Little Women Podcast Q&A

How did I get started in Louisa May Alcott's research? Is Beth really just part of the sick girl trope or is there more in her? and why Friedrich is from Germany? These and many other amazing questions are answered in this episode!

Transcript

Sorry if I'm being too intrusive,

But I'm really curious to hear,

What was your first touch on Little Women?

Like I'm from Finland too and I never,

In my 24 years on this planet,

Heard about the books before the film adaptation by Greta Gerwig.

How much time or years have you spent reading the books etc?

Love your analysis.

Thank you and you are not being intrusive.

When I was a child I loved reading girl books,

Not a politically correct term now,

But you know,

Books with strong female heroes,

So I had all the Anne of Green Gables books.

I didn't have that many Alcott books,

I had eight cousins and I had the first part of Little Women.

So in the US the Little Women has part two and part one combined,

Printed together,

But in Europe and in South America it was pretty common that they were published as two separate books.

When I speak about part two,

I often call it As Good Wives and that is the old European name of part two.

Part one it covers a year of the girls' lives when Jo is 15 and the civil war has just started.

And part two,

That's when the war ends and it covers about 20 years.

And I didn't read part two until I was 16 or 17 and I really loved part two.

It was my favorite book for years,

So when people say to me,

You know a lot about romances in Little Women,

That's because there was a time when I was very invested thinking about the individual growth of the characters and the love stories.

To me it was a lot about relating myself to Amy and Jo,

Because Amy is 16 in the beginning of Good Wives and Jo is 19 and I was about the same age.

So I could relate myself to their struggles,

But also the quest of identity.

And I was so glad when Freepik's character came up,

Because I was so incredibly frustrated with Laurie,

The way he treated Jo.

I am part of the 40% of Little Women fans who have never thought that Laurie and Jo were a good match.

And as a child I was actually part of an even smaller community of Laurie and Bette shippers.

I would have been okay back then,

Laurie ending up with Bette or Amy.

I don't think like that anymore.

Yes,

Laurie behaved like a fuckboy.

He didn't want to work or he didn't want to study.

But I think Bette would have got through him,

So that he would have taken his life more seriously.

Same way as Amy got through him.

But in order for them to be a good couple,

That would have required Bette to be more social and wanted to live a more luxurious lifestyle.

Or it would have required Laurie to give up his lifestyle and live more modestly.

So it would have required an entirely different book,

And it doesn't really fit to the character personalities.

That was the 12 year old me.

No judging.

I usually like it when the characters are not too polished.

When I read Good Wives,

Amy's and Laurie's romance,

It made so much sense to me.

It needed Laurie to be this character who was somewhat lost in life and didn't really know how to be a productive person,

And then Amy being the awakening force for him.

I actually lived briefly in Germany when I was 17.

I didn't know a lot about Louisa May Alcott back then.

It was always very interesting to me how there were so many German references in Little Woman.

And back then I thought it was cool that Jo was studying German in the book and I was studying German.

But now in retrospective,

I think Jo had very different motives than I had.

I studied German because I like languages and Jo studied German because she had a crush on this German guy.

Louisa wrote that Jo had a high respect for intellect and Jo is also well read and curious about the world.

And it's what Emily said in one of our discussions.

Friedrich he holds Jo to high standards.

And to me it was always so important that not only did Jo brought this another intellectual aspect to his life,

But that she brought color and energy,

What he needed.

And Friedrich he was not very happy in New York.

And I love the scene where the narrator says that he has Heimderch,

Homesickness.

But it's not just that he misses Germany,

But because he is an immigrant he doesn't really have a stable home.

And Jo feels exactly the same.

She loves her family,

But the narrator says that it does not really fill the longing that she has.

So they find a home from each other.

And especially late when I have been studying more about the last years of Louisa's life,

It's quite heartbreaking because she was incredibly lonely.

So it makes a lot of sense why she wants her heroines to have the things that she could not have.

I published my first little woman essay a couple years ago and it was called Quest of Friedrich Beer and Why My Inner Jo Loves Him,

Tender Masculinity in Little Woman.

And it went somewhat semi-viral for a moment.

It was on the top of Google if you search little woman.

Before that I had read Little Woman in English for the first time and I was really surprised because I read the original version where Laurie was less romanticized than in some of the later versions.

He was so incredibly immature.

And some of the things that had bothered me about his and Jo's relationship for years began to surface.

I wanted to understand more about Louisa May Alcott's views on femininity and masculinity and also the way the transcendentalists view gender.

I also paid a lot more attention to the social themes.

I thought it was super interesting how Friedrich's German accent was written into the English version.

There is some of that in the Finnish version as well,

But it is a lot more subtle.

The narrator also mentions how it is difficult for him to find a job because he is German.

And when I started to do my research on Friedrich,

I found out that during this time period Germans were widely discriminated in America.

So it was very interesting for me that Louisa May Alcott decided to give Jo a German love interest.

And some of you know I made an entire document called Louisa May Alcott's Love for Germany and it turned out that Louisa was a massive Germanophile,

Which explains a lot.

When I do studies on Louisa May Alcott,

I always ask myself what is the author's intention.

I've got really good feedback on the articles about Louisa's connections to Germany.

And the connections to Germany,

It is not just Friedrich's character.

It's an overwhelmingly large part of Louisa's lifestyle,

Her identity and philosophical ideas.

So I read the English book for the first time,

I bought some Alcott biographies and I became hooked on Alcott research.

At some point I came across Susan Bailey's blog.

She runs a blog called Louisa May Alcott is my passion.

And then I discovered that there was real people who inspired Laurie and Friedrich and to me that was almost like a religious experience.

Because when you are a little woman canon fan,

You are pretty much always in the minority and it sucks.

Because it's mostly caused by the films and not the novel.

And it has all to do with Laurie's missing character arc.

I started to get some answers who Louisa was as a person,

Her love for these philosophers and how she wanted to start a school with Henry Turow and why she rejected Larry Wisniewski for being a fuckboy and I felt incredibly validated.

I did wanted to understand Laurie and Friedrich better as characters.

So when I started to write about them,

I interviewed about a hundred little woman fans and they were all canon fans.

People who were John Fritz fans or Amy and Laurie fans or Bette fans.

People who had read the book many times.

This was really important to me because it gave me lots of new insights on all characters.

And I did contact maybe ten Alcott schoolers who had written about the things that I was interested researching.

I think about four of them answered and let me use their studies as a reference.

I was really interested to explore the tension between masculinity and femininity,

Especially in Jo and Amy and Laurie and Friedrich.

Laurie is written to look more effeminate.

He has a temper and sometimes he can be aggressive,

Which is seen as more masculine trait.

Jo is also governed by his emotions,

Which is usually connected to femininity.

Then Friedrich,

He has more masculine looks,

But he is very calm and soft-spoken,

Which is a trait that is usually connected to women.

And he is more governed by his head than his emotions,

Which is traditionally seen as more masculine.

And Amy is more feminine and she likes to be a girl.

But Amy is also governed by her head more than her emotions,

Which is more masculine trait.

Jo has distinctive masculine looks and she rejects some parts of femininity,

But Jo is more governed by her emotions and that is once again seen more as a feminine trait.

One thing that surprised me was that it was really difficult to find studies on Laurie.

I was interested on Laurie as an individual,

Why he behaves the way he does.

I was actually expecting to find a lot about him because Laurie is a popular character,

At least according to the filmmakers,

A lot more popular than Friedrich.

And I didn't find anything about him,

Nothing about him being orphan or the tricky relationship that he has with his grandfather or why he is hanging in Jo's apron strings.

