Dear Father...

MarchGeraldine Brooks
346 pages; published 2005

I think if I point out one more time that Little Women is my favourite book, this blog may just explore. So, instead, let’s just say that when I heard about Geraldine Brook’s March last year (this is a reread for me) I was both very excited and very scared to read it – I mean, what if it ruined it?

March tells the story of the abolitionist March, the father whose only presence in Little Women comes in the form of letters from the war. As a young man he made his way through the South as a pedlar – meeting people and learning from life and its range of inhabitants. Now, older but no less idealistic, March finds himself back in the South, but this time as a chaplain and soldier.

Determined to do what he can for the freed slaves he encounters, March teaches many to read and write. But, despite all his attempts, March is faced with the dogged reality of war time life at every turn. And he just may be forced to make a choice between what he holds most dear: his ideals or his family.

As I said, March was a reread for me (book club) and so it shouldn’t surprise that I thoroughly enjoyed it. In providing a back story for March (and Marmee) and recounting his war efforts, Brook found the perfect balance between loyalty to an old classic (which she had clearly studied closely) and telling her own story. Her representation of the war was, at times, painfully honest and her eye for detail could not be faulted.

Since this was a book club book, I will say that one of the elements fellow blogger and club member Wendy and I disagreed on was the portrayal of Marmee. While I loved the more natural, almost wild approach (as the forerunner to the tempestuous Jo), knocking her off her pedestal a little, Wendy (and others, no doubt) felt it was too far removed from her character. Perhaps you could persuade her to put forward her views…

Overall, I thought March a wonderful read; beautiful in language and engaging in story. It is with great pleasure that I issue my first full ranking of 2009 to this book. 5/5

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