nocowardsoul

What I finished this week

Any Which Wall by Laurel Snyder (2009). A pastiche of Edward Eager - two brother-sister pairs in Iowa find a wall that magically transports them to wherever they wish. Pretty much as good as the source material.

Little Women Abroad: The Alcott Sisters' Letters from Europe, 1870-1871, edited by Daniel Shealy. Read it via Archive.org. I made an account there a few months ago and they have so many things! Probably the funniest part is LMA's description of avoiding a pig.

"We went to a ruin one day, and were about to explore the castle, when a sow with her family of twelve charged through the gateway at us so fiercely that we fled in dismay, for pigs are not nice when they attack, as we don't know where to bone ‘em, and I saw a woman one day whose nose had been bitten off by an angry pig. I flew over a hedge; May tried to follow but stuck and lay with her long legs up and her head in a ditch howling for me to save her, as the sow was charging in the rear, and a dog, two cows, and a boy looking on. I pulled her over head first, and we tumbled into the tower, like a routed garrison. It was’nt a nice ruin, but we were bound to see it, having suffered so much. And we did see it in spite of the pigs, who waylaid us on all sides, and squealed in triumph when we left, dusty, torn and tired. The ugly things wander at their own sweet will, and are tall, round-backed, thin wretches who run like race horses and are no respecters of persons."

And there were many sketches by May Alcott that even I hadn't seen before.

What I'm reading now

April Lady by Georgette Heyer because it's almost the only paper book I own that I haven't reread in the past few years.

A Spy in the House (2009) and The Body in the Tower (2010) by Y. S. Lee

The first half of a completed YA mystery series. The Agency employs women as undercover investigators, which is an excellent premise but I have mixed feelings about the execution. I like Mary Quinn, who is Irish and Chinese but hiding the latter for fear it will hurt her employment prospects. I almost abandoned the second book when a character referenced Little Lord Fauntleroy, 17 years before it was published! I didn't hate James, the love interest, but I didn't love him either. I think I'll skip the third and fourth books.

The Alcotts: Biography of a Family by Madelon Bedell (1980)

This covers about 1799 to 1854. Bedell meant to write a second volume but didn't finish it (weirdly, I didn't find the year she passed away online). There's a lot in it.

LMA's grandfather Joseph May was not a veteran of the American Revolution. He was in the Boston cadet corps after the war and referred to himself as Colonel. I suppose that must have given people the impression he was in the actual Revolution. He became rich through his shipping company, but it went bankrupt when his partner spent all the company's money in a land-buying scheme.

When Abigail Alcott was a missionary to the poor of Boston she was paid $50 a month.

I enjoyed this quote from Lidian Emerson's “Abstract from the Transcendental Bible” poking fun at Waldo.

Never confess a fault. You should not have committed it and who cares whether you are sorry.

It is juvenile to seek for sympathy. It is mean and weak to give it.

Never wish to be loved. Who are you to expect that?

(Duty to your Neighbor) Loathe and shun the Sick. They are in bad taste, and may hinder you from writing the poem floating through your mind. Scorn the infirm of character – and omit no opportunity of exposing their weaknesses.

Despise the unintellectual, and make them feel that you do, by not noticing their remarks or questions, lest they presume to intrude into your conversation.

If you're interested in a biography of LMA this probably won't suit because it's mostly about Bronson and Abigail. I suggest Marmee and Louisa by Eve LaPlante.

Alcott’s third or fourth depending on how you count Good Wives novel, featuring cane-shaking, a menage a trois, and America’s favorite fighting Frenchman.

Polly Arrives
Fanny tells Tom to pick up Polly from the station. Tom says "She'll think you cared more about your frizzles than your friends, and she'll be about right, too." Fanny says "If I was the President, I'd make a law to shut up all boys till they were grown; for they certainly are the most provoking toads in the world."

I wonder what Tom means by wearing a thingumbob? A veil maybe? The naughty boy tells Polly the hack-driver is tipsy so he won’t have to sit with her.( Read more... )

Next is Little Men.

