by Geraldine Brooks
As the North reels under a series of unexpected defeats during the dark first year of the American Civil War, one man leaves behind his family to aid the Union cause. His experiences will utterly change his marriage and challenge his most ardently held beliefs. Riveting and elegant as it is meticulously researched, March is an extraordinary novel woven out of the lore of American history.
From Louisa May Alcott’s beloved classic Little Women, Geraldine Brooks has taken the character of the absent father, March, who has gone off to war leaving his wife and daughters. To evoke him, Brooks turned to the journals and letters of Bronson Alcott, Louisa May’s father, a friend and confidant of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau.
In Brooks’ telling, March emerges as an idealistic chaplain in the little known backwaters of a war that will test his faith in himself and in the Union cause as he learns that his side, too, is capable of acts of barbarism and racism. As he recovers from a near mortal illness, he must reassemble his shattered mind and body, and find a way to reconnect with a wife and daughters who have no idea of the ordeals he has been through.
From the vibrant intellectual world of New England and the sensuous antebellum South, March adds adult resonance to Alcott’s optimistic children’s tale and portrays the moral complexity of war, a marriage tested by the demands of extreme idealism, and by the temptations of a powerful forbidden attraction.
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Hmm. I found it to be an interesting discussion. The variation in thought between the participants on the efficacy of War, the difference between the thoughts of the Germans, Americans, and UK members… interesting.
For me specifically, I found the book very well written and the topic interesting. Not only do I have a fondness for the Transcendentalist movement and the Alcotts, but also I find the exploration of a “just” war through the use of the Civil War to be far less stressful than examining WWII, while still allowing one to look at many similar facets. It was also, perhaps, less threatening to the Germans to examine our war, rather than to look at their own and the similarities and differences related. We also discussed it in reference to current and recent wars.
I liked the book, and enjoyed our discussion even more. This was a juicy read.
The main character, Mr. March, the father to Alcott’s Little Women becomes the main character whose inner conflicts and actions allowed for some interesting discussion.
We in Berlin sat, a real mixed group of English speakers, and discussed a period well known to Americans as our Civil War, but of course generally less known to the others. But in this case it didn’t matter as much as the thinking and motivation of March and, at the end, his wife, the beloved mother of the Little Women. She too became a much more dimensional character and in discussing them , we touched on the issues of slavery, the true believer, what motivates us to do good, racism and feminism. Quite a list.
I very much appreciated the writing which was clever, well researched and intelligent. I immediately handed the book to a friend and knew I could guarantee it, particularly for anyone who has an interest in that time period, or had once loved Little Women.