This homey, simple story has been a favorite of mine since I was a child. Reading it again was like a breath of fresh air after all the dark symbols of decay and overreach I have been ingesting recently. I love that the central struggle for the girls is to be good and become the women that their father hopes they will. The father figure is about a well rounded enabling device as Citizen Kane’s Rosebud was, and the main action centers on the girls with a cameo role played by their male neighbours.

The values are old fashioned and very Protestant, but they were the ones I was brought up with and still respect, although some I consider a little too old fashioned. It is odd to think that at the same time Alcott was regretfully denouncing Meg for wearing a low cut silk dress and drinking champagne, Whitman was lying in the grass one transparent summer morning, a lover athwart his hips….despite their differences, how young and idealistic, how full of hope that the world can and should be better they both are!