There are scenes in Little Women where Laurie is really annoyed when Jo is lecturing him,

But he is still addicted to her care.

Alcott schooler Jamie Lynn Burge wrote that maybe Amy's screen portrayals are the reason why there hasn't been that much research made on May Alcott by the Alcott schoolers.

I think the same applies to Laurie and Friedrich.

In the films Laurie is this pretty guy who Jo rejects.

Then in a lot of the studies that I read,

The writer was literally asking,

Why did Louisa May Alcott marry Jo to an old German and not to their rich and handsome young Laurie?

Ok,

Friedrich is not old,

He is 39.

If you read letters between Louisa and her publisher Thomas Niles,

Louisa was the one who came up with all the marriages.

So when I was reading these essays,

It was so frustrating because the book doesn't show Laurie as this manic pixie dream boy like the movies,

But more as a young man who is seriously troubled.

So that became the essence of my Laurie research.

I did find quite a few really good academic studies on Friedrich's character,

Which was a pleasant surprise.

It was really nice to see that there were actual people who had studied Louisa May Alcott's life much longer than I.

And they had some very deep thinking on the Professor Bear and who he was as a character and all these real life people in Louisa's life that he was based on.

And also Louisa's love for Germany of course.

So we know that Louisa had a teenage crush on Emerson and then she fell for Henry Turow,

Which seemed to have been a lot more serious.

Friedrich is a mixed character,

He is based on a lot of different men,

Who Louisa loved and admired,

But it goes beyond the real life people.

There is very much Joan Friedrich type dynamic in Susan Warner's White White World.

It's a book that she was reading when she was 15 in Little Woman and Louisa read it when she was 18.

And Louisa loved Goethe.

By the end of her life she had collected all Goethe's novels.

The English and the German versions.

Her copy of Wilhelm Meister is filled with notes from teenage Louisa.

In Wilhelm Meister it is a Bildungsroman,

World's first Bildungsroman,

A coming of age novel like Little Woman.

And there are notes in the margins how Louisa highlights the growth and the spiritual transition that the main character has when he moves on,

Having a crush on one girl to another.

And the next girl,

Surprise,

Has a lot more positive impact to the main character's growth,

Which is super interesting and this is something that Louisa did when she was 15.

In those Goethe's novels there are also Laurie's character arcs.

The more deeper I went into the Friedrich research,

It became pretty clear that Louisa planned Joan Friedrich's relationship possibly already as a child.

And it is also interesting that Joan Friedrich had the 16 year age gap,

Which was the same age differences between Louisa and Henry Thoreau.

Laurie was a very popular character in the 19th century.

One of my podcast listeners compared him to Marius in Le Mis and how during that time a character who was overly emotional,

Which often made them overly dramatic,

Were seen very romantic.

Then I was able to track down Laurie's character arc from many of Goethe's novels,

Like the Sorrows of Young Werther.

When Laurie proposes to Joe,

He threatens to kill himself if Joe doesn't marry him.

Werther actually killed himself in the novel and this created a wave of suicides among young people in Germany,

Which is unbelievable.

But in a way we haven't really evolved from that since there are so many teenage girls and even grown up women who think Laurie was being romantic when he was threatening Joe.

Now there is a lot more criticism to that type of behavior,

But I think Louisa did relate to that because she was always a creature of emotions and it often led her into troubles.

It was such a purposeful choice for her to write Friedrich to be a very calm character because all these real life Friedrichs,

They had the skill to calm her,

To calm Louisa just with their presence.

Few people have asked where I'm from and where Emily is from.

Emily is an American who lives in London and I am from the enchanted land of Finland.

Cherry says,

I love the podcast,

Your accent is adorable,

Thank you,

And Emily sounds just like Anne Hathaway.

She kinda does.

Talking about the collaborations,

I always look forward our discussions with Emily.

We have very similar beliefs that Louisa May Alcott,

She always had a deeper meaning and agenda when she wrote Little Woman and because all the characters are all based on real life people that she knew and cared about,

The idea that she would hate any of her characters is really absurd.

It is pretty rare to come across someone who is on the same page with you about the author and the novel.

When we recorded our first collaboration,

Which was the episode on Laurie,

I didn't know that she had read Goethe's Sorrows of Young Werther,

Which is the book that Louisa used as an inspiration for Laurie,

So we were able to discuss about that as well.

I can talk about Little Woman for days.

It's even better when you can talk about it with someone who also really loves the novel.

This is less a question than an observation.

A huge part of what's disappointing about a lot of these adaptations,

Including the Greta Gerwig one,

Is that it's 2020 now and folks don't wanna talk about the fact that a huge part of the bear hate stems from fatphobia.

And honestly,

That brilliant,

Goofy,

Nerdy people don't make romantic leads.

And I'm pretty sure Louisa May Alcott would agree.

I always imagined someone with maybe Sean Astin's build playing the part.

This next thing that I'm going to say is legitimate.

You can find most Louisa May Alcott novels from public domain,

So you can check this out.

In every single Louisa May Alcott novel where the Louisa type of protagonist falls in love or marries their romantic partner,

They always look the same.

They all have the same body type.

They're all tall and heavily built.

One of Friedrich's models was the German poet Goethe.

And if you look at pictures of Goethe,

He's this middle-aged man with broad shoulders.

And very tall and heavily built.

And all Louisa May Alcott's romantic heroes look like that.

Some of them have beards,

Some of them don't.

And surprisingly many of them speak with German accents.

John Surrey,

Who was a German soldier that Louisa nursed in the war,

He was tall and a bit stout,

With a brown beard.

Louisa wrote to her diary that she found him very handsome and attractive.

When Adam in moods and David in work,

The female protagonist is always fixated to their looks and their quote-unquote manliness.

And when Friedrich becomes Joe's sexual awakening,

She pays attention to his big hands and his big feet and she's really lusty over him.

In Joe's Boys,

When Dan comes back to Plumfield,

He has grown a beard.

For those of you who have not read Joe's Boys,

Dan was one of Joe's and Friedrich's students.

When he comes back,

He asks Joe if he should shave the beard off.

And Joe is like,

Don't do that,

It makes you look so manly and handsome.

And it is so funny because both Friedrich and Dan are based on Henry Tarrow.

Mac in Rosenblum,

He also has the same body type.

He's blonde and he's younger.

In Eight Cousins,

Where he's preteen,

He's described to be a bit choppy.

But then in Rosenblum,

Mac has a huge growth spurt and suddenly he's taller and he got broad shoulders.

And Rose,

Surprise,

Begins to see him more attractive.

And all these men are described to have blue eyes,

Which is an interesting detail since Henry Tarrow had blue eyes.

In a way,

Louisa,

She was attracted to the alpha male.

Her ideal man always looks very masculine,

But they are all very gentle by nature.

To Louisa,

Men being heavily built meant that they were big and strong and they can take care of themselves and other people.

It's not like Red R Cervix complaining about body type,

It's very shallow.

People can hire conventionally good looking actors to play Fritz,

Like Rosanna Brassi and Louis Garrel,

But it never erases the problem that Joe is never attracted to Laurie and Laurie's looks and Laurie's character arc.

And the way his and Joe's relationship has these toxic elements,

It's always missing.

And all that explains why Joe dumps him in the first place.

Alpha male for Louisa was also someone who could support their writing,

Which is what Fredrick does,

He encourages her to find her own writing style.

There is also some criticism over the skinny looking guys in Little Woman.

Nat and Laurie are skinny and pretty,

More effeminate,

And the narrator occasionally criticizes their overly emotional nature.

