Little Women - Louisa May Alcott

I've read Little Women so many times, and watched the film (the Susan Sarandon/Claire Danes/Winona Ryder/Cristian Bale/Kirsten Dunst/Gabriel Byrne one) almost as often. In fact, after I've written this I think I will go watch it again. I can never get bored of it, it will never age for me. 

It's a story of sisterhood, unbreakable love, unimaginably painful losses and moving on. 

There are four March sisters, living in a small house in relative poverty, next to the grand house where Laurie, Jo's childhood friend, is being brought up by his very wealthy, very posh grandfather. There is Jo, Beth, Amy and Meg... I'll introduce you..

Jo March is the tomboyish heroine. A girl lost in a society obsessed with fortunes and posture and pretty dresses and coming out parties. Jo is none of these. She is loyal, she is proud, she is smart. Jo has a boisterous naughty streak to her which she normally comes to regret. She's playful and pretty. Whilst other girls her age are practising their wifely skills to attract suitors, Jo is chasing about like a boy with Laurie. They are inseperable. When she is at home, Jo is found in the attic room writing stories to entertain her sisters. Their childhood is taken up with the sisters enacting Jo's plays, it makes them all happy. The girls grow up through the years and it becomes obvious that Jo is attracting unwanted advances from gentleman whilst attending the social occasions she cannot escape from. Laurie jealously witnesses this, and tries to secure her hand in marriage by rushing to propose to her. Jo is scared and confused. She knows she loves Laurie (or Teddy as she calls him), but she's young, and she isn't one of these girls that has been dreaming of marriage. He has taken her by surprise. And she tries to explain that she does love him dearly but it is too late. Laurie's pride and feelings are hurt and he becomes hostile towards her and disappears back to his house where she can hear him tormentedly playing the piano. She decides she needs to escape, so she leaves to earn money for the family, working as a nanny in New York. 

Whilst working, Jo writes many stories and walks them round the publishers, only to be told no one wants to publish "fairystories". Jo is dejected. She falters in her resolve to write what is true to her, and starts to write pirate stories about blood and gore under then pen-name Joseph March, and, go-figure, she gets her stories in the newspapers. 

She is working on in this vain when she meets Professor Bhaer (I think he is German not sure). The professor is quite a bit older than Jo and not classically good-looking. Everyone reading the book can understand this meeting is significant. But both Jo and the professor are shy. So they edge closer, her learning from him, him being dazzled by this woman who is like no other. He takes her to the opera, but it is in Italian and she can't understand, so he translates for her. They are sitting so close, they almost kiss then someone clatters something backstage and the moment is lost. The next morning (they board in the same house) he challenges her on why she writes fantasy. He tells her she should be brave and write from the heart. My favourite line of his: "there is nothing in here of the woman I am privileged to know. You can do better than this... If you have the courage to write it". She spikes, I think because she knows what he is saying is true. They argue and she runs back to her room. Angry. Professor Bhaer gets called away. Jo begins her novel. It is about the events I have described above and am about to describe below... 

Beth, beautiful, sweet, homely Beth. Beth is pretty much to good for this earth, seeing the absolute best in everyone, if angels could take human form, they would be just like Beth. She is every sisters' confidant. Never judging or taking sides. She takes no interest in boys and parties or quarrels. She is everyone's favourite sister. Beth catches scarlet fever on one of her visits to the poor houses and, whilst very sick, narrowly survives. (Any F.R.I.E.N.D.S. fans reading this, this is where Joey gets to and has to put the book in the freezer because he is scared she's going to die) (lol). But, as Louisa May Alcott narrates to us, no one knew that the scarlett fever had weakened her heart. 

Laurie, after months of self destructive self pity, happens across Amy in Europe. Lots of flirting ensues, but back then it would have been 'courting'. Laurie needs to move fast as Amy is expecting a proposal from his friend Fred Vohnn any day soon. A drunken Laurie accuses Amy of pursuing Fred for his money, then comes some of my favourite lines.. Amy: "I have always known I would not marry a pauper", Laurie: "just as I have always known I should be part of the March family", Amy: "I do not wished to be loved for my family", Laurie: "just as Fred Vohnn does not wish to be loved for his 50,000". Raaaaa Laurie. ANYWAY... Laurie marries Amy. And I have never been able to forgive Amy. I know Jo turned Laurie's proposal down, something which in itself threw me. I, along with Laurie, had been convinced that Jo had been made for Laurie and he for her. So how could Amy, who has grown up seeing her sister and Laurie so inseperable, so destined, even start to think he should be with her if not Jo. And I will never understand Laurie and his ability to swap his lifelong love for one sister so easily, so completely, to the other. If I had been Jo I could never have forgiven such a betrayal from a sister and I could never even look at Laurie again. But Jo is a better soul than I am, and, after the initial shock she embrasses Laurie as her brother. But their friendship is broken.

