This is my last night writing from home until late January, as tomorrow I will be back at Pearl's for another work cycle. I took it easy today after three go-go days in a row of church services, singing, and the Christmas get-together and meal at Pearl's. Mostly, I just stayed in and read my various books, the RFK I mentioned yesterday, plus a novel by Michael Harvey called "Brighton". I mentioned that Harvey was recommended by Stephen King, and this is my second book by him, the other being "Pulse", his latest. I am also trying to finish by the end of the year a book called "Regular Polytopes" by mathematician H.S.M. Coxeter. This book (written in 1948) was recommended by Dr. Farrell as a way for readers to understand four dimensional concepts, presented in shapes, or polytopes, such as dodecahedrons and icosahedrons. I hadn't heard those terms since junior high. I bought the book on Dr. Joe's suggestion, but by the time I got halfway through, the math was utterly incomprehensible to me. The use of symbols is like another language and I would have to learn it to be able to fully understand what Coxeter is talking about. However, because I had already finished half of the book by Halloween, rather than give up I was determined to read the rest of it, a few pages at a time, just to absorb the words and equations, even though I don't understand them in the literal sense. I hope that just by simply reading, I will process something useful if only on a subconscious level. So that is my third book of the moment, "Regular Polytopes", and I will finish all three by year's end.
I didn't get in the car today but I did walk down to the LIbe for movies, and tonight I watched the 1949 version of "Little Women", adapted from the famous book by Louisa May Alcott that has been made and remade many times. My Mom loved this movie. I had never seen it, even though it is a classic and you know that I will gladly watch so-called "women's pictures" (or "chick flicks" if you prefer) because I don't think of movies in such terms. To me, there are only stories. Stories that are either interesting or not, entertaining or not, but most importantly, stories that either make you feel something or not.
Everyone has heard of the title "Little Women", and I knew it to be renowned, so I checked it out from the library and discovered that it was every bit as great as it was said to be.
You have to have a feel for such films, especially if you are a man in this cynical day and age. I am like George Costanza, a straight man who loves opera, who will watch women's movies and anything with deep emotion and expression, which we are conditioned to believe in lowbrow America are the domain of gay men and women. I say, hey I have feelings too. I am a Human Being. Therefore, any story or artistic medium that makes me feel something will get my interest. In fact, what will decidedly not get my interest is the sort of cynical, crude "guy films", especially "bro"-style comedies-that-aren't-funny, that are passed off as male bonding films nowdays. Give me a women's picture any day over that garbage.
So I loved "Little Women", which seems to me an American Classic, written by an early feminist writer when that term meant something less strident. Louisa May Alcott portrayed herself in the lead character of "Jo", the free spirited tomboy of an 1860s family of all women, four daughters and their mother. The father is a Pastor, off ministering to troops in the Civil War. Eldest daughter Jo, played by June Allyson, rallies the family to stick together. Her sisters each have strong personalities, the shy and musical Margaret O'Brien, the prim and snooty Elizabeth Taylor, and the regal Janet Leigh, the traditional female of the era who is the first to do what is expected of her, to get married to a respectable gentleman.
"Little Women" is a period piece with fantastic MGM sets that look like small town Massachusetts in 1860, but what you also notice is the manners that people had at that time. This is not simply a contrivance of the screenwriters, the dialogue was taken from the book, and the way people spoke to one another in those days was elegant and polite, but without being forced. It was considerate, and it reminds you of the letters that the soldiers wrote to their families in Ken Burns' famous documentary "The Civil War". Everything about "Little Women" evokes that era : the build of the houses, their interiors, the dress of the young women, the way they speak, their compassion for one another. They are like different people entirely from who we are today, and it makes the viewer long for that time.
The novel was romanticized, of course, and Louisa May Alcott is regarded as a great American writer. But she was writing from the bottom of her heart, and this is stressed in the movie. She was writing about the deepest feelings of young women, taken from her own family life shared with her own sisters, and she laid their feelings and personalities out for the world to see. This is real feminism, in my opinion, though as a male I am sure I could be castigated for it.
But this is optimistic feminism, the best of female energy. That's the way I see it.
I feel a connection to that time in America, and you probably do as well. That's why they have made about eight versions of "Little Women" with a new one on the way in 2019, starring Saoirse Ronan.
It's a great story in any era, depicting the best in the female spirit through the sisters who have several different personality types, but who all have the high values that were idealised in children and in families of that time period.
See it for the great acting by all involved, and for the beautiful recreation of 1860s America, and for the superb colorful photography. See it for the Women's point of view.
Two Huge Thumbs Up for "Little Women" (1949 version).
That's all for tonight, see you in the morning with much love until then and continuing......
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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