Like Laurie,

Laurie is often overly dramatic,

And Nat,

He is more of a daydreamer.

So these both guys are very sensitive.

Which raises an interesting question if part of that is narrator's dislike over femininity,

Because in the novel,

One of Joe's more masculine qualities is that she denies her own vulnerability.

Which is why I think her arc with Fredrick was so important.

Because the more she tried to deny her vulnerability,

The more she felt lost.

So with Fredrick she could find a balance.

In some ways Louisa connected men being skinny to non-productivity.

In Joe's Boys,

Meg and Joe don't want Daisy to marry Nat because they think he is such a daydreamer.

Then he travels to Germany to study music,

And when he comes back to Concord,

He is more heavily built.

It's really funny because Meg and Joe are like,

Wow,

He looks much better now.

I don't personally share Louisa's views on skinny guys not being productive,

But maybe it's based on her own experiences,

Since Julian Harthorn and Adi Wisniewski,

Who were real life Laurie's,

They were pretty,

But they weren't always very productive.

And didn't really live up to Louisa's standards.

In Finn we have this expression,

Uus avuton,

Which means an adult who doesn't know how to be an adult.

And Laurie and Nat,

They are this type of characters.

They need strong female guides like Amy or Daisy to inspire them to grow and take control of their lives.

To Louisa,

The alpha male is a man who combines the masculine and the feminine energy together in a balanced and effective way.

Strong but kind,

Confident but humble.

I don't really know any other writer who has such a clear idea what her ideal man is like.

It has a lot to do with taste.

But I also think Louisa's love for quote-unquote masculine men,

Who were also intellectual,

Was connected to her own values.

She was drawn to men who possessed gender masculinity.

I read once that Louisa gave Friedrich elements of European men that she wished that more American men would have.

I think there might be some truth to that.

I grew up watching lots of Scandinavian film productions like Astrid Lindgren adaptations,

And there is lots of male characters that look very masculine or physically strong male characters.

But they are passionate and romantic with their partners,

And they love their kids.

So if you know someone who complains about Friedrich's looks,

Louisa wrote Friedrich to be her own ideal man,

So if someone has problems with that,

They don't really understand the author.

When Louisa was asked to write Little Woman,

She hesitated because her closest friends were all boys,

And then her sisters.

Knowing Louisa's love for men and boys and masculinity,

It makes a lot of sense that the men who she was attracted to also looked that way.

There has been lots of research on Louisa's identification to masculinity,

And yes,

There is a lot of that in Little Woman,

But in a lot of ways Jo is also a very feminine character in the way she reads romance novels,

And when she falls in love she dreams about marriage and starting a family.

And she is very maternal,

Which is something that came naturally to her.

Why do you think Louisa May Alcott condemns Meg in the chapter Meg Goes to Vanity Fair?

It seems strange to criticize Meg for something that plays such a large part in Amy's arc,

Namely luxury and wealth.

Keep in mind I am not criticizing Amy for this.

I adore both sisters.

This is an excellent question.

Somebody actually left a really good note about this to the Little Woman discussion group that I am part of.

I will read it for you.

I think it is interesting how Jo seems to be treated as the ultimate feminist icon,

Despite the fact that she doesn't seem to like other women too much.

She loves her sisters and she wants independence,

But she has very strong internalized misogyny that affects how she views other women.

And it's interesting how this tends to get ignored,

And I think it's great she grows out of this.

Emily and I,

We discussed this quite often in a podcast how Jo and Laurie insert ideas of toxic masculinity to one another when they are teenagers.

They both have this idea how a man is supposed to behave like.

So when Laurie is catfishing Meg,

Jo has doctorined herself to sympathize Laurie instead of her sister.

And Laurie was the one who sent those letters and was hurting Meg.

So what Jo wants is the male privilege,

But when she is pursuing that,

She adopts ideas that actually make her more misogynistic.

And Laurie as well.

When he begins to chase her or harass her,

In a way they created that situation already as kids when there is this dynamic that Laurie can do whatever he wants and Jo always forgives him because he was a boy and Jo always had a habit to pamper Laurie.

And when they grow,

Jo can't no longer be like a boy because society doesn't approve.

But she doesn't really want to be a boy anymore.

When she begins to see how her own actions,

Which are influenced by that toxic masculinity,

Her actions they begin to harm people around her and herself.

Like losing the trip to Europe.

That's a good example because she put herself above the ants and said that she was better than them and put herself above the feminine labor.

She made fun of the female labor.

I think the reason why Louisa May Alcott condemns Meg and Amy for wanting luxury in Little Woman and all the rich families,

They are not happy families.

The sense of purpose is seen more valuable than the number of fashionable clothes or luxury items.

Meg is being pampered and she enjoys it,

But she also feels conflicted by it because it contradicts with her personal values and the way she has been raised.

She sees the luxury world of the Moffats,

But then she also sees the poor immigrant families when she goes to help Mommy.

There's nothing wrong with Meg wanting to fit into the world of the wealthy young woman or Amy wanting to fit into the world of the wealthy young woman.

So maybe part of that resentment that Jo has,

Has more to do with her messed up ideology,

Which is at times very much colored by misogyny.

I read how Louisa edited Little Woman and at one point she seems to have rewritten Amy's scenes,

Making her less flirtatious and Jo is quick to criticize her sisters when they wish to fit into the wealthy society.

And it makes one wonder what were Louisa May Alcott's views on femininity.

And I believe her views were rather mixed.

Because when Louisa had extra money,

She actually liked to buy nice clothes to herself.

And there are also diary markings that when she had a love interest to come by for a visit,

She would pay much more attention to her appearance.

There is a scene in the beginning of part 2 where the narrator says that Jo loved to hang out with Laurie because he opened the door to the world of young men.

Jo doesn't want to flirt with these young men,

She wants to be one of the guys.

In the same chapter she is criticizing Amy for being flirty and Laurie is being very flicky.

First he is flirting with the young ladies,

When Jo says that she hates flirty girls,

Laurie is like,

I hate them too.

That Laurie harassing Jo,

It kind of becomes part of Jo's feminist growth.

I've been reading quite a bit about how Louisa wrote about the times when she had been harassed sexually.

So if Louisa was a very maternal person and she loved to hang out with the young boys,

It's possible that some of them developed a crush on her because of the nurture that she gave them.

That kind of happens between Jo and Laurie and I started to wonder that what if you have a strong masculine trajectory and then your friend begins to show that they are interested in you and you are not interested in them,

But then you can't really judge them because you yourself have that masculine trajectory or boys will be boys mentality,

Which is very questionable these days.

Therefore Jo needs to rebuild her entire identity because Laurie breaks that old model of the ideal masculinity that Jo has had.

There is a great scene where Friedrich comes to court Jo and the narrator says that Jo forgot to compare him to Laurie,

Who used to be her model of masculinity.

So Friedrich replaces the toxic masculinity with tender masculinity and thanks to him and Jo's sisters,

Jo becomes a more empathic and kinder person.

When she starts the school,

It is a school for boys because Jo loved boys.

For the people who don't understand it,

Louisa May Alcott loved boys and I am pretty sure that she had somewhat similar experiences in the way she adopted toxic masculine behaviour patterns and then grew out of them.

There is a great scene in Little Men where Jo's niece Daisy complains to Jo that boys don't take her to their games,

So she wants a game of her own.

And Jo thinks to herself that there are tons of boys in the house and the only girl is the most difficult to please.

This is one of the things that has always made me question why people think that Jo was sort of born into this world to support women's rights when she was often criticizing her own sex.

But Jo does get Daisy a beautiful play stove and she teaches her to cook.

