Little Women

I'm reading Little Women now. I did Wuthering Heights in the meantime, between this and Jane Eyre, but wasn't impressed enough to write about it. I mean, it was moderately interesting, but I wasn't very moved. Had a hard time caring about any of the characters: they're all pretty horrible people.

I had to struggle through the first couple chapters of Little Women, and I didn't have much hope for it. It just felt overly prim and affected. But now I've just finished reading the part where the neighbor gives Beth the piano, and I lost it. I mean, totally lost it: drool dripping on the ground.

I'd give anything short of my soul to live in a world like that: a world where a man can show love and kindness and receive, in return, gratitude and trust. In the world in which we live, if the old neighbor gentleman gave a young girl living alone with her mother and three sisters a gift like that, he'd be rewarded by gossip and suspicion that he was some kind of creepy pervert, and his life and reputation would be destroyed. And if he tried to apologize and explain to them that he'd meant no harm, he'd be given a restraining order.