March had been recommended to me by a Gentle Reader who is aware of my fondness for Little Women, Little Men and Jo’s Boys. A different Gentle Reader gave me a copy of Geraldine Brooks’ People of the Book, which I very much enjoyed. So I picked up March prepared to like it.
I didn’t. Well, that’s a bit harsh. There was quite a lot in it that I liked. She is very good at character, and I liked both Mr. March and Grace. I didn’t much buy that Mr. March was the Mr. March that is missing from Little Women, but that’s all right; he was a transcendentalist abolitionist Civil War chaplain far from home, which is interesting enough. I was a trifle disappointed that Ms. Brooks didn’t put more Pilgrim’s Progress into the book (unless she put it in so subtly that I didn’t notice, and the river is the Slough of Despond, the plantation Vanity Fair and the contraband farm Doubting Castle, or something like that) and explore Mr. March’s unconventional piety, but that’s an interest of mine, not necessarily of hers.
Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.