Love continued: Marmee & Louisa

I finally finished this book a few weeks ago. Once I got over the initial hump I read it much faster.

Overall thoughts: It was very hard to drop my "modern eye" at times reading this. For example, the state of Abigail and Bronson's marriage was SO AGGRAVATING and it was so frustrating to see how trapped she was in the situation because of the times. However, this kind of thing STILL happens to women all over the world today. It is so tragic! Not just because of the personal suffering when a marriage is dysfunctional but because relationships can be wonderful, powerful, fulfilling things and it is a tragedy when they don't fill their potential and instead are life-sucking. Also, their relationship is a really good example of how sexism hurts everyone. Neither of them fit into the "role" they were supposed to and it made them both unhappy though in very different ways. If Abigail had been free to make a living for the family and Bronson had been free to work on his ideas they would have both been much happier. Of course, Abigail would have been even happier if she could be taken more seriously for HER ideas....

This book was really a biography of Louisa May Alcott and her mother Abigail but I found the transition to focusing on Louisa a bit lacking. We didn't get to know her life and personality the same way we did her mothers even though she was so much more famous and well known. Side note: I totally did not realize how famous Louisa was in her day, it is really amazing how many books she sold.

I find it really interesting that Louisa and her mother both journaled extensively their whole lives. In our lab we do research on expressive writing for anger. Clearly they were doing this at times! I wonder how much writing has played a role in emotion regulation in history. I also wonder how journaling affects intellectual development more generally.

As for the theme love, Louisa and her mother did truly care for each other. I find it interesting that they were very much self-sacrificing for each other in a way that was different from their other relationships. Abigail especially was very self sacrificing in general though it was really expected of her in many ways. We expect mothers (and parents more generally) to sacrifice for their children and it seems like she really took this to another level due to their family's unique situation. Yet, when it came to Louisa it seemed more a matter of choice than in some of the other situations. I really wonder how the rest of the family viewed their relationship - were they envious? appreciative? I would guess a mixture of both.

Rating: 3 stars.

Recommendation: If you want to learn more about what it was like living during this time, read on sister. If you want to know what Louisa May Alcott was like as a person or how her writing influenced the world, read something else as you will just get a taste of those topics.