According to her journals, Alcott wrote the first the first draft of Moods in August 1860 and edited it the following January. Like Jo in the "Literary Lessons" chapter, Little Women, she was told it was too long and took out ten chapters and shortened some of the others, and it was published in December 1864.

In a letter she wrote "Moods is not what I meant to have it, for I followed bad advice and took out many things which explained my idea and & made the characters more natural & consistent. I see my mistake now for I find myself accused of Spiritualism, Free Love, Affinities and all sorts of horrors I know little about and don't believe in." She meant for the story to be about the trials of a "moody" young girl while most readers interpreted it as a book about marriage. For that I can't blame them - I can see both aspects in it but find the topic of marriage the dominant one.( Read more... )

Next: A Long Fatal Love Chase. Yay, something I like.

LMA wrote The Inheritance in 1849 when she was 16/17. Joel Myerson and Daniel Shealy found it among the Alcott papers in Harvard's Houghton Library as described in this article. It was published for the first time in 1997, two years after A Long Fatal Love Chase. A movie came out the same year, starring Cari Shayne and Thomas Gibson (Dharma and Greg/Criminal Minds). Another movie came out in 2013. I've only seen the first but they're both better than this tedious book.

Chapter 1
Lord Percy arrives to visit his friend Arthur. Arthur tells his sister amy, his cousin Ida, and his mother Lady Hamilton that Percy fell in love with his cousin, but he heard his brother say her name in his sleep and Angelica Schuyler-like, left them to be happy together until they both died. Percy is "devoted to his aged mother" and "admired for the generous deeds he has done and the blameless life he has led." Edith is also in the room, sitting with tears in her eyes. Percy comes in and wants to visit the estate's ruined chapel. Lady H and Edith stay behind. Percy hears Edith playing organ and singing and Arthur explains Edith is an orphan the dead Lord Hamilton "brought home from Italy when but a child." She teaches Amy music, painting, and Italian. Edith's exact age is never given, while Amy is sixteen.

Chapter 2
Descriptions of the character's personalities.

Chapter 3
Edith plays the harp for them. Lady H reminds Amy that her governess shoudn't socialize with her friends. Amy's like why not? Ida likes Percy but frowns because he bows too low to Edith. We learn that Edith's mom was an opera singer, Ida suggests this might not be true, and Arthur's like HDU. It's a love triangle!( Read more... )

Next up is Hospital Sketches, which is much better. Go read it.

In celebration of Louisa May Alcott's birthday tomorrow, here are two stories with a trope in common:

Engimas
An old man convinces a young man to take a secretary job because the old man thinks his neighbors are up to something fishy. Try not to read the note at the beginning.

My Mysterious Mademoiselle
On a train to reunite with his estranged sister, a man meets a young lady on the run from . . . well, you'll find out.

(The vague summaries are because I'm trying to avoid spoilers. Just read them, okay?)

Turns out I still one code each for the Archive of Our Own and Dreamwidth. Does anyone want them?

I haven't started my Yuletide fic yet, but I have finished reviewing canon, and it's an even better canon than I remembered it being.

I like this Tumblr post: Why I hate people who hate Amy March.

She's kind of a big deal: Abigail May Alcott Nieriker

A pretty girl in Victorian dress. Her curly hair is down over her shoulders. She's looking to her left.
This is an image-heavy post, containing every picture of May's that I could find online or scan from books on Louisa. Just so you know.

( who she is )

( what she did )

( how to appreciate her )

( artspam! )

(No, really, I will make a real post tomorrow.)

Little Women, Maurice, The Demon's Lexicon, American Girl (Kit), Ramoma Quimby, Valentine's Day, Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, 101 Dalmatians, Lord of the Flies( Read more... )

I'm in the middle of updating http://delicious.com/alcottfanfiction after not doing so for a year. And what Friends episode starts on the TV? Yeah, the one where Joey reads Little Women and Rachel reads The Shining.

I have 7 Dreamwidth codes for the taking.