Someone who I know actually was complaining about this how,

How did Jo dare to buy Daisy that ridiculous stove and minimize her value as a woman?

And I am like,

Are you realizing how misogynistic you actually sound?

That scene shows how Jo herself is growing as a person.

She respects Daisy's individuality.

For those of you who don't know,

Daisy is Meg's daughter.

I don't remember Daisy dreaming about living in luxury.

She is hardworking and self-reliant.

And Jo doesn't expect her to be a tomboy the way she was.

And why should she be?

The idea that all feminists are tomboys,

Which is what a lot of women filmmakers seem to think.

That kind of belief is only going to harm the feminist movement.

And most women are not tomboys,

So it's already incredibly unrealistic.

In Jo's post there is a scene where Jo actually lectures to young men who are objectifying some of the female students in the campus.

So Jo went from a person who had difficulties to judge a young man's behavior or harassing behavior because of their own masculine trajectory to someone who actually questioned that type of behavior.

I wish more people would speak about this.

It is important.

Women can be misogynistic towards other women.

And they can grow out of it.

This is a quote from O'Keele,

Who left this comment to the Louisa May Alcott group.

Her behavior when she was 12 years old.

It would also be a good opportunity for an adaptation to show Jo's human faults,

And not to show her as some glorified feminist icon,

As it is often the case.

I am going to chime in to Nina and completely agree that It's About High Time,

An adaptation,

Focuses on Laurie and his arc,

Which is practically non-existing in most if not all adaptations.

I think that's the only way Amy and Laurie will ever make complete sense.

While I appreciate Gerwig's attempt to flesh out Amy,

I could not for the life of me figure out why she had any reason to like him in the end.

I was wondering if you have ever thought about Amy's religiosity.

Like she is protestant,

But Esther kind of low-key influenced her on capitalism.

I don't know if that's the right way of putting it,

But I thought the part about her little chapel was pretty interesting.

To me that chapter showed lots of Amy's growth,

Spiritual growth,

In the sense that time at Ant March really calmed her down.

At home she was often triggered by Jo,

Or Jo was triggered by her.

There's the moment when Laurie comes to cheer Amy and she is writing her will.

It is a very cute chapter,

But I think it also shows how Amy has been thinking a lot about death and mortality because of Beth's illness,

And it is scary.

Maybe some part of the aesthetics of Catholicism spoke to Amy's soul.

The narrator mentions how she liked to look at the statue of the Virgin Mother.

I remember when my father passed away and I read lots of religious texts.

And I am not a very religious person,

But at that time it was something that was comforting.

I found this quote from Gregory Eiselein who has studied Louisa May Alcott's views on religion.

Although Alcott was often like Joe Bear of Little Men and Joel's Boys,

Who prefers to stay home while the others go to church,

Alcott attended services at a diverse set of churches,

From Parker's 28th Congregational Society and Charles C.

Grafton's Episcopal Church of the Advent in Boston,

To a Roman Catholic Mass in France.

She may have been actively interested in and accepting of a range of religious practices and ideas,

Because she embraced what her father called pure religion,

The practice of a liberal mind is no seed,

Or what Parker called pure ideal religion,

Which is permanent as opposed to the Christianity of the pulpit of society is ephemeral.

Ultimately,

She does not see any one religion as the sole source of spiritual truth,

But instead thinks some truth or benefit can be found in a variety of religions.

Even when confronted by those who hope to convert her,

Alcott tends to see common ground.

As she writes of her meeting with the Episcopal canon Knox Little,

I found that we meant the same thing,

Though caught by different names.

Alcott repeatedly distances herself from spiritualism,

For example,

Faith in immortality on the other hand is clearly one of her long-hauled beliefs appearing in her private letters,

As well as her fictional work.

Yet,

Of all her specific identifiable beliefs,

None was perhaps more important than her faith in the spiritual dimensions of the natural world.

You can see a lot of that in Little Man in Friedrich's teachings,

The way he speaks about God's garden.

I think for Louisa,

The important part of Christianity was the practical side of Christianity.

So for example,

In Amy's grief,

The faith provides a tool for her to cope with her fear,

The things that are happening at home.

Your insights about Amy and Laurie romance made me cry of how well written they are.

Please continue talking about them.

That is so sweet.

I love exploring the dynamics between Amy and Laurie and their relationship.

Hi Nina,

I love listening to your podcast.

I know this is not a topic that you speak very often,

But I am curious to know what are your thoughts on Joe and Laurie fans,

And do you think the large number of them is more of a result of bad interpretation of the novel or the overly romanticized film versions or both?

An excellent question.

To my experience,

A lot of Joe and Laurie fans have a very strong denial mentality.

I can give you an example.

Once I was having a discussion with someone,

I said that I really didn't like the way Laurie was minimizing Joe's writing in the novel.

And this person said that they can't remember any scenes from the book where Laurie would dislike Joe's writing.

So I took screenshots of the scenes in the book where Laurie is minimizing and making fun of Joe's writings,

And this person blocked me.

To me,

It is difficult to have discussions with Joe and Laurie shippers,

Because when you point out things in the novel,

They close their eyes and ears,

And I'm like,

I don't want to hear that,

I don't want to see that.

If you listen to my channel,

Then you know that I love to discuss about the novel.

To my experience,

They don't really read the book too,

They romanticize part one,

And they skip over the scenes where Laurie and Joe as well are shown in more critical light.

Like the chapter where Laurie is imposing as Joe and Annie's catfishing mag.

And those things are never in the films.

So to answer your question,

I think there are lots of Joe and Laurie fans who are very aware of the more problematic aspects of Joe and Laurie's relationship in the novel,

But because the films romanticize them so much,

It is very difficult to some to let go of that.

This is why I think the filmmakers make huge disservice to the book and to the bug flick,

Because year after year after year,

They keep erasing these toxic elements of their relationship,

So the viewer never finds out the real reason why Joe dumps him.

Here's a quote from a discussion that I had with Kara,

Who is a fellow Little Women fan.

There are so many men like Laurie in romantic movies.

Guys who constantly bullshitting or hurting someone,

But end up with the girl and we are rooting for them because they are all so pretty.

Take Ryan Gosling in The Notebook.

He threatens his love interest with killing himself by jumping from a ferris wheel if she doesn't go on a date with him.

Incredible Werther moment.

We see it as a grand gesture and a sign of love because that guy is played by Ryan Gosling.

If the role would be played by an unattractive actor,

We would view his actions much differently.

I always ask myself if the screenwriters and actors did read the book or only saw the adaptations,

Because if so,

They wouldn't be that biased I think,

Or they really only think love interest in Joe's age would be more contemporary,

Or rather that they like this young blooming love growing into something bigger trope.

But are they really people attracted to stupidity?

I mean,

I know a lot of people that don't care how well read or intellectual their significant other is,

But it's usually people that aren't well read either and focus on different things.

Laurie,

He can be productive and smart when he wants to,

But he also says that he went to college to please his grandfather and Joe,

But he is not interested from academics the same way as Joe and Friedrich are,

And he is not also interested to work.

I don't really care to discuss with Joe and Laurie fans these days anymore because it's waste of my time.

But the last discussion that I had with Joe and Laurie fans was really disturbing.

They said that Louisa May Alcott didn't know what she was doing,

And that Greta Gerwig's version is the only real version because Joe almost accepted Laurie's proposal,

I'm not kidding with you.

When I said that Laurie doesn't really have anything in common with Joe,

He likes men's fashion and music,

But he doesn't take his music career very seriously,

I did not hear from this person again.

