March
I’m back, still slightly dazed from the long drive home and the return to work today. So, a short book review, and then off to bed with Harry Potter.
I did read March over the weekend, and I agree with Academic Coach’s comment that you don’t need to have read Little Women recently or to have liked it to like March. In fact, the author explains at the end that she was in part inspired by a comment that no one is really as goody-good as Marmee.
Brooks’ March is largely based on the historical character of Bronson Alcott, Louisa May Alcott’s father, and his real life friends Emerson and Thoreau show up in the novel. She transforms him into a middle-aged abolitionist minister, driven to put his ideals into practice by enlisting as a chaplain in the Union army, and finding those ideals tested by the realities of war.
While a few of the battle scenes reminded me of Cold Mountain, the overall theme is exactly the opposite. For the hero of Cold Mountain, all the hardships he faces are but clouds passing across the sky, irrelevant as soon as he is home. March is about how experiences change a person, and about the impotence of words as tools to share such experiences, and and how unshared experiences can separate people.
July 20th, 2005 at 12:07 pm
Thanks for your insight – I really do want to read this book, but had sort of forgotten about it lately. Now you reminded me to go pick it up!
July 20th, 2005 at 7:50 pm
I wish I had as much time as you do to read for pleasure.
July 20th, 2005 at 9:11 pm
Reading is really important to me — I do it rather than watch tv, clean house, and sleep. And I take the metro to work, which gives me 20-25 minutes each way most days. And I read very fast.
July 20th, 2005 at 11:54 pm
Thanks, Half Changed, I’m glad you liked it.
You’ve reminded me that I want to update my “what I’m reading list” on my “about me” page.
While on vacation last week, I read a novel that I quite liked that I’ll mention because it is not so well known (as far as I know.)
“Long for this World” by Michael Byers.
A flawed, but delicious, first novel.
Read The Historian as well. a reasonable read.
I wished I’d reviewed HP four and five before starting six — I’ve forgotten a lot of things that are being referred to…
July 22nd, 2005 at 12:31 am
I miss public transportation for that reason. I used to love to read on the Metro in DC and the Hudson line in NY. Sigh. LA is not the place for that. I read and read and read but mostly bad scripts that make me want to cry becuase they are written so poorly and their plots suck – most recently a script called Ditch Day a crap-o-la Ferris Bueller (sp?) rip off and three scripts last night, one called “Losing It”, which would make any parent of teenage daughters freak out (and these have all been purchased by the studios). Sigh.
I could probably read more if I didn’t blog so much, or read so many. I get sucked in and then the night is gone. A guilty pleasure after reading so much dreck for work. I guess that’s not a good reason. I did just finish a terrific book called THE TEMPLE BOMBING by Melissa Faye Greene. I LOVED IT. I read mostly non-fiction.
July 22nd, 2005 at 7:21 am
I absolutely loved Greene’s first book, *Praying for Sheetrock* which is about the late arrival of the civil rights movement in a small town. But I couldn’t get into *The Temple Bombing*. If you think it was that good, maybe I’ll give in another try.
July 23rd, 2005 at 2:26 pm
I love Praying for Sheetrock too. Temple Bombing is a great book. I confess I skipped the trial, I just wasn’t interested in that, but the rest was facinating to me.