I realise I haven't mentioned Meg. To be honest she bores me. Meg is boring. She even marries a boring man - so boring I can't even remember his name. It might be Eric, but it could just as well be anything else. She never says anything good. She is just tooooo boring. I am secretly pleased when Jo accidentally scorches off some of her hair. That's the most exciting thing that happens to her. I would not mind if a rewrite of Little Women ditched her as a character. The book is too good to waste time on Meg. So I won't either...

Jo recieves a telegram urging her to come home to a very sick Beth. She arrives just in time to speak with Beth once more, before Beth says my favourite (and last) line of hers "I don't mind, I was never like the rest of you, with big plans and leaving home. Why did you all want to leave? I love being home. Now I am the one going forward. I am not scared, I can be brave like you". And with that she's gone. Jo collapses onto her sister, inconsolable. She's already lost Laurie. Now she's lost an even bigger part of her, her Beth. 

Jo stays behind to help her mother prepare for the funeral. Amy doesn't even bother coming (waste-of-space sister) (so what if Aunt March is bedridden this is your sister's funeral b*tch). Jo finishes her novel surrounded by the memories of her sisters and lost friendships, then sends it to Professor Bhaer, who shows it to his publisher friends.

Professor Bhaer, lost in New York without Jo, has made the journey to her family home. He loves her. Although in his awkward-bumbly way he has never expressed this to her directly. Jo and the professor have always skirted around their feelings, their eyes betraying their hearts meaning, but neither brave enough to put air and voice to them, to allow them to be heard, and then cherished and secure in the knowledge they feel the same way. So he arrives and speaks to Hannah (the maid) who carelessly tells him Miss March has gone to marry Mr Laurie. (WTF Hannah, you fool, don't you know what he now thinks?!), so the Professor leaves a package for Jo, leaves his congratulations and disappears back out the door heading for the train. (P.s. I now think he's an idiot. He can't be that emotionally blind that he can't know of and feel Jo's absolute love for him, everything she does she does yearning for his acceptance). ANYWAY... Jo bounds through the door, fresh picked wild flowers abundant in her arms and a flush on her face and mud on her boots. Hannah says Mr fox or Mr bear came and Jo freezes with excitement. She opens the package and it is her manuscript. Her Professor Bhaer has got her novel published. Hannah then tells Jo he left after hearing that Miss March and Mr Laurie were getting married. Jo tears out the door chasing her professor down. It is raining now and as she turns into a country lane (you know the tree tunnel ones) she see him in the distance. She yells at him in her "ladylike" way and he stop. Slowly turns round. She races to him. They stand there in the rain, under his umbrella whilst they clear up the confusion that it's her sister getting married not her. Then it's time for my favouritest line in the book... The Professor: "But I have nothing to offer (i.e. He is poor), my 

hands are empty". Jo takes his hands in hers, and says "they're not now". 

Oh I love love love this book. It's only in that last line that I get why she turned Laurie down even though she loved him so. She was never his. She is, and always was, Fredrick's (Professor Bhaer). 

The Peculiar Life of a Lonely Postman - Denis Thériault

I'm going to really struggle to portray the beauty of this book, the many layers of storyline, the amount of times it surprised me, what it taught me and how it left me. But. I will try.

Firstly, I think this book is seriously mis-named. Unless you look at the very first layer of storyline. If you read it and focus only on the superficial, then yes, this is a story about a lonely postman, job done.

But this is not about a lonely postman. It is about yearning for life. It is about obsession. It is about betrayal. It's about learning. It is about the better you and the better me. It is about love. It's about connecting with someone on the deepest level, to where circumstances happen that could only occur because it was pre-destined. Meant-to-be. Fate.

