Little Women - Why my secret dark thoughts might make me more of an Amy

I’ve just gotten home after seeing Greta Gerwig’s take on Louisa May Alcott’s “Little Women.” In my opinion, it was phenomenal. But that’s not what this post is going to be about. 

No, as always, this post will be about how fucking weird I am and my own troubling inner thoughts.

If you haven’t read any of my other posts, here’s what you should know: I’m weird. I’ve always been weird. I will always be weird. Even when I’m having slightly normal, mainstream moments, deep down, I’m still a bit odd. 

What does this have to do with “Little Women?”

Well, as an odd child, I chose to read this 759 page book. I’m not quite sure where this decision came from, but I think it had something to do with wanting to challenge myself with a classic. Mind you, I was not (and still am not) a fast reader. It takes me a while to take in the meaning of each sentence, paragraph, and page. 

I remember another 3rd grader saying that if they were reading “Little Women,” they would have finished it far before me. We even got out a stopwatch to see who could read the page faster. Though years later she would confess to having cheated, it still doesn’t refute the fact of the matter which is that she wasn’t reading “Little Women” during her playtime. I was. 

Though I would go on to read other books and find even odder interests (fantasy books made a big appearance in my adolescence), I never shook the need to read through all of the period books I could. And read them for fun. I had no interest in reading them if they were assigned. I finished the majority of Jane Austen’s novels, the Brontes, Emily Dickinson. I watched all of the movies—literally every version of Sense & Sensibility as well as Persuasion.

So what’s the trouble?

The trouble is that I spent so much of my youth wishing that someone else were reading these books alongside me. Don’t get me wrong. I’m sure there were other people out there reading them. Pretending to be characters like those in the books. Trying to write novels of their own that would withstand the test of time as these novelists’ had. In fact, a friend messaged me about the movie & shared that she’d had a similar experience: reading it young, realizing now that it had perhaps defined her entire life. 

But I didn’t know any of them. 

And the problem is now, I have people in my life who love it. Like love it. Like cried, gasped, and laughed throughout the entire movie. They’re into all of it. The dresses they wore. Their piano skills. Their suits and pleasantries. 

And that’s great. 

But not really. 

For some reason, I find myself utterly frustrated with the fact that they love it now. 

And don’t get me wrong. Greta Gerwig’s take is new and incredible and whisks you away in a tornado of dancing, shouting, fighting, writing, loving, and crying. It is a most perfect (in my opinion) depiction of the emotions that run through the book. Of sisterhood and of anger and frustration and terror and joy. 

So, I understand why they love it now. Why they love this movie. 

But, boy, does it also make me angry. Because perhaps having read this at such a moldable age, I may have been influenced by these characters. Because maybe I wish that these people had been interested in this book when I was interested in it. When I wanted someone to talk to about what was going on in the story. How frustrated I was with Joe because she couldn’t love Lawrie but how I admired her anyway. How Amy was so cruel and childish and how Beth was too sweet to have left so soon. 

Wow, I’m getting off track. 

Anyway, as my group of friends I was with discussed the movie afterward and expressed their feelings about the characters in it. I wanted to back away for a minute. I even said, “hey, wait. Greta’s great, but can we talk about Louisa May Alcott??”

Is it only possible to love it now that Greta has decided to take the project on?

Then again, when I search deeper into my soul, I wonder if I really would have wanted them to have loved the book in the third grade. I feel like maybe, just maybe, I chose to read the book for the shock factor. Because no other 3rd grade was choosing to read a nearly 1,000 page book for fun on their free time. And I was.

Does that make me more of an Amy than a Jo??

And with that question, I bid you adieu. Because when it comes down to it, my need for recognition for having read this book so long before anyone cared to is not worthy of any more of our time. 

Goodnight! And please read the book & see the movie if you get the chance.