625 Louisa May Alcott - The Essays (with Liz Rosenberg)

The History of Literature

Jacke Wilson

Books, Arts, History

4.6 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 5 August 2024

⏱️ 61 minutes

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Summary

Since the publication of Little Women in 1868, millions of readers have gotten to know (and love) Louisa May Alcott through her fiction. But in her own day, Alcott was well known as an essayist who wrote on a wide range of subjects, including her father's failed utopian commune and her experience as a Civil War army nurse. In this episode, Jacke talks to Alcott biographer and editor Liz Rosenberg (Scribbles, Sorrows, and Russet Leather Boots: A Life of Louisa May Alcott) about her new book, A Strange Life: Selected Essays of Louisa May Alcott. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	The History of Literature Podcast is a member of the Podglamorate Network and LIT Hub Radio.
0:07.0	Hello, I've been thinking lately about what we might call gateway literature, the one work that everyone reads first.
0:18.0	It's rare to find someone who digs into tender as the night or this Side of Paradise and then makes their way to
0:24.6	Gatsby. It's much more common to read Gatsby and look for more.
0:29.7	Nabokov's Loleida is like this and J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye.
0:35.1	Not all authors have a book like this in their body of works, but for those who do,
0:40.3	the pathway is simple and it can shape the way we view an author too.
0:45.0	We come to the other works with some experience already under our belt.
0:49.0	We know the author already, we know what they wrote, we know how he or she thinks to some extent.
0:55.3	If the second book we read came earlier, we looked for signs of apprenticeship,
1:01.0	themes or stylistic resonances, previews of what was to come.
1:07.0	If the second book we read came after the gateway book, we look for signs of maturity. What did our author do after writing the masterpiece?
1:16.9	Try to replicate the magic a second time? Get more complicated or experimental, take on something more ambitious, or return to something
1:26.4	more basic.
1:28.1	I found that I tend to like my second visit to a city more than the first.
1:32.0	Yes, it's great to go to Paris and see the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre,
1:36.0	but on the second visit with enough landmarks checked off the list you can explore.
1:41.0	Maybe you find a stunning church in a quiet neighborhood. Maybe it's a bistro not found in many guidebooks. Or maybe it's a turn down a random street that feels like it was made just for you, the kind of place you dreamed of without knowing about, a place that says not only this is Paris, but this is you for you.
2:04.6	This here is the Paris for you.
2:08.6	And so it's great to explore that other album, Fleetwood Max Tusk instead of just rumors, or maybe John Lennon's
2:15.9	Plastic Ono Band instead of Abbey Road. The one you haven't heard as often, the one with
2:21.5	treasures still unfamiliar, Your old favorites,
	...

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