search and find

I did a plain old Google search to see what I could quickly find out about Alcott's fictionalized account of her time as a civil war nurse, called Hospital Sketches. I was thinking it would be a real challenge to locate the work itself, but I might come across someone else who had discussed it, or maybe a reference to a compliation of her work that it was published in, and then I could request it from my great local library.

But I almost instantly found the entire text in html!! What a wonderful thing to have an idea, and then have the info almost immediately. The site seems to be hosted by a upenn project about women writers. After I get through it I will have to search again for comments and analysis- perhaps someone has divided the actual experiences and the fiction- after all I don't see mention of her near death. What a dreadful place hospitals used to be.

Outcast or Out-thought?

Just ploughed through Eden's Outcasts- which was a sort of narrative dual biography of Louisa May Alcott and her Father Bronson Alcott. I saw it mentionned in a library list and picked it up mainly because I never really understood what history saw in the father, whom I knew manily from his godlike yet absent presence in Little Women. He seemed like kind of a wacky guy who just happened to have some famous friends (Thoreau, Emerson and a few others).
It took me a while to really get into this 450 pg book, I did not bond with the characters or the writing style quickly, but pushed on because it had won a Pulitzer. I am not really sure of the criteria - perhaps it is about the contribution the book makes, or the quality of the research (which was very well done, with original source after original source: journals, literary drafts, letters, from the 1840s).
Now that I have finished, I can say I have learned something, or indeed some things. I think I was justified in my original assessment of Bronson, but seeing his entire life's arc, I forgave him for being at times too idealistic and other times, too human. As for Ms Alcott, what a life journey. To endure so much, feel so much responsibility and continously seek approval and somehow achieve such a body of work was amazing. It was interesting to me that she was a 'Civil War nurse', and that conditions were so unhealthy she was only able to bear it for 6 weeks, and suffered the rest of her life from treatment she received there. I must try to read Hospital Sketches, written by her about her time there. And I liked her opinions (negative) of the idle fans seeking glimpses of her, demanding more stories, and confusing her with her charcters. Here was a woman who did not seek to be famous, but rather to use her talents to do good work and be respected for it.