In my Evolution of Laurie essay I quoted a lady who had written an article called Laurie is a nice guy,

Where they wrote how they used to love Joe and Laurie together,

But when they got older it began to bother them,

How he was harassing her and tried to manipulate Joe to be with him.

In the 19th century there were many Joe and Laurie fans because no one was questioning his behavior except Louisa May Alcott herself in the novel.

Now I think Joe and Laurie fans are mostly doctorined by the films.

If the films would include all the messed up things that Laurie does in the novel and how bad influence both Joe and Laurie has on each other,

No one in their right mind would think they are a good couple.

And Joe and Laurie fans,

They love to complain about Amy burning Joe's book.

In the novel Joe is bullying Amy for months,

She was on a 24-7 crusade humiliating her.

That's not in the films.

Joe and Laurie fans,

They love to complain how Amy stole Joe's trip to Europe.

Joe says to the ants that she doesn't like French and that she is better than them,

And the ants are going to France.

That is never in the films.

And isn't it interesting that Louisa May Alcott herself did the same trip to Europe that Amy did.

The way I read that chapter,

It is meant as a lesson to Joe to not put herself above other women.

The favorite thing that Joe and Laurie fans like to complain is that Fredrick stops Joe from writing.

This is a narrative that is entirely made up by the Laurie fans.

In the book Joe has a mental breakdown when she has to write sensational stories which contradict her own desires.

And that's never in the films.

So when Fredrick reminds her that if you want to be a successful and an authentic writer,

You need to write things that you can stand behind and you can be proud of.

And this happened with Louisa.

She really struggled with sensationalism and she felt lots of pressure when the publisher asked her to write stories that she was not herself comfortable with.

And there is a quote in Louisa's journals where she mentions that her friend Emerson has given her courage to find her own voice as a writer.

You can find this from the first Louisa May Alcott biography which has quotes from her diaries and it's never in the movies.

And the filmmakers just skip over that and then you get people like Greta Gerwig and Heidi Thomas saying that Fredrick doesn't allow Joe to write.

Why haven't these people actually read the novel?

Some of you may know that a book called Joe and Laurie appeared in 2020 and because of my basic principles I decided not to read it.

Someone who I did a collaboration to the podcast had read it and they said that in the novel Louisa decides to match up Joe and Laurie,

But she is not very happy with that.

So even the person who wrote this book,

And I assume that they are a Joe and Laurie shipper,

Is uncertain about them and that if Louisa thought it was a good idea.

Part of me thinks that is hilarious,

But then I am also annoyed that they are misrepresenting Louisa May Alcott who was an actual person.

I'm looking at you,

Greta Gerwig.

The only way that Joe and Laurie would have ended up together was if Louisa would have ended up with Ladislas Wisniewski.

He wanted Louisa to be his nanny and called Louisa his little mama.

And according to some Alcott schoolers,

He was a con man blackmailing Louisa,

And I think we can all agree that that relationship would have been a bad idea.

If you want to hear more about theories surrounding Ladislas,

Check out my video essay Love and Sex in Little Woman.

All this applies to Joe should have been a spinster asexual.

I ship Joe to a flowerpot,

I think she wants to be a child who doesn't grow up,

Blah blah blah.

But a lot of those narratives goes along with the event in the novel or Louisa's personal life.

The transcendentalists,

They had very unique ways to see the world.

They were abolitionist and believed into co-education.

People like Henry Tarrow and other philosophers who Louisa knew personally and that she inserted into Friedrich's character.

Without them,

She would not have become the person who she became.

So you can't erase Joe's and Friedrich's relationship from Little Woman,

Because then you don't have the story of this curious intellectual person growing to be Louisa May Alcott.

There is a book called Life of Charles Follan,

Which was written by Eliza Follan.

Charles was a German immigrant and an abolitionist and he was a hero for the transcendentalists and Louisa had met Charles as a child and she liked him a lot.

After Charles passed away,

Eliza wrote a book about him and their relationship and Louisa May Alcott read this book when she was 12.

So both Charles and Eliza ended up becoming models for Joe and Friedrich.

My favorite quote in Little Woman is the part where Joe wonders why everyone likes Friedrich and she says he was attractive as a genial fire.

People gathered around him like a warm herd.

And I found out Louisa actually copied this sentence from Eliza Follan.

So my favorite scene in Little Woman is written by Eliza Follan.

There was something about this relationship that deeply moved Louisa.

I am going to make an entire podcast episode about Eliza and Charles in the future.

When Louisa was in her 20s,

She had dreams about marriage and starting a family.

This is what I have been doing.

I have been tracing the books that Louisa read,

Which all worked as basis for Joe's and Friedrich's relationship.

And I have been tracking them down all the way to Louisa's.

Henry Turow,

Who Louisa loved all her life,

Passed away when she was 28.

And Henry was the model for Friedrich and all the romantic heroes in her stories.

And John Surrey,

German soldier who Louisa fancied and nursed in the war,

He passed away when she was working in the hospital.

And it is sad that people like Greta Gerwig tried to justify Joe remaining as a spinster or to be in love with Laurie just because Louisa May Alcott never married.

Louisa was incredibly lonely.

Lots of people like to sugarcoat that.

Susan Bailey once wrote that maybe writing romantic endings for her heroines was Louisa's way to cope with her loneliness or relive romantic memories.

Louisa did consider marriage with Lady Wisniewski,

But like we have discussed in this podcast many times,

He was very flicky and not very trustworthy.

And Louisa writes in one of her articles that marriage without love is self-deceiving.

And if you marry someone just because you are lonely,

You are hurting yourself even more.

And this is exactly what happens in Little Woman.

Joe says that the only reason she could marry Laurie is because she was lonely.

But it's actually really heartbreaking to read some of Louisa's letters,

Because she was incredibly lonely.

Louisa believed to reincarnation and to immortality of the soul and that she would reunite with her loved one in the next life.

Louisa writes how she sees that her sisters are very happy and she is happy for them,

But she is sad because she is lonely and she believes that she has had so many struggles in this life that she deserves just as much love and romance as they do and that she will get them in the next life.

I believe that we meet somewhere again,

Though where or how I don't know or care,

For genuine love is immortal.

I think immortality is the passing of a soul through many lives or experiences,

And such as are truly lived,

Used and learned,

Held on to the next age growing richer,

Happier and higher,

Carrying with it only the real memories of what has gone before.

I seem to remember former states and feel that in them I have learned some of the lessons that have never since been mine,

And in my next step I hope to leave behind many of the trials I have struggled to bear here and begin to find light as I go on.

This accounts for the genius and great virtue somehow some show here.

They have done well in my faces of this great school,

And bring into our class the virtue of the gifts that make them great or good.

We don't remember the lesser things,

They slip away as childish trifles,

And we carry on only the real experiences.

This is so interesting to me.

Luisa believes that she learns and grows from her mistakes,

And in the school of life,

And in the second life,

She gets the things that weren't given her in the present.

Things like marriage and family of her own,

And maybe even the school that she dreamt of.

This idea that reading Good Wives or Little Woman Part 2 is a sad story of yearning for childhood is not supported by the text or the author's intention at all,

Because Little Woman is about growing up as a person.

But what a lot of people don't know is that Luisa became very ill after her service in the civil war.

She actually had typhoid fever,

But it was actually the mercury treatment that slowly killed her.

So especially during the end of her life,

Luisa's condition was extremely painful.

And I think it's also good to remind that during this time,

In the end of the 19th century,

Most people married for money instead of love,

And Luisa was part of the movement that was encouraging people to marry for love instead of money.

For those of you who have asked me about Luisa's relationship with Henry Terro,

I agree with Christine Doyle,

Alcott's schooler,

Who said that Henry merited Luisa's lifelong affection.

