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A review by jennifer_mangieri
March by Geraldine Brooks
4.0
I’m opening this review with a rant on other reviewers.
If you pick up a book which says it’s related in some way to another book – for example, “March” is related to “Little Women” - yet it is not by the same author, you need to put aside the thought that it is going to be the same book or even at all like the original book. Please, please, please, for the love of all that is literary, just read the book in your hand & stop comparing and contrasting already! If you cannot do that – if reading the second book is going to somehow ruin your experience of the first book – then don’t read the second book! That choice is perfectly OK. But it is not OK to read the second book & then grump about how it’s not at all like the first one. Different. Authors. Yes?! OK, end of rant.
I loved “March” because it’s well written and full of interesting characters, though some of those characters are just a little one dimensional (Grace). It’s about people who are flawed, as we all are. I don’t think this book is really about the Civil War and slavery and so forth – that just provides the background. I know some readers have felt that the war & slavery issues were glossed over, and I think that’s because this novel is really about Mr. & Mrs. March. It’s about how a man might meet challenges to his principles – one at a time – in a time of violence and explosive growth in ideas. It’s about a strong-willed woman – Marmee – who struggles every day to become the calm, wise, self-disciplined woman March believes she can be - & that her society tells her she must be. It’s about pride – encompassed in the idea that we should always be striving toward some ideal of behavior or principles, & if we don’t reach it we have failed – and the idea that we are responsible for, or can control, the behavior or outcomes of others. It’s about forgiveness & how hard that is, whether it’s forgiveness for ourselves or others. It’s about falling, & getting back up again. Is it all tied up in a neat bow with Mr. March learning from his mistakes & returning a wiser man? Does Marmee come back to her girls with a completely recovered husband & an untroubled soul? Nope. No pretty 19th century endings here - Brooks is far less merciful than that, & much more invested in her complex, noble, faltering characters, who give us a richer vision of what people in a violent, changing time might have to overcome.
If you pick up a book which says it’s related in some way to another book – for example, “March” is related to “Little Women” - yet it is not by the same author, you need to put aside the thought that it is going to be the same book or even at all like the original book. Please, please, please, for the love of all that is literary, just read the book in your hand & stop comparing and contrasting already! If you cannot do that – if reading the second book is going to somehow ruin your experience of the first book – then don’t read the second book! That choice is perfectly OK. But it is not OK to read the second book & then grump about how it’s not at all like the first one. Different. Authors. Yes?! OK, end of rant.
I loved “March” because it’s well written and full of interesting characters, though some of those characters are just a little one dimensional (Grace). It’s about people who are flawed, as we all are. I don’t think this book is really about the Civil War and slavery and so forth – that just provides the background. I know some readers have felt that the war & slavery issues were glossed over, and I think that’s because this novel is really about Mr. & Mrs. March. It’s about how a man might meet challenges to his principles – one at a time – in a time of violence and explosive growth in ideas. It’s about a strong-willed woman – Marmee – who struggles every day to become the calm, wise, self-disciplined woman March believes she can be - & that her society tells her she must be. It’s about pride – encompassed in the idea that we should always be striving toward some ideal of behavior or principles, & if we don’t reach it we have failed – and the idea that we are responsible for, or can control, the behavior or outcomes of others. It’s about forgiveness & how hard that is, whether it’s forgiveness for ourselves or others. It’s about falling, & getting back up again. Is it all tied up in a neat bow with Mr. March learning from his mistakes & returning a wiser man? Does Marmee come back to her girls with a completely recovered husband & an untroubled soul? Nope. No pretty 19th century endings here - Brooks is far less merciful than that, & much more invested in her complex, noble, faltering characters, who give us a richer vision of what people in a violent, changing time might have to overcome.