Like Eight Cousins, I had such fond memories of Rose in Bloom by Louisa May Alcott. I remember reading and rereading it and my poor battered copy bears proof of my enthusiasm. Though I’d grown fond of Rose and her cousins in the first book, it wasn’t until Rose in Bloom that I really came to love them. I adored Rose and Phebe, admired Archie, Uncle Alec and Mac, and cried for poor, wayward Charlie. I remember all this fondly, mentally classing the novel with other unchallenging childhood favourites such as Anne of the Island and Pollyanna Grows Up (I was a romantic child – sequels with grown up heroines always held much more appeal).
What could I possibly have been thinking?
Even more than Eight Cousins, Rose in Bloom is compulsively preachy. I adore a good, morally upright novel but so much here is over the top, though I love it nonetheless. For all my eye-rolling over the didactic passages, I still adore this novel and love it as much as I did as a child though in a very different way – certainly, I can no longer class it with the titles I mentioned above.
Uncle Alec who had seemed so appealing in Eight Cousins now comes across as rather tyrannical though his intentions are good. To want to shelter a girl of thirteen from the foolish fads of society women is one thing but to control the reading material of a twenty year old woman, to be disappointed in her when she wishes to attend balls and parties is too much. In aiming to shelter Rose and keep her innocent and wholesome he is infantilizing her in the most infuriating manner. Occasionally, Rose seems poised to rebel but inevitably she yields to his judgment. And that’s where the real conflict for me as a reader comes in: I want Rose to rebel, just a little, even as I’m going the same way as she in agreeing with Uncle Alec’s views. I suppose Rose has her minor rebellion in a three month whirl of gaiety – a period during which she does all the normal social things young, wealthy unmarried women did. And her reaction, her distaste for such a frivolous lifestyle, perfectly echoes my opinions on the topic:
‘I don’t wish to get used to being whisked about a hot room by men who have taken too much wine, to turn day into night, wasting time that might be better spent, and grow into a fashionably fast girl who can’t get along without excitement.’
How can I be disappointed in a character for rejecting that which I too reject? I think because she does it with such force, with such a clear idea of what is right and what is wrong. Her view of acceptable behaviour seems very narrow and unyielding. Rose has energy and spirit enough to help as many errant souls reform as will offer themselves up but she is not particularly strong on acceptance or tolerance for those who wish to remain as they are.
And yet I still love Rose. Her actions may be directed by Uncle Alec but her emotional dramas are very much her own and it is through these that we finally see her weaknesses and flaws, her frailty, as she struggles to understand what it means to love, to be loved, and to be worthy of love. As a reader, it was these disappointments and revelations that finally made Rose a sympathetic, human character. Also, an unexplained mystery of my life has been solved: her reflections very clearly reveal the origins of my own views on love:
‘I don’t know how others feel, but, to me, love isn’t all. I must look up, not down, trust and honor with my whole heart, and find strength and integrity to lean on.’
Unlike Rose, it is easier to respect characters such as her cousins Mac and Archie for their successes; although each struggles with what is right and good versus what is thrilling and enjoyable, they triumph over these temptations on their own while Rose always has the controlling hand of dear Uncle Alec guiding her. In some ways, yes, this is a clear example of the freedom many parents gave and continue to give their sons while cosseting their daughters but I think it’s also a reflection of the parenting styles examined in the novel. Aunt Jessie, Uncle Alec’s staunch ally in the experiment of raising Rose, seems to lack his heavy-handedness when it comes to the raising of her sons. The same values and morals were instilled but Jessie seems to understand that her adult son must stand on his own and must know himself in order to face the world proudly. Mac’s mother just appears to have yelled at him and his brother a lot, beating sense into them when it was necessary. Not a soft maternal figure by any means but still a loving one, doing her best to raise two fine young men. Alcott treats both with respect. Aunt Clara, on the other hand, mother to Charlie, the black sheep of the family, does not get off so easily.
Poor Charlie, ruined by late nights and drink. Most of the blame is placed on silly Aunt Clara, which hardly seems fair. The entire family watched her spoil and indulge him as a child and no one did anything to intervene in a meaningful way until it was too late. By the time Rose in Bloom begins, Charlie is a grown man, surrounded by uncles and cousins enough to show him what a good man looks like. But Charlie gets his just desserts, as judged by Alcott, though I have despised since my first reading how neatly and simply everything is tied up. Charlie is allowed undeserved dignity and nobility, redemption that all previous allusions to his character would decry as implausible. And that is all I have to say about that, without spoiling it. But, regardless, I still always cry.