He was the love of her life.

Now I don't know if he loved her back.

I think he loved her back as a friend,

And maybe there was something romantic that happened between them.

But there are too many similarities between Little Woman and the things that happened between Luisa and Henry,

The way Luisa has written about them in her diaries.

She wrote that she used to steal Henry from her father to have philosophical discussions with him.

And this happens in Little Woman when Jo tries to steal Friedrich from her father.

Henry also had a habit to carry an umbrella.

And Henry also used the word tau when he was being very cute or romantic.

Look up Henry Terro's love poems.

Friedrich uses the word tau on Jo.

Tau is his pet name for her.

And like I've said many times,

Henry is the romantic lead in Luisa's novels.

When it comes to her love for him,

She is very transparent.

Henry is not the only model for Friedrich,

But he sort of accidentally became part of my research when I found out how big effect this relationship that they had,

Had on Luisa's literal works.

Hashtag Team Henry.

Hello!

This is most definitely a bit basic,

But I was wondering who your favorite on-screen rendition of Jo was,

Based on the acting.

My favorite Jo based on acting is Winona Ryder.

When she goes to the publishing house you can see how insecure she is.

And in the book Jo is very insecure about her writings.

And I also like the way in that film Jo says that she doesn't like the way Mr.

Dashwood wants to cut out all the elements that Jo wants to keep in the story.

And then in the end of the film when she is writing Little Woman and she begins to understand how valuable Friedrich's feedback was to her,

And then she is excited about the prospects of starting the school,

When Friedrich comes back,

Jo has gone full circle.

And then she is more confident about their relationship with one another and her craft.

Hello!

I have a question for your Q&A video.

You often talk a lot about Jo and Amy and Laurie,

So I'd like to know your opinion on Beth and Meg,

And which adaptation showed your favorite versions of them?

That's a very good question.

I think both Meg and Beth are underappreciated.

There are some Jo fans who hate all other sisters and all other characters,

Which by the way is insane.

Pretty sad,

Because Louisa May Alcott really admired all her sisters.

From the couples in Little Woman,

Meg and Jo are closest when it comes to their tempers.

They both possess a certain quiet strength.

I really love Meg's character,

And my favorite screen Megs are Trini Alvarado and Janet Leigh.

And I think both of those actresses managed to capture that quiet strength that Meg has.

Since Meg was the oldest,

She remembered what life was like when her family had more money.

She never complains about this situation,

She understands it,

And she wants to fit in to the circles of other young ladies.

And it is really hypocritical for anyone to criticize Meg for wanting that,

Because Jo also says that she wants to be rich and have stable feet with stallions.

If you read Jo's voice,

You know Jo does become rich,

But the fame is more of a curse for her.

It was the same with Louisa May Alcott.

I think I became a Meg fan when I started to explore the catfishing chapter more deeper.

Jo and Laurie,

They were terrible the way they behaved,

But I loved Meg that she wanted to protect John from a public humiliation that,

You know,

Laurie was creating.

This is another Beth question.

I wanted to drop you that question that I had in my mind considering your Q&A,

And that question is about that one sister no one really talks about,

Beth.

Is her character in any way represented as it is in the book?

Because to me,

Movie Beth is often the sick girl trope that is incredibly pure and without any flaw,

But has to suffer and die so that the people around her,

Especially Jo,

Finally takes the life by the balls and really go their own way.

I think there is so much more about her that is never really put into picture.

And so there are women saying they are like Jo,

I mean most people want to be Jo,

Even if they are in no way like her,

Or maybe like Amy or Meg,

But hardly anyone would say that they are like Beth.

When I was a child,

Beth was my favorite character.

I had very high level social anxiety,

I also collected dolls,

And I loved cats.

I identify myself as an intersectional feminist,

So I absolutely hate it when people use feminism as an excuse to make fun of female characters that are not like Jo.

To me,

Beth was always a very brave character.

She saw a child suffer and decided to help.

I have come across fans and even alcohol schoolers who say that Beth died because her feminist agenda wasn't as strong as Jo's.

That's bullshit.

Beth died because Luisa's sister Lizzie catched scald fever after helping a sick child.

I hated Gerwig's film in the way it only used Beth's death as a tool for Jo to write her book.

In the novel,

It is Friedrich who inspires Jo to write.

After Beth's passing,

When Jo is in a very dark place,

She finds some of his letters and she begins slowly by writing poetry.

And it is that actual poem that brings Friedrich back to her life.

Even the sister dynamics in Little Women are based on complementary tempers.

Amy has a bit of a temper and Meg is her favorite sister,

So Meg has a calming effect on Amy.

Beth is very calm,

So just her presence calms Jo down.

And I always thought that there was somewhat similar dynamics between Beth and Friedrich's relationship towards Jo.

John Cerre,

Who was a German-American soldier who Luisa nursed in the war,

She called her as Prince of Patience.

And John was very much Friedrich-type person,

Very calm and gentle.

And there was something about him that reminded Luisa about her sister.

So both Friedrich and Beth,

They fully accepted Jo the way she was,

With her flaws and all.

And based on what I have read about Lizzie Alcott,

I think she might have been autistic.

And autism is a spectrum,

So she was probably mildly autistic.

And Beth is also more of an introvert and unlike common belief says,

Introverts are not necessarily shy.

Shyness is usually fear of being judged.

But an introvert gets anxiety in an environment that has lots of outside stimulations.

And maybe that's why Beth was homeschooled.

An introvert thrives in an environment where they can control the stimulations,

So playing piano is a perfect hobby for someone like that.

John Brooke is another introvert.

Freddie,

Glory and Amy are extroverts.

Jo and Meg,

In my opinion,

Are ambiverts.

Somewhere between introvert and extrovert.

I like most screen portrayals of Beth.

The scene in 1994 film where Claire Danes holds the Hummel baby,

I bawl my eyes out every time when I see it.

Her chin,

It just shivers.

It's amazing.

My all-time favourite Beth must be Ali Jennings from The Modern Little Woman from 2018.

I think that film shows really well what I meant about Beth and Fritz having similar tempers and very calming effect on Jo.

I think it's also one of the best films when it comes to show Beth and Jo's relationship and the deep bond that they have.

There's a scene where Jo doesn't want to go to Meg's and John's wedding and Beth is like,

You will go,

She's your sister,

You have to be there.

I love that scene and I love that because when Beth is angry at Jo,

It's because she knows what is best for her.

I also must add that in the book Jo loved John like a brother and she was happy to go to the wedding.

Who are your favourite characters?

When I was a child my favourite characters were Beth and Laurie.

But I'd say since I read Good Wives when I was 16,

17 and I'm now in my 30s,

Since then my favourites have been Amy and Fritz.

Two very different characters.

Amy is someone who understands exactly how the society works and instead of trying to go against the system,

Which is what Jo does,

Amy adjusts herself so that she can conform to the system and when she is in the system,

Then she can change it so that it works for her and her loved ones.

There's a part of me that really admires that and wishes that I could be more like her.

I love the scene in the book where she was organizing the picnic and nothing went like she planned,

But she didn't let the setbacks put her down and in the end,

Even though she first thought that it was going to be a disaster,

It all went well.

I really don't like the triangle narrative that the films have about Amy and Jo fighting over Laurie.

In the book,

Jo is never interested in Laurie and Amy doesn't want him either when he is being non-productive.

Especially when I started to study Louisa's and Mae's relationship,

That whole triangle narrative is so harmful.

They were equally supporting on each other's careers and Mae even named her daughter after Louisa.