It is about inevitability.

I'm not a big poetry fan, (although everyone should know E.E. Cummings' poem 'I carry your heart with me'), so at times I struggled a bit with the Japanese poetry. If you struggle with poetry, persevere. This is a book not to give up on. It has a purpose, trust the author he's a true storyteller.

The most beautiful part of the book is in the reader learning about and falling into the world of an 'enso'. And I can't explain this without ruining the book for you.

I'm torn with actually reviewing this book and telling the story, which will then rob you of the experience of the surprises and could never do the book the justice it deserves. Or just saying READ THIS BOOK. It is only 100 pages. I don't know how he fitted it all in. 

I'm going to do something in between. I'm going to just shower you with words that the book made me feel, think, learn, in the hope that I convey a scent of the book without exposing it's secrets.

Curious. Intimate. Stalker. Friendship. Trust. Passion. Immersed. Jealousy. Betrayal. Secrets. Uncomfortable. Raunchy. Tender. Oblivious. Intrigued. Poetic. 

Enough already. Just read it! Ok?

Paper Towns - John Green

Q (Quentin) and Margo Roth Spiegelman, as children are neighbours and best friends. In the simplicity that is childhood, this makes sense. But childhood, as its nature tends to, gives way to adolescence, simultaneously simplicity gives way to complex social rules, and friendships dissipate as school re-labels everyone into theirs 'groups'. Only then does it become obvious that Margo and Q aren't as similar as they believed and hoped.

Margo, beautiful and mysterious, belongs to those group of girls that seem to float, not walk, seem untouchable, unapproachable and not quite real. Q, conversely, has two good friends, Ben and Radar, who alone made his senior year bareable. Navigating the bullies, Q and his friends frequent the band room.

Margo and Q, still neighbours, become distant strangers.

Until, in true Margo style, she suddenly appears in Q's window one night, as if the years had rewound back to times when they were inseparable. Margo had chosen Q for a revenge fuelled multi stop crazy night righting all the wrongs done to her by those who were supposed to have loved her. Margo is a planner. The plan had 11 parts, and required Q to get:

3 whole catfish (individually wrapped), Veet (hair removal cream), Vaseline, six pack of Mountain Dew, one dozen tulips, one bottle of water, tissues and one tin of blue spray paint. Of course.

Q, in his unquestioning admiration for Margo, revelled in being selected for this mission, fulfilled his part, and felt his friendship, perhaps more, with Margo had been revived, bolstered even.

Until, the next day, Margo disappeared.

Q finds clues left by Margo, seemingly just for his eyes, as to where to start to look for her. They are increasingly cryptic, the last hidden in verses from Walt Whitman.

Q, sacrificing his last days of study before his finals, pursues each trace of Margo across Florida, wanting, needing to be the one to find her, if she can be found.

The more Q falls into the depths of Walt Whitman's meaning, the more Q questions whether Margo set this trail for him to follow or whether she is saying her final goodbye through his words.

Q is left with no other option except to follow the veiled clues in the hope that Margo is still alive and is willing to be found.

One Day - David Nicholls

Emma Morley is smart, kind, geeky looking, funny and is one of those girls that you know will work hard until success comes to her.

Dexter Mayhew would be smart (if he put his mind to it), can be kind (but can also be cuttingly unthoughtful), is anti-geek (think lad, think extrovert, think centre-stage, think big-head), is popular (in-crowd, TV presenter, drink, drugs, girls, rocknroll) and is one of those guys that success clings to without deserving or earning it.

They are pretty much opposites. 

They are also in love with each other. 

It would just be great if someone would tell Dexter this.

Em and Dex, best friends, practice an annual tiptoe dance around their feelings each year on St Swithens Day. Dexter inevitably has a new beautiful girlfriend in tow, a new gig in town, and increasingly less time and consideration for Emma. Emma, after academic success, is struggling to find her feet in the real world, still single, still geeky and getting a little bit fat.

Fast forward four years. St Swithens Day...

Em and Dex, best friends... Emma is a successful teacher. Emma is dating, unsuccessfully. Dexter is perpetually drunk, a washed up TV has-been, only he hasn't realised this yet. He loses Emma's good opinion and she breaks away from him. They are both heartbroken.

Fast forward four years. St Swithens Day...