One of the central questions Rose in Bloom raised for me is: to what extent should we let ourselves be guided by the good advice of those who love us? It’s a complicated question and one I certainly don’t have an answer to. In the novel, you have both Rose and Charlie as foils, one following the exact wishes of her guardian, the other ignoring or unable to follow the advice of those who love him and all too easily follows in the footsteps of those who lead him astray. And then you have Mac…
Mac develops into the most independent of the cousins, the one who listens to everything his parents and aunts and uncles say and then goes off into his books or into the wilderness seeking his own answers. He is rather magnificent, actually, even if he did turn out to be a poet. He is clearly a man, not a boy, and one of principles and patience. Like Rose, he can at times seem almost too good to be true. In Eight Cousins, Mac had been the most human of the children to me, the best written and most life-like. Here, even more attention is devoted to him and while he’s certainly appealing I’m not confident that he’s as true to life. It is, however, through Mac that Alcott begins to introduce the transcendentalist beliefs that so strongly influenced her own life, which was terribly fascinating (though paragraph after paragraph on the genius of both Thoreau and Emerson does grate). When Mac finally falls in love, he does it not at a ball or a party but through correspondence on the essays of Emerson, letters that show him the “beautiful soul” of his beloved. He is also a bit of a feminist, winning me over with this little speech to his brother and cousins:
‘It is very unreasonable in us to ask women to be saints and then expect them to feel honored when we offer them our damaged hearts or, at best, one not half as good as theirs. If they weren’t blinded by love, they’d see what a mean advantage we take of them and not make such a hard bargain.’
It might not have been the book I remembered but I appreciate it far more now as an adult than I ever did as a child. Yes, there are things I dislike about it but it’s still an excellent story written by a wonderful, intelligent author who made it engaging for audiences of all ages.
The Captive Reader 
Excuse me if I say that I’m glad I’m not the only one who had a very different reading experience of this the second time around. I thought it might be me, but clearly there is something more going on here. Like you, I still love these two books, but they have definitely moved a notch down in my estimation and I’m not sure I shall go back to them a third time.
I’ll definitely be reading them again one day for as much as they had their points that I found irritating there was still more in them that I loved than disliked.
I have never read anything other than Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. I already struggled with the moralising in that book. I have always wanted to read her other books, but now I think I had better spread them out a little, to not get too irritated.
I’ve never enjoyed the Little Women books so, clearly, I think you should try her other novels! The preaching grates but there is so much more to the story that both this and Eight Cousins are definitely worth reading, preferably back-to-back.
I don’t know. Some books I just want to leave as a youthful memory.
Recently I thought about rereading all the Jalna series, by Mazo de la Roche, which I loved in my early 20s. They’re all down there on the basement bookshelves, and I read them over and over a long time ago. But I have an uncomfortable feeling that I wouldn’t feel the same about them now.
I love rereading old favourite because of experiences like this: it may not have been just as I remembered it but I had a completely new reading experience with a book I’ve read probably a dozen times. I don’t like it less as a result, just differently.
I remember starting to read some of the Jalna books when I was in my teens but never really getting into them. They’re still on my list of books I want to give a second chance to!
Well, you do have me wondering what a reread of these would glean. It has been too long – I didn’t even remember any of the characters names! I may read them again when my dds get to them – it will be fun to see what they think of them. Thanks for the review!
Maybe it’s better if it has been a long time, if you don’t still have those memories of and attachments to the characters? I love rereading just for experiences like this so clearly you know what I think you should do!
I love Louisa May Alcott’s moralising. I think a few morals wouldn’t do the kids of today some harm – and I KNOW that makes me sound about 94 rather than 24, but it’s true! I like being preached at – it makes me think about the way I behave and reconsider some of my actions, which sometimes it’s entirely necessary to do! It’s a shame that people write off Victorian books as ‘preachy’ and then don’t read them – the world might be a better place if they did!
I haven’t read outside of the Little Women books but this and Eight Cousins are firmly on my radar and I will get around to them eventually. They sound very interesting, especially reading them from an adult perspective. I got so much from rereading Little Women as an adult – it’s amazing what you can find beneath the surface of a supposedly benign ‘children’s story’.
