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4.04 AVERAGE
4.04 AVERAGE
Currently working through this - it's a fascinating account of Louisa May Alcott and her father.
I find this book well-written, fascinating and full of information. it really brings those days to life.
Intelligent and scholarly without being at all dry, this biography is in my opinion, an almost perfect telling of the two great lives. As the writer notes - each member of the Alcott family dealt with compromise and failure, yet the whole family was greater than the sum of its parts. Also interesting is the Alcotts' relationships with other American writers, especially Hawthorne, Thoreau, and of course, Bronson's dear friend and Louisa's great mentor Emerson.
Having recently visited the Alcott House, it was nice to have an extended visit via this book. There were times, I disagreed with the author's interpretation of the historical material, but he provided enough evidence that I could/ disagree. Overall, it was a well-crafted, well-researched dual biography of an idyllic existence which must have been a challenged to write.
I'm glad I pushed through my early dislike for Bronson. He never really outgrew his selfish, thoughtless ways, but there can be no doubt about the love he had for his family and the genuine affection and connection that existed between Bronson and Louisa.
Our families influence us, for good and bad, our entire lives. Our childhood experiences shape the adults we become. Matteson's biography explores this idea very thoroughly, with oodles of historical detail and recourse to primary sources. As he states at the end, it is impossible for those of us coming after, to know the everyday, unrecorded moments that make up any relationship.
pg 428
The life written is never the same as the life lived. Journals and letters tell much....But the bonds that two persons share consist also of encouraging words, a reassuring hand on a tired shoulder, fleeting smiles, and soon-forgotten quarrels. These contacts, so indispensable to existence, leave no durable trace.
However, his award winning biography does a magnificent job of showing us everything else.
Full review here - http://bronasbooks.blogspot.com/2019/01/edens-outcasts-by-john-matteson.html
Our families influence us, for good and bad, our entire lives. Our childhood experiences shape the adults we become. Matteson's biography explores this idea very thoroughly, with oodles of historical detail and recourse to primary sources. As he states at the end, it is impossible for those of us coming after, to know the everyday, unrecorded moments that make up any relationship.
pg 428
The life written is never the same as the life lived. Journals and letters tell much....But the bonds that two persons share consist also of encouraging words, a reassuring hand on a tired shoulder, fleeting smiles, and soon-forgotten quarrels. These contacts, so indispensable to existence, leave no durable trace.
However, his award winning biography does a magnificent job of showing us everything else.
Full review here - http://bronasbooks.blogspot.com/2019/01/edens-outcasts-by-john-matteson.html
Like many a young girl before and since, I grew up with Little Women: Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy March were the friends of my childhood, and like most readers of course I identified with Jo. What young girl wouldn't identify with Jo's struggles with her temper, her desires for wealth and fame, her siblings, her position as a girl in a man's world? And I always knew, vaguely, that much of Little Women was autobiographical, that Louisa May Alcott, just as the rest of us, identified herself with Jo.
Indeed, so much have the characters of the author and her most famous creation been conflated, that it is often hard to separate the two. And this is where this book is a joy and revelation, allowing Louisa May Alcott to step out from Jo March's shadow, revealing the woman herself and her own remarkable turbulent family, most particularly her father. It is curious that Bronson Alcott's alter ego, Mr March, is so absent from Little Women, when Bronson himself played such a large and enduring role not just in his daughter's life but in the lives of many other famous names - Thoreau, Emerson, Hawthorne - and in the transcendentalist movement of New England.
Louisa and Bronson led curiously parallel lives - being born on the same day, achieving literary success at the same time, dying less than two days apart - so it seems apt to tell their stories as a joint biography. Indeed, reading this wonderful book, it seems any other approach would do them both a disservice, so closely intertwined were the lives, so fundamental was their relationship to one another. This is no hagiography - it is hard to feel anything but frustration at Bronson's selfish selflessness in his younger years, and Louisa herself comes across as often wilful, fiercely and unnecessarily independent and stubbornly blinkered to her own support network. Indeed, Bronson becomes a more sympathetic figure as he ages, Louisa the reverse. But they both led fascinating lives in the perhaps most turbulent era of their country, brushing paths with some of the most famous names and in their own way leaving a permanent imprint on American literary and cultural history. And this superb biography more than does them justice. I cannot rate it highly enough.
Indeed, so much have the characters of the author and her most famous creation been conflated, that it is often hard to separate the two. And this is where this book is a joy and revelation, allowing Louisa May Alcott to step out from Jo March's shadow, revealing the woman herself and her own remarkable turbulent family, most particularly her father. It is curious that Bronson Alcott's alter ego, Mr March, is so absent from Little Women, when Bronson himself played such a large and enduring role not just in his daughter's life but in the lives of many other famous names - Thoreau, Emerson, Hawthorne - and in the transcendentalist movement of New England.
Louisa and Bronson led curiously parallel lives - being born on the same day, achieving literary success at the same time, dying less than two days apart - so it seems apt to tell their stories as a joint biography. Indeed, reading this wonderful book, it seems any other approach would do them both a disservice, so closely intertwined were the lives, so fundamental was their relationship to one another. This is no hagiography - it is hard to feel anything but frustration at Bronson's selfish selflessness in his younger years, and Louisa herself comes across as often wilful, fiercely and unnecessarily independent and stubbornly blinkered to her own support network. Indeed, Bronson becomes a more sympathetic figure as he ages, Louisa the reverse. But they both led fascinating lives in the perhaps most turbulent era of their country, brushing paths with some of the most famous names and in their own way leaving a permanent imprint on American literary and cultural history. And this superb biography more than does them justice. I cannot rate it highly enough.