story of the same caliber as Year of Wonders, which I preferred. Companion reads should include: The Known World by Edward P. Jones, Gods and Generals by Jeff Shaara, and The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara.Book Review: Disapointed In March Family Portrayal
Summary: 3 Stars
Though the story is excellently written its attachment to Allcot's famous novel, Little Women, undermines the story completely. While the author purportedly was inspired by the classic novel one sees very little of the characters that Alcott wrote. Brooks seems to have created hers entirely independant of the original and only borrowed the names. Perhaps if you've not read Alcott's book, or are not deeply attached to its characters, you can enjoy the novel more; I however, found myself in constant disagreement with the portrayal of the March family. These were not the people that Ms. Alcott had in mind. Though Ms. Brooks might have meant well she would have been better off eliminating the refrences to Little Women and creating her own story - which she mostly did.
In defense of the book, it is historically acurate, so much as I can tell; and beautifully written. I find it is by far a better work than her first, Year of Wonders. As always her prose is pleasing to read, and her abilities as an author abound.