When I was a teen,

I had three major fictional crushes.

Those were Gilbert Blight from Anne of Green Gables,

Captain Wentworth from Jane Austen's Persuasion and Friedrich Baer from Little Woman.

Who doesn't love Anne of Green Gables?

And Jonathan Grumby,

He was my first TV crush.

Wentworth,

That man is a heck of a letter writer,

Friedrich,

I just got him.

It has a lot to do with the way Friedrich is written,

Or maybe I was a German philosopher in my past life.

Friedrich,

He is written to be a very kind man and he is not written in a malicious way.

He is written to be someone who Jo loves and admires,

And someone who loves and admires her back.

And I loved that he was very eccentric.

And in the book he is written to be a bit absent-minded.

In the 1949 film Rosanna Brassi's Friedrich,

He keeps losing his buttons all the time.

It's really cute.

I've had discussions about this with my Alcott fan friends and we came to a mutual conclusion that Louisa May Alcott wrote the Umbrella scene about someone who she was in love with.

And we've also discussed whether Little Woman is a young adult novel.

I think Good Wives,

Little Man and Jo's Boys could be read as young adult novels.

If you read the sequels,

Despite the fact that Jo and Fritz are married,

They have a constant flirt game.

And it's pretty strong.

I do love his character.

In the Umbrella chapter there is this moment when he sees tears in Jo's cheeks and he asks her,

Why do you cry?

And she says,

Because you are going away.

And then he tells her that she was the reason why he came there in the first place.

The dialogue is so sweet.

And to me it was always the most beautiful and realistic description of falling in love.

And you can be a very cynical person and listen to this channel.

I am often drawn to people that possess this Friedrich type of energy.

People who are kind and eccentric.

So Amy is the one who I'd like to be more like and Friedrich is someone who I'd like to hang out with.

This is from Okio.

It always bothered me that Fritz was seen as the bad guy in the feedback situation.

It would be one thing if Jo really believed in her sensational stories,

But that is clearly not the case in the books.

Fritz is often given blame for putting her work down,

When in reality he was concerned about her,

Because he knew she was doing something she was ashamed of.

This is so true.

To me it was always very clear that Friedrich had Jo's best interest in mind,

Because the narrator mentions that Jo was having like literally nightmares and panic attacks because of these sensational stories that she was writing.

She was especially afraid that her mom would find out that she was writing them,

So even the money that she got,

Which was not a lot,

She couldn't really justify herself why she was doing it.

This is a quote from Jemina.

It's sort of popular in media to show the good influence women can have of men and it's certainly the case in Little Woman,

But it can also go the other way around.

In New York Jo struggled with her sensational stories,

Some psychological distress,

But those are the only stories that the editor wanted.

Her necessity to have money led her to put aside her family's teachings.

And Bear has an amazing reply.

There is a demand for whiskey,

But I think you and I do not care to sell it.

If the respectable people knew what harm they did,

They would not feel that the living was honest.

His answer reminded me of a critic here in Mexico.

Whenever someone defends a TV show,

Movie,

Play,

Book,

Whatever,

Just for being popular,

He would say cocaine is super popular.

That doesn't mean it's good.

In a way Amy thread parallels with Jo and Laurie,

In the sense that both sisters have these incredible opportunities to marry very wealthy men.

However,

Both were doomed to be loveless marriages and neither Amy or Jo wanted that.

They would have lived in a golden cage.

So yeah,

Amy did lots of good on Laurie,

But he also helped her.

And Fritz did the same to Jo.

Who do you think should play Friedrich in a future adaptation?

That's easy.

Daniel Brühl.

He is a great German actor,

He is the right age and he rocks the beard.

This is what Kara says.

I was pleasantly surprised when I saw Daniel Brühl in your video.

That was the love and sexy little woman video.

When I first heard there will be a new movie,

I had the hope that Friedrich might be played by a German actor,

Since so many of them do international movies right now.

And Daniel Brühl was the first to come into my mind,

Plus he would have fit age-wise and is able to grow a decent beard.

So I was a little disappointed when I saw Gerwig's choice,

Although I really liked the actor.

But when I saw how little they cared about his role,

I was actually relieved.

They didn't give the role to Daniel.

This is something that really disappointed me when I read Luis Garrel's interviews.

He seemed to have been the only person in the cast who really understood what happened between Joe and Friedrich in the novel.

He spoke about Joe's intellectual desire and Friedrich being the positive impact on Joe's writings.

Also Luisa May Alcott's views on transnational family.

And then none of that was in the film.

So hopefully,

If Daniel ever plays Fritz,

The story is written by somebody who actually cares about the novel and cares about Luisa May Alcott's views on the world.

Hi,

If you were going to recommend just one biography of Luisa May Alcott,

Which one would it be?

If not Janey's book,

Luisa May Alcott's life letters and journals is pretty good.

She was one of the first Alcott biographers and she knew Luisa personally.

Some modern Alcott schoolers like Danny O'Shealy has criticized Janey for sort of nitpicking a lot of things.

I think that's true,

But Luisa also herself constantly censored and rewrote her journals,

So I don't entirely blame Janey for not having a lot to work on.

Some things that I like to discuss,

Like Joe's sexual awakening in Little Woman.

Alcott biographers who lived in Victorian times,

They wouldn't have discussed such themes.

But I still like that book,

Because,

You know,

You can hear from Luisa with her own words.

But you have to be very careful when you read Luisa's diary markings,

Because she did lots of self-censoring.

Another biography that I have used as a reference a lot is Harriet Risen's Luisa May Alcott Woman Behind Little Woman.

I think it was the only biography that I came across which gave actual reasons why Luisa rejected Laddy Wisniewski,

One of the real-life Lauries.

And one of the things that has bothered me a lot when I was doing my Laurie research was that many biographers,

They romanticize Laddy's life the same way as the filmmakers romanticize Laurie,

But Laddy was a lot more similar to the book Laurie,

In that sense he wanted Luisa to be more of a caretaker than an equal life partner.

And the reason why I got that book in the first place was because I read a review that it mentions how Fredrik was muddled by Goethe,

So of course I had to read it.

Do you have any quotes on Luisa's love for Emerson and Thoreau?

I am very interested about it,

But I would love if you could give me some examples of what she wrote about them.

Yes,

There are many and I love collecting them.

This is what Luisa writes about Waldo Emerson.

Mr.

Emerson kissed her,

Anna Alcott,

This happened during Anna's wedding,

And I thought that honour would make even matrimony endurable,

For he is the god of my idolatry and has been for years.

This is a quote from Megan Arnknecht's essay.

Emerson also taught Heidi of Alcott,

Often allowing her to borrow books from his library and praising and criticizing her writing.

Alcott's trips to Emerson's library helped her develop and deepen her love for literature.

His kind hand opened to me the riches of Shakespeare,

Dante,

Goethe and Carlyle.

Alcott wrote in a newspaper article on April 27,

1884 after Emerson's death,

And I gratefully recall the sweet patience with which he led me round the booklight room,

Till the new and very interesting book was found.

These trips to Emerson's library opened and shaped Alcott's intellectual life.

There is a quote where Luisa compares Henry Thoreau to Napoleon and Emerson to Goethe.

They were both philosophers,

But she seems to connect Henry to intellectualism and masculinity and Emerson to writing and reading and books.

He also allowed Luisa to use his library and encouraged her to read and expand her mind.

That he calls him Goethe,

It can reference to the way he encouraged Luisa to find her own style as a writer,

Same way as Fredrik helps Jo to find her style as a writer.

And also that Luisa saw Goethe as a genius,

Someone who was her literal inspiration.

