Adding dimension to a one-dimensional classic...

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	• March Geraldine Brooks Thorndike Press, 2005 - 464 pages average customer review:based on 142 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

very well written and insightful.

excellent historical novel with recognizabile lead character. worthy of the pulitzer that it won.

Moving, Thought, Provoking, Insightful

I previously read Geraldine Brook's 'People of the Book' and 'Year of Wonders'. 'Year of Wonders' is one of my all time favorite books. I really enjoyed this story as well.

Brooks has created a moving account of Mr. March's experience during the Civil War. Mr. March is the father in Louisa May Alcott's Little Women.

This was our book club's book choice for September. I had every intention of reading Little Women before I started reading March. I never read Little Women and I thought I should have the back story before reading about Mr. March's. I checked out Little Women from my local library and started to read about the four March sisters but I didn't make it very far. I think with books, like many other things in life, 'timing is everything'. Little Women is clearly written for young girls and I am not a young girl, I feel certain that I missed my chance to love Louisa Alcott's classic by about thirty years or so.

And from the sound of the reviews from people who loved Little Women, perhaps my experience or lack thereof helped me enjoy this story better than I would have if I had read Little Women. I didn't have my own ideas about Mr. March and how perfect he was and so, I didn't feel betrayed or disappointed by anything he did.

I thought that Brooks painted a vivid picture of the complications that a man like Mr. March would endure as a chaplain during the civil war and as an idealist.

I thought the characters Brooks brings to life were realistic with both their strengths and weaknesses portrayed. Many times we think we understand these characters and their motivations only to discover we were wrong.

I enjoyed March's narration and perspective. I thought it was very clever of Brooks to give Mrs. March a chance to narrate and give us her perspective, there are two sides to every marriage and I was interested in hearing hers.

I found it to be a moving and insightful story that I would recommend to fans of historical fiction and I would say this would be a great choice for a book club that enjoys intellectual discussions.

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Adding dimension to a one-dimensional classic...

The "horror", "shock" and "dismay" by reviewers who found March an aborhent departure from the classic that inspired this beautifully conceived novel seems more aptly suited to pre-teens than mature adults. Is it really so amazing that a decent man can be flawed? That a happily married man might, in extraordinary circumstances, stray and break a wedding vow? Or that an idealist's certainty may crumble under the grim reality of war's carnage.

This is fiction people. It uses the skeleton of a story to add flesh and bones to a character who is "the absent presence" in Little Women. It is the novel Louisa May Alcott might have written if she were not constrained by 19th century convention. If one wants that convention perpetuated, I suggest sticking to the "sequels" to Gone With The Wind and Pride and Predjudice. I for one don't care to know what a balding Rhett or a Darcy with arthritis might have been like. But I do greatly appreciate a nuanced portrait of the 19th century with all its idealism and venality. It seems to be a century very much like our own.. And that is historical fiction at its very best.

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What War Does to Families

Brooks' revision of the beloved classic tale of the March family fills in the gaps that Alcott could not provide: the devastating effects of war on both the soldier and the family members waiting at home. I disagree with other reviewers that the book spoils the beauty of the close-knit March family we know from the original tale. Instead, I believe both narratives can exist side by side. Brooks has written a hauntingly beautiful book that you will think about for a long time.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

A New York Times Bestseller

During the dark first year of the Civil War, one man leaves behind his family to aid the Union cause. His experiences will utterly change his marriage and challenge his most arduously held beliefs. From Louisa May Alcott's beloved classic Little Women, Geraldine Brooks has taken the character of the absent father, Mr. March, and - to evoke his voice - the letters and journals of Bronson Alcott, Louisa May's father.

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march

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