Em and Dex, relative strangers, meeting only at weddings of mutual friends, awkwardly. Emma's no longer geeky, is coming into her own. Dexter is sober, has a fiancé, and a baby (pending). They miss each other. They gravitate back towards each other.

Fast forward four years. St Swithens Day...

Em and Dex, best friends... Emma's living in Paris, an author. She's dating. A ruined (wife left him for his friend) but hopeful (he's coming to claim her) Dexter arrives in Paris. Emma has always been the chaser, now she's the chasee. But there's no denying it, she's only ever loved Dexter.

Fast forward four years. St Swithens Day...

Em and Dex, TOGETHER! Emma's married. Dexter's married. Emma's married to Dexter. Life is finally as it should be. Their futures are one. Big plans.

Then Emma dies.

Yup. Hit off her bike by a lorry. FML

Dexter chases her shadow around every place they've ever been, needing to feel her. He's lost. But this time Emma isn't there to help him find himself again. A world without Em is unknown to Dex. The only sense he can make of the world, is his daughter, Jasmine.

Dex and Jasmine... Dexter's world (with an Emma-Morley-shaped-hole) goes on.

Life After Life - Kate Atkinson

If you knew how the choices you make would shape your future, would you change it if you could? How could you be sure your alternative future would be better, more fulfilling, less painful than your current future? You couldn't.

Ursula is born. It's snowing outside, the doctor cannot reach her through the snow, he is not there to untangle her cord from around her neck, and Ursula dies.

Reset.

Ursula is born. It snowing outside, the doctor makes it through the snow and he arrives just in time. Ursula lives. Life moves on, younger siblings arrive, seasons change. Still Ursula's future is fragile. A family outing to the beach ends in tragedy after Ursula is caught in the current, Ursula dies.

Reset.

Snow, doctor, Ursula Lives. Beach, stranger saves girl caught in the current, Ursula lives. 

Ursula's many futures play out before our eyes, revealing life's delicacy. Somehow, eventually, one life leads to adulthood. However, Ursula's adulthood coincides with living in London during the Second World War. You want her to be able to save progress, like a computer game, so when another life is lost she doesn't have to start over. But she can't.

Reset, Reset, Reset.

Ursula becomes aware of the shadow of her previous lives, a haunting déjà vu which encroaches upon her, bringing with it a silent terror. She becomes able to dodge previous deaths, to push the boundaries of each life. Her adult lives diverge from their normal paths faster than her young lives. 

She lives several adult lives in London during the blitz. Then one in Germany, where she becomes known to an Eva Braun and her boyfriend, Adolf Hitler. 

After further London lives, and the loss of friends and families from the continued bombardment of England, a plan seeds in Ursula's mind, she is going to control her next life, and take it to Germany.

She chooses a life to choose another's death to choose to save hundreds of lives.

Ursula lives, Hilter dies, London lives.

We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves - Karen Joy Fowler

[big big spoiler alert]

Start in the middle. When a story is too hard to tell, when the beginning taunts you and the end haunts you, the middle is an easier place, a safer place, to start.

So, that's where we meet Rosemary. In the middle of her story. She's telling us about the disappearance of her sister, Fern. About her mothers turmoil, her father's decline. It's right about the middle where her brother, Lowell, leaves home. 

She's re-telling the story of her 5 year old self. Not understanding much, being told even less. Yearning for her sister's return. Her memories too young to demand clarity. Any she does have she questions. Are they real? Are they her own? Or those that form and crystallise on the retelling by someone else?

It's only later, once Rosemary is comfortable with the reader, trusts us, does she tell us what she keeps secret from those that know her adult self. 

Fern is alive. 

Fern was taken. 

Fern is a chimpanzee.

(Ok. I'll admit at this point I very almost put the book down)

We are forced to confront our feelings about this new knowledge. I felt cheated for a few pages. My empathy was already invested. She said Fern was her sister. She never told me Fern was a chimp. 

Question is, does this change anything?

(I tiptoed further into the story but this time more carefully. I didn't want to be tricked again)

Open mind. Read on.

So, Fern and Rosemary were raised together as babies since Fern arrived at 3 months old. Their father, a psychologist, works at the local university. Their house is full of grad students. 

Observing. Recording. Analysing. Theorising. Concluding.