Luisa called Henry as the perfect man.

I think they could have been a great couple if the timing had been right.

They had very similar views on romantic relationships and raising children,

Which is super interesting.

After Henry passed away,

Luisa wrote a poem called Thoreau's Flute.

She wasn't going to publish it at first,

But then Luisa's father found it and liked it.

We sly king said our pan is dead,

His pipe hangs mute beside the river,

Around his wistful sunbeams giver,

But music's airy voices fled,

Spring mourns as our untimely frost.

The bluebird chants a requiem,

The willow blossom waits for him,

The genius of the woods is lost.

Then from the flute untouched by hands,

There came a loud harmonious breath,

For such as he there is no death.

His life,

The eternal life commands,

Above man's aims his nature rose,

The wisdom of a just continent,

And turned to poetry life's prose.

Haunting the hills,

The stream,

The wild,

Swallow and ester,

Lake and pine,

To him grew human or divine,

Fit mate for this large-hearted child,

Such home-arched nature never forgets,

And yearly on the cover lit,

Night,

Which her darling leads hide,

Will write his name in violets.

To him now vain regrets belong,

Whose soul that finer instrument gave to the world to no poor lament,

But wood notes ever sweet and strong,

O lonely friend,

He still will be,

A potent presence,

Tall unseen,

Steadfast,

Sagacious and serene,

Seek not for him,

He is with thee.

Lisa was very shocked by Henry's death.

He was very important to her.

I never cared about the Joe Fritz couple,

Since I'm only Amy and Laurie Stan,

But reading your post on Joe and Fredrick made me interested in them.

I think what is missing in the cinematic versions of the umbrella scene is that no movie shows the several minutes that Joe and Fredrick spend chatting,

Simulating interest in shopping,

Circling each other,

Trying to detect any reaction or interest for each other.

They are both interested,

But none dare to really make their feelings known.

They go around the matter.

There is amazing intensity the way the umbrella chapter is written.

I never understood why the filmmakers want to focus the scene where Joe is rejecting Laurie,

Because in the book it's not written to be romantic,

And they always erase a lot of dialogue.

You never need to write again,

And I will kill myself if you don't marry me.

Then we have this amazing chapter with Joe and Fredrick in the rain,

Trying to read each other's gestures,

And thinking is this the right moment to tell this person that I'm in love with them.

It is one of the best,

Most amazing things that any person has ever written,

The entire umbrella chapter and then Amy and Laurie rowing that boat together,

These are the things that I want to see in adaptations,

And it seems that a lot of you guys would like to see them as well.

Here are questions from Emily,

My podcaster partner in crime.

Has your favorite Marchister changed over the years?

Yes,

As a child I was a Batgirl.

It's only natural that when you grow,

Your taste on people becomes a bit different and you change as a person.

I still love Bat,

But I think I love her for very different reasons than I did as a child.

For recent years I have really started to like Meg's character a lot more.

As a child I never really understood why Meg felt conflicted with having fun and being very responsible,

But now I think it has more to do with her being the big sister and feeling responsible for her younger sisters,

And also being the role model.

Jo really needed that whole growth process that she had for me to understand her and her character,

And especially reading more about Louisa.

One of the problems that I had with Jo's character,

A lot of that was the way the filmmakers erased Jo's flaws,

And when they do that,

They deprive her growth as an individual.

An Alcott schooler,

Susan Bailey,

Once said that one of the problems that she has with Louisa May Alcott biographies is often that the writers tend to sugarcoat Louisa,

And as a result Louisa as a character becomes more one-dimensional,

And she was a very complicated person.

I think I like Amy,

The same reason why I like Jo.

There are times when they feel lost,

Then they eventually find their place in the world.

How do you rank all the Little Women adaptations?

It's important to me that they are loyal to the novel,

And also that they are loyal to Louisa and the people who inspired the characters,

But also the whole philosophy,

All the sociological messages that she inserted into the novel.

This is one of the comments that I got.

I once saw a Tumblr post suggesting that Alcott was anti-German because Fridich is so quote unquote boring.

They were on that Alcott gave Jo an unsatisfactory husband because she didn't really want to marry her off mindset,

And because it's from the German,

How most that bet contracts her fatal illness.

I'm glad to hear your essay explaining why that interpretation is nonsense.

In every one of her interviews Greta Gerwig complained about Fridich being German and she made fun of his accent.

As a result of this there are now tons of young Greta Gerwig fans who believe that Louisa May Alcott hated Germans.

And this isn't the first time I hear this.

This comes from Greta Gerwig who promotes herself as an Alcott expert.

Now most Alcott biographies they mention Louisa's love for the German culture and that Louisa studied German and the Alcott's they were friends with many German immigrant families.

It is very common for Jo and Laurie fans or people who think that Jo should have remained a spinster make racist statements on Fridich's character and Gerwig's comments they only fuel into that.

And Louisa May Alcott was a Germanophile during the time when there was lots of xenophobia against German immigrants.

So they are behaving exactly like the people who Louisa May Alcott was criticising.

And I could say the same about Laurie never being played by a brown skinned actor when in the book he is written to have brown skin and it plays a big part of his feelings as an outsider in Concord.

They really tried to throw bones everyone in the 2019 film,

Trying to please Jo and Laurie shippers and any forms of Jo being queer or the canon fans.

I even hear in Finland we'd get headlines like Greta Gerwig shows that Louisa May Alcott disliked romance,

Which once again is nonsense.

Do you think any of these quote unquote journalists read Louisa May Alcott biographies?

They get paid for writing what the film companies tell them to write.

They briefly mentioned Ladislas Wisniewski in 2019 Little Woman Film Guide as one of Laurie's models,

But very conveniently they didn't mention that Louisa had a fling with him and even considered marrying him,

Because that doesn't fit to the false narrative that the film was being marketed with.

Same with Henry Tarrow and especially Emerson inspiring Louisa to become a better writer.

That doesn't fit to the false narrative when the film is being promoted with hate speech.

Jo should have remained as a spinster or ended up with Laurie.

Friedrich encourages Jo to write and find her own style as a writer.

Emerson did that to Louisa,

But Greta Gerwig doesn't want you to know that or the fact that Louisa May Alcott was incredibly lonely,

Despite the fact that she was a millionaire spinster.

So when people ask me why I don't like Greta Gerwig's version or some other versions,

I am someone who loves to read the novel and to study it and I like to study the life of the author.

The filmmaker makes statements where they do not only twist the events in the novel,

Like Gerwig saying that Laurie was Jo's first feminist ally,

When in the book he said to Jo that he doesn't want her to write when they marry because Jo is too busy to take care of him.

It seems that they haven't read the novel at all,

But when they are literally spreading hate speech,

Using their own biases as an excuse,

They are really not giving me any good reason to get behind their work.

And if the filmmakers doesn't think that what happens in the book is not worth telling and that the author's life is so meaningless for them,

That instead they spread false information about them,

Just to make profit.

Why should people just quietly accept that?

I hope that more people come out and speak up how messed up that is.

Hopefully Emily and I can inspire more people to do that.

Don't just rely on the internet,

Do your research,

Read the books.

All good schoolers that I know are really friendly.

Not all of them are specialized on Luisa's love life,

But some of them are.

What new research are you working on at the moment?

I am doing a research on Friedrichs and Goethe's parallels.

I am also planning an episode on Laurie's similarities between Sorrows of Young Werther.

And I like to discuss more about the influence of German Romanticism in Little Women.

Big thanks to you all who sent me amazing questions and thanks to you all who have been listening.

I'll see you soon.

Stay well and make good choices.