It’s okay Rachel, we can be nonagenarian 24 year olds together since I feel the same way. It doesn’t seem like there’s any new, morally instructive literature being written for children anymore, just fun and enjoyable books designed to get kids reading (the sort of thing Rose’s Aunt Jessie would have decried as trashy). I think Eight Cousins is better at being instructive and at making the reader want to improve themselves than Rose in Bloom since the adult characters are all more or less set in their ways, for better and for worse.
I would love to hear what you think of these books! I’m sure you’ll have a lot to say on them. If you haven’t read it, I’d also highly recommend An Old Fashioned Girl, which remains my favourite Alcott novels and which I reread almost every year.
Your comments on this book are very interesting. It sounds like Rose was given the best of morals but was not taught how to make her own decisions, and that’s what bothers me. The morals Alcott espouses sound like really good ones, and I’m all for having morals in literature, like Rachel said. I’d rather have Rose treated like Mac, though, so she is allowed to go out into the wilderness to make up her own mind about things and put her good upbringing into action. But then, that would be imposing my 21st century ideas back on the Victorians, and that’s a little too much to ask. If I read Rose in Bloom keeping in mind what time it was written, it probably can be a really enjoyable read.
I’ve only ever read Little Women and that was back in the early 90s when I was about 10/11, around the time the Winona Ryder movie came out. I’ll have to visit Alcott again, because I’d like to see how I’d react to her novels this time around.
I think she was taught how to use them, absolutely, it’s just at certain points others step in to remind her of that when she’s feeling tempted to compromise those beliefs even just a little.
Do go back and read Alcott. Her books are written at a level that can be appreciated and enjoyed by readers of any age!
I reread this recently and was impressed at how — I don’t know, how emotionally honest it was. I thought Rose and Charlie’s relationship was written very truthfully, so even if I wasn’t rooting for them (but I always cry too), I was always interested in what would happen between them.
I am not the person to ask about following the advice of your loved ones. My family all love to give advice, so we are constantly bringing out decisions we have to make at family dinners and opening it up for discussion. I wouldn’t say that I always listen to them, but when they have a consensus about what they think would be best, I tend to agree with them. And naturally I want my sisters to heed me when I give them advice. 😀
There were moments in the Rose/Charlie relationship where I too found it very true to life but, for me, those moments weren’t sustained quite as well as they could have been (Rose’s rather blase reaction after Charlie’s exit has always struck me as rather odd).
But you are just the perfect person to talk to about following the advice of your loved ones! It sounds like you have an excellent model of open family collaboration but that you’re not bound by their opinions.
I think that books, especially childhood books, take on different meanings and emotions at different times in our life. I also think that these books need to be viewed from the perspective of the time they were written. Mostly, I think the fact the Alcott wrote most of these because she had to make money brings a different slant to her writing.
Let me say, I love LMA, so, I get defensive, and don’t really mean to. She just took me through childhood rather splendidly. Have you read the Harriet Reisen book, The Woman Behind Little Women? It is well written and brings a great deal of insight into Alcott’s life, the times she lived in, her relationship with her mother and her father, Thoreau and Emerson, their poverty, mostly due to her father, and how she pulled all out of the depths of near starvation with Little Women. There is also an American Masterpiece presentation on the same subject, written by Reisen, that is enlightening.
I have really enjoyed your reviews of both books, and the conversations that followed in the comments. Your well written thoughts and your opinions make it a pleasure to keep coming back to your blog. Thank you.
I have read the Harriet Reisen book and found it very interesting, particularly the early sections dealing with Alcott’s formative years. I’d read Eden’s Outcasts about LMA and her father only a few months before so it was an excellent compliment to that.
Very pleased to hear that you’ve been enjoying the discussion on these books! It’s been wonderful to read so many stories about people’s own experiences with Alcott’s books as well as their views on rereading childhood classics.
After I reread LW to my daughter I had a hunger to read more. I read about LMA, what a fascinating character she was. I also read the Geraldine Brooks novel, March. It imagines the life of the LW’s father, Mr March, whilst he was away fighting in the civil war. Not her best (Year Of Wonders is my fav GB novel), but a good story nevertheless. When I had finished reading them the March family seemed more human, more real.
Since I never particularly liked Little Women I can’t say that I’m drawn to March (also, I haven’t enjoyed my previous attempts at Brooks’ other novels) but it is always interesting to see another author reinterpret a well-known character.