It's a study of Human vs Chimp. Who learns faster, grows tallest, communicates best. The study is meant to be of Fern. But the experiment involves both sisters. 

Fern and Rosemary are inseparable. Learning, playing, sleeping, eating. Their worlds are one. 

So when Fern disappears from the family home, Rosemary is inconsolable. She doesn't know how to live in a world without her sister, her twin. Human children avoid her, scared of her unnerving chimp-learnt expressions and noises which co-exist amongst her human words and features. She's an amalgam. Chimp-girl.

After the middle, we swing ape like back and forth between the beginning and the end as we learn the answers Rosemary seeks as she picks at old memories and uncovers new truths...

Where is Fern?

Where is Lowell?

What happened that day?

And where did all this guilt come from?

I Am Pilgrim -Terry Hayes

A teenage boy races on his bike weaving between hordes of spectators who have gathered to watch a local man beheaded. The man is innocent. His crime? To speak out loud against the Saudi royal family. The man is the boy's father. 

The boy doesn't get there in time, arriving instead as the crowds disperse, leaving an empty dust blown space and a world which no longer holds his father's soul. 

In this moment the boy's innocence is lost, and as he swears revenge for his father's death, Saracen is born.

In the years since his father's death Saracen has trained as a muj fighter and as a doctor. Technically great, incomprehensibly strong and unwavingly determined he decides his revenge will be to cripple America, as a strong allie of Saudi. 

His weapon will be catastrophic. He painstakingly pieces together the genetic coding for a virus previously eradicated from Earth. 

Smallpox.

To this deadly disease he cuts in additional coding to ensure his virus evades the West's stockpile of Smallpox vaccines. 

In a remote forest atop a remote mountain in Afghanistan he runs his human trials on three kidnappees. The virus is hot and lethal. 

Dwarfing the danger of Smallpox he renames his creation Blackpox. 

The graves of the human trials are found by passing American helicopters, drawn by the heat picked up on their thermal imaging coming from the smouldering remains of the test hut. Saracen narrowly escapes.

The gravity of the situation dawns as they discover the nature of the virus.

The race is on.

Born on the other side of the world is an intelligence agent, an unknown, unheralded, legend. Tired of his lonely existence he yearns to return to a normal

life. But it's not to be. He alone is sent to stop Saracen.

His codename is Pilgrim.

Their worlds spin towards each other as Pilgrim hunts Saracen, whilst Saracen reproduces the virus on a grand scale ready for deployment in the hospitals of America.

With no name to chase, no nationality to track, finding Saracen in time seems impossible. 

However... What is the alternative?

Animal Farm - George Orwell

Manor Farm's farmer Mr Jones is human. His livestock, animals. The cows are milked, the chickens lay eggs, the fields provide hay. Mr Jones takes it all. The animal have had enough, and decide to revolt!

Mr Jones is chased off of the farm, leaving the animals to run the show. Manor Farm becomes Animal Farm. A new ideal, a new order settles. Animals will work shorter hours, feed won't be rationed, new animal specific retirement ages are set and land reserved for retirement purposes. The intelligent animals have learnt to read and write and under Snowball's leadership (Snowball is a pig) new laws are passed to ensure the peace at Animal Farm lasts.

The animals work the farm more efficiently than Mr Jones had. Living standards are up. The news of the revolution spreads to nearby farms, the humans become restless. They try to reclaim the farm but the animals are prepared and defend the attack. Medals are bestowed on the brave, legends are formed. The flag (a horn and a hoof upon the backdrop of the green countryside of England) is flown to rejoice in the victory.

Jealousies and personal ambition simmer, the pigs splinter into two groups, Napolean and his followers vs Snowball. Snowball is exiled and slowly becomes the anti-hero. The legend of Snowball the brave, the courageous, becomes Snowball the traitor, in leagues with the humans to bring about the fall of Animal Farm. Snowball is never seen again, however every misfortune, every lost crop, every negative outcome is broadcast, and believed, as Snowball's doing. The animals become afraid of the sinister Snowball, who legend has it, ghostlike roams the farm creating mischief and mayhem. 

