6 Followers
8 Following
nadynen

I'm Reading...

Currently reading

How to Read Literature
Terry Eagleton
De Cock en de broeders van de zachte dood
A.C. Baantjer
Jo's Boys (Dodo Press) - Louisa May Alcott First sentence: “If anyone had told me what wonderful changes were to take place here in ten years, I wouldn’t have believed it, said Mrs. Jo to Mrs. Meg, as they sat on the piazza at Plumfield one summer day, looking about them with faces full of pride and pleasure.”

P. 99: “It seemd as if he felt that he owed him reparation for the foolish act that might have cost him his life, and love being stronger than will, Ted forgot his pride, and paid his debt like an honest boy.”

Last sentence: “And now, having endeavoured to suit everyone by many weddings, few deaths, and as much prosperity as the eternal fitness of things will permit, let the music stop, the lights die out, and the curtain fall for ever on the March family.”

Little Men is the sequel to Little Women, and Jo’s Boys in its turn is the sequel to Little Men. Because I read Little Women, and liked it a lot, I thought I had better read the two other books also, but perhaps that wasn’t such a good idea. I really liked Little Men, but not Jo’s Boys. I got really tired of all the good and honest people, the moral lessons, and the fact that there did seem a lack of storytelling. I read somewhere Louisa May Alcott didn’t really want to write sequels to Little Women, and I think it shows, especially in the last book (cf. See the last sentence of Jo’s Boys; it seems as if she is really happy to end the story of the Marches.).

All in all I am happy I read them, but I’m sure that I will never reread the two sequels.