Marmee:You are not God. You don’t determine the outcome. The outcome is not the point.
March: What is the point?
Marmee: The point is the effort.
Grace: I do not ask your absolution. I simply as you to see that there is only one thing to do when we fall, and that is to get up, and go on with the life that is set in front of us, and try to do the good of which our hands are capable for the people who come our way.
These two powerful quotes are from the strong women behind the broken father in Louisa Mae Alcott’s beloved Little Women. This intriguing book tells his back story.
March was once a peddler, 1844, and his younger self fell for a beautiful slave, Grace Clement. Fast forward to the present where he is a chaplain in the Civil War writing letters to Marmee and his girls withholding even a hint of the hardness of his plight.
Geraldine Brooks’ Pulitzer Prize novel, March, is not a read for the faint of heart, but for readers who like to stretch their thinking and see several sides to a story.
Brooks researched the time period (Civil War) and the person (she fashioned her character March from Alcott’s father) so well that readers are gifted with a trip back in time. March’s failed quest for perfection in himself and the world at large hits him hard. The clash of his idealism with reality is brutal! The heaviness was felt by both of us!
Marmee: A sacrifice such as his is called noble by the world. But the world will not help me put back together what war has broken apart.
Is it even possible to put Mr. March back together? This frail man with his feet of clay has seen the loss of innocence, the moral failure, the horror and insanity of war and is aware there is no quick fix. Brooks included an actual poem written by a Civil War soldier:
I am no longer eager, bold and strong.
All that is past;
I am ready not to do
At last, at last,
My half day’s work is done,
And this is all my part.
I give a patient God
My patient heart.
Kate chose the word duty to summarize the theme of the book which is 100% spot on! March feels his duty to the bigger picture all the while refusing to accept his duty to his family. Isn’t this what we all often do? We focus on that which we have no opportunity to improve, while those whom we might have great impact on are right before us…unnoticed.
Won’t you learn and grow with us today through love, adversity, and brokenness, we find the way to redemption, truth, and duty. Buckle up, it’s a wild ride as we connect to reflect!