Concord has a beautiful little library, sort of a mini Widener. I went in the other day to take out some books and didn't know where to start. Rather than do something sensible like ask my friends to give me lists of books to read, I decided to start at the beginning.
I went to the A's in the fiction section. I've decided to work in alphabetical order, taking out a few books at a time by authors I've heard of, to see what I like.
I'm about to go back for round two. Here's where I am so far:
The Inheritance, by Louisa May Alcott (a Concord native). Her first novel, written at age seventeen. It's a sweetly moralistic story about the intersection of social class and ethics. A too-good-to-be-true teenage orphan stays with a wealthy family as a paid "companion" to their youngest daughter. The wealthy older uncle falls in love with her, but she refuses his hand because her social rank is not worthy. Then, she discovers she is not only heiress to the family's entire fortune, but of course their equal ancestrally speaking. She vows to hide this discovery, though, to spare them financial loss and accompanying embarrassment of learning they have treated their equal like shit this whole time. A morality play. The prose itself is nothing much.
Excerpt: "With blushing dignity, in few but simple words she thanked him for the honor he bestowed and kindly but decidedly refused his love."
Stories of a Woman's Power, by Louisa May Alcott. Four short stories about women who manipulate men to get revenge, money, or love. Quite the bodice-rippers, in a very chaste sort of way. It was interesting to see history's budding feminist sensibilities personified in Alcott, who fought for women's right to vote and rebelled against the notion of being treated as man's property. These stories were very forward-thinking for their time; I bet people loved them.
Excerpt: "Neither of the young men could have explained why that hurried glance affected them as it did, but each felt conscious of a willful desire to oppose the other. Edward suddenly felt that his brother loved Miss Muir, and was bent on removing her from his way. Gerald had a vague idea that Miss Muir feared to remain on his account, and he longed to show her that he was quite safe."
Spring Came on Forever by Bess Aldrich. I liked this the best of the four. It's beautifully written in places, if slightly old-fashioned in turns of phrase at times. The multi-generational love story captures the perspectives of two different kinds of pioneers: farmers and city-folk, over the turn of the 20th century. It tracks changes in social class from lower to upper, tracks declines in fortune due to the Great Depression, tracks the immigrant experience of becoming American. It manages to describe perfectly the pain and pleasure of different kinds of love. Aldrich is just as comfortable with 1860's dialog as she is with 1930's dialog. This book really is a gem and I recommend it highly to any of you romantics out there who have an interest in American history.
Excerpt: "[H]e could have called the roll of the various periods through which that highway road progressed. Pathless prairie grass. Grassy road. Dirt road from which all sign of green had vanished. Graveled highway. Pavement. In the valley, the evolution of that road was the history of the people who lived beside it."
A Death in the Family by James Agee. This dragged a little, in my opinion. Maybe because he takes 340 pages to describe a three-day period (although this is one of the features the book must be recognized for). I don't think the writing is particularly compelling, although there are a couple of paragraphs near the end that were very beautiful, almost poetic. The book is notable for its exploration of conflicting feelings about organized religion, and its literary treatment of the topic of alcoholism. A few tender passages encapsulate quite nicely relationships between father and son, husband and wife, uncle and nephew.
Excerpt: "He thought of the ash tray on its weighted strap on the arm; it was empty. He ran his finger inside it; there was only a dim smudge of ash. There was nothing like enough to keep in his pocket or wrap up in a paper. He looked at his finger for a moment and licked it; his tongue tasted of darkness."
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