I did read Eight Cousins a very long time ago and thought it was okay, and had no idea there was a sequel. I seem to recall thinking that there was a very definite ending to Eight Cousins? From your review, I’m not sure I would revisit it, or pick up the sequel…
Nope, there’s no definite ending to Eight Cousins so it was ripe for a sequel. I do love both books so I would absolutely encourage you to try them. I have my quibbles with a few minor bits but they’re wonderful, entertaining novels.
It is so interesting to go back and reread books you read when you were younger (even just a few years ago). When I do that, it always seems to affect me differently… but not always positively.
I’m of the belief that you can’t really know a novel until you’ve read it four or five times, preferably over as long a period as possible, because, as you say, what you get out of it, what you appreciate or dislike about it, changes each time. Perhaps that’s why I love rereading so much – to read a book only once seems such a shallow experience.
My family’s Louisa May Alcott collection weirdly consisted of only Rose in Bloom and Little Men. I read the former, but don’t remember anything about it now. I have a memory of trying to slog through Good Wives – I think the library didn’t have Little Women. So my Alcott reading consists of haphazardly reading sequels. Perhaps I should finally pick up Little Women, and have a proper go at Alcott.
I have to say – the cover you put in your blog post cracks me up. The guy on the right seems all ‘how you doin’?’ and Rose looks very awkwardly situated.
That is an eccentric little collection! I would certainly recommend going at the books in order if you haven’t enjoyed this approach.
Isn’t it a ridiculous cover? I’ve never particularly liked it.
I liked your comments on the book very much. I have read Rose in Bloom at least ten times over the past few years, and every time I read it, I appreciate it more. At first, I admired Rose, respected Archie and Phebe, loved Mac, and despised Charlie.
Today, I respect Rose, although I think she is a bit more straitlaced than a normal girl of twenty, love Archie for his steadfastness, and admire Phebe for her strength. I wish you had written about Phebe for I would have liked to know what you thought of her.
As for Mac, I enjoyed reading what you’ve written about him. I first read this at 14, and fell in love with Mac mostly for his original ways and taste in poetry, today, at 18, I love him still more for his integrity and honesty, “never mind sides, stand up for what you believe ” (or something to that effect).
I pity Charlie now, for I understand a little better that it must be a terrible thing to be prey to passions and weaknesses, and not be able to stop yourself because your early training and principles have not fitted you to say no.
This book is a sort of pillar of strength for me, to remind me when times seem hard that if you stand true and honestly, you will always be beloved by God, and appreciated by good people, however few they may be in the world, especially today.
Me too, I love sequels with grown up heroines 😀 haha and I also agree that Uncle Mac becomes rather tyrannical.
For some reason this book makes me feel so good, I’m so in love with it. Too bad I can only read it online-Jakarta’s bookstores don’t have any copy of Eight Cousins or Rose in Bloom 😦
[…] few years since my last Alcott encounter, when I reread (with some reservations) Eight Cousins and Rose in Bloom. On Christmas Day, I was in the mood for something old-fashioned and comforting and An […]
This was fascinating. I am 33 myself and currently reading Eight cousins and rose in bloom for the first time. I am writing gender studies on little women so it´s really fascinating. I must say even though Louisa complained about how she didn´t care writing “moralistic babble” she definitely inserts that to her novels again and again and was very intentional with her messages. I am currently in the chapter where Rose teaches Mac to dance. So far I like uncle Alec but I think Louisa has probably inserted lots of herself into him. There was a scene where uncle Mac and uncle Alec were matchmaking and I thought it was interesting how two middle-aged men were matchmaking. I never come across that in a 19th century novel. If you are interested please check my in-depth research on Friedrich´s character. Love of Louisa´s life is strongly present since both Mac and Fritz were based on Henry David Thoreau (with bunch other Alcott´s romantic leads) http://www.fairychamber.com/blog/evolution-of-friedrich-bhaer I made a reference to Susan Warner´s wide wide world in the essay. I think the “male authority” that one can see in uncle Alec´s and Rose´s dynamics has lots of similarities with that novel. Must have been something connected to the time but based on what I know about Louisa and the way she had intense need to protect her reputation, I wonder how much of that is in Rose´s character. It´s fascinating topic for sure.
In the first book, I hoped Rose would marry Charlie but in the second book Mac completely won my heart. He’s absolutely darling… one of my favorite literary heroes ever!!!