Rations are reduced, working hours get longer. The pigs, of course, now require the all the milk for their brain power. They make contracts with the humans to sell the eggs to fund the mechanical part of the windmill. Utopia becomes dystopia. The rules, written on the barn wall, seem to be changing one by one, but only a few of the animals can read and even so they are told the rules have always said that. Some animals are accused of treachery, and slaughtered. The pigs move into the farm house, drink the beer, dress up in Mr Jones' clothes. The animals aren't equal, the corrupt pigs run a dictatorship. The retirement age disappears, the retirement paddock instead used to grow hops for more beer... Slowly as the pigs form relationships with the neighbouring humans, the mantra of 'four legs is good, two legs is bad' becomes 'four legs is good, two legs are better' until one haunting morning the pigs parade around the farm walking on their hind legs. The transformation is complete. They in actions, mannerisms and thoughts have become the humans they so vehemently despised and rebelled against.

Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury

Guy Montag is a fireman. Firemen, it is rumoured, long ago used to put out fires, but now, they the start them. Smelling of kerosene, wearing his helmet emblazoned with 451, the temperature in Fahrenheit at which paper burns, he answers the alarms and races to do his duty. His duty is not to save lives. It's not to calm fires, extinguish the flames. His job is to burn books, and their owners and homes if needs be. 

America is rich. The rest of the world is at war. No-one really cares. They immerse themselves in the telewalls that broadcasts shows, sensationalised news, clips at breakneck speed designed to disengage, confuse, hypnotise citizens into a disinterested stupor. Relationships are muted, the 'family' have become the characters in the walls. 

One night Montag meets Clarisse. She is alive. Really alive. She tastes the rain, she  lives in the slow lane of life and so still sees the colours of flowers, blades of grass. The world is whizzing past most in their high speed racers, flowers and grass simply become a blur. Clarisse wakes Montag up. Then Clarisse disappears.

Montag starts to steal books. He's risking his life, his home, his wife's life. But he's drawn to them. It is his undoing and his making. 

The alarm is called on Montag, the salamander is out, this time destination: Montag's. In a split second his life changes as his destiny crystallises. He is suddenly on the run from everyone and anyone he knows, hunted by the mechanical hound who is programmed with his scent. The chase is streamed live across all of the telewalls in the city. He is a fugitive. Everyone is searching for him. Shadows are useless hiding places when your enemy is locked onto your scent. 

Montag escapes downstream and joins up with the Harvards.

The 'Harvards' are the intellectual outcasts, living homeless on the disused railway lines. Their knowledge is dangerous and what makes them outcasts. To possess a book would mean death. So they each memorise a book, word for word, chapter by chapter. Then burn the book. They become the book. Collectively they are the world's library. 

The war continues is silent rages. Bombs fall and flatten the city. 

The Harvards are waiting for the world to stop its madness. When the world is ready again, they will help them re-write the classics.

1984 - George Orwell

Imagine waking up in twenty years time to find that the history of the world has been changed. Truths you knew to be true, erased and replaced with a new, more convenient 'truth' - a false truth. 

Imagine not being able to imagine. To imagine is illegal. To discuss thoughts is to identify yourself to the ThoughtPolice as a commiter of thoughtcrime. Those that are punished are erased from historical records. Their birth records gone, all photographs deleted, newspaper articles revised to eliminate - so they never existed... Right?

Your every movement and word is spied on by Big Brother on the telescreens. Your every minute, public or private, is accounted for. Deviation from your schedule will have consequences. 

The world is divided into three: Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia. Oceania is in perpetual war with one and perpetual peace with the other. The only problem is it keeps changing. History is re-written on a regular basis. Those in the ministry are brainwashed. 

Proles are the normal people on the street, who are generally left alone to continue their lives, unwatched by Big Brother.

Oceania has three ministries: The Ministry of Plenty (rations food and necessities), The Ministry of Truth (re-writes history) and the Ministry of Love (tortures those who dissent).

The story follows Winston Smith as he enrols on a journey of quiet, secret discovery of the truth. He almost escapes, but is sent to the infamous Room 101 after being caught... His history, his beliefs, his truths get re-written as he succumbs to the all seeing Big Brother.

George Orwell wrote this view of the future '1984' in 1949. He foresaw FaceTime 'telescreens' in a world when the technology of today didn't even exist. He spawned the term Big Brother and Room 101. Let's hope he was wrong about the rest...