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LITTLE WOMEN by Louise May Alcott

By Anita Mathias

I am listening to Little Women on CD with the children in the car. I probably haven’t read it since I was twelve. I first encountered it when I was 8 and read it several times over the next few years, sobbing over Beth’s death, furious with Amy.
The reader of this CD, by Brilliance Audio isn’t particularly good, and makes Mrs. March come across as preachy and tiresome, and yet, Little Women remains fresh.
What makes it so? Its ability to engage our emotions, to make us love Jo and Beth and Marmee, and feel for Meg, and want to shake Amy and Aunt March.
And yet, it is a Christian novel. The frame is Pilgrim’s Progress, and that is its plot. A contemporary pilgrim’s progress.What Katy Did which I am reading to Irene is also unabashedly Christian.
Today there are few Christian novels which are also mainstream.One of them is Leif Enger’s wonderful Peace Like a River, and one is Robinson’s Gilead.

Little Women is such an iconic book in American literature, that generations of novels have been based on it. I have just finished reading Irene the rather tedious Five Little Peppers and How they Grew by Margaret Sidney, which is a shameless rip off of Little Women in its plot, and characters, down to phrases like Meg/Polly couldn’t deny Amy/Phronsie anything. And, of course, the orphaned rich boy, or the fatherless poor girls…

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Anita Mathias: About Me

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My Books

Wandering Between Two Worlds: Essays on Faith and Art

Wandering Between Two Worlds - Amazon.com
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Amazon.co.uk

Francesco, Artist of Florence: The Man Who Gave Too Much

Francesco, Artist of Florence - Amazom.com
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The Story of Dirk Willems

The Story of Dirk Willems - Amazon.com
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Premier Digital Awards 2015 - Finalist - Blogger of the year
Runner Up Christian Media Awards 2014 - Tweeter of the year

Recent Posts

  •  On Not Wasting a Desert Experience
  • A Mind of Life and Peace in the Middle of a Global Pandemic
  • On Yoga and Following Jesus
  • Silver and Gold Linings in the Storm Clouds of Coronavirus
  • Trust: A Message of Christmas
  • Life- Changing Journaling: A Gratitude Journal, and Habit-Tracker, with Food and Exercise Logs, Time Sheets, a Bullet Journal, Goal Sheets and a Planner
  • On Loving That Which Love You Back
  • “An Autobiography in Five Chapters” and Avoiding Habitual Holes  
  • Shining Faith in Action: Dirk Willems on the Ice
  • The Story of Dirk Willems: The Man who Died to Save His Enemy

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What I’m Reading

Fierce Attachments: A Memoir
Vivian Gornick

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Wanderlust
Rebecca Solnit

Solnit --  Amazon.com
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Acedia & me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer's Life
Kathleen Norris

KATHLEEN NORRIS --  Amazon.com
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Opened Ground: Poems, 1966-96
Seamus Heaney

Opened Ground: Poems, 1966-96 Amazon.com
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