Louisa May Alcott, I Cannot Forgive You
Books: Abridged vs. Unabridged
For anyone who doesn’t know the plot line of Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, this post contains spoilers.
Abridged
A lifetime ago, wrapped in the security of childhood innocence, halfway up a stairway and on a landing filled with warm dust motes dancing through sunshine in my great-grandmother’s house, I discovered a forgotten bookcase. The wooden case was old; the books covered in a light blanket of dust. They stood like silent soldiers waiting for me. I delicately pulled Little Women from its assigned place in the dust. I stayed, cross-legged, on the landing. With the sun warming my back. I swiped the dust off the front of the book. I opened to the first page.
I did not finish the book that day on the landing in the sun and dust. Nor did I return it to the bookcase when it was time to go home. I carried this book with me for the next several days. I fell in love. I read fiercely. I consumed completely.
I lived and breathed Meg. I saw in her the oldest sister I felt I needed to be. My younger sisters became living breathing models for Jo, Beth, and Amy. Reading Little Women was like glimpsing how my family would have been if we had lived in another time.
Years later in a library, I stumbled across the book again. It brought back all of those memories and feels. Sitting on the dusty stair landing in the sun opening Little Women for the first time. Laughing in delight when the March sisters reenact the Pickwick papers in their attic of which I was so jealous. Feeling the horror when Jo cuts off her hair. Feeling the love of the family when their father returns. I checked out the book and began reading for the second time.
Unabridged
BETH DIED!
What?! I kept looking at the words on the page. This didn’t make sense. Beth doesn’t die. That would be my sister dying. I read this book. I loved this book. It ended well.
This was my rude introduction to abridged books. It was traumatizing. I cried. I cried for days, weeks. I looked at my sister who I thought of as my Beth, and I would burst into tears and have to leave the room.
Hard lesson learned
I cursed the publishers of the abridged book for leading me astray. The abridged version was beautiful, but it was a lie. It wasn’t the book Louisa May Alcott wrote.
After reading the actual book Ms. Alcott envisioned, I was still confused. How could Ms. Alcott do this to such a beautiful family as the March family? How could she do this to me? I cursed Louisa May Alcott for writing such a beloved family into such a cruel book.
I am still traumatized. I have never read another book written by Louisa May Alcott. I won’t watch any of the screen versions of Little Women. I did not support my local high school when they performed Little Women as a play. I just can’t do it. It’s Beth and my sister dying all over again. It’s my heart breaking all over again.
If I had read the unabridged version the first time around, would I have been able to process and distance myself from Beth’s tragic loss? Would I never have associated Beth with my sister? Reading the abridged version first and years before reading the unabridged version makes that an impossible question. Either way, Louisa May Alcott, you broke my child’s innocent heart. I cannot forgive you.
