I have been buying used Lane Bryant jeans from EBay, because I hate so much going to the store: it’s far away, it’s in a mall, the sales are confusing and the non-sale prices are too high, things are often out of stock in my size; the website is not much better. But what I hadn’t noticed is that “Genius Fit” is apparently new, and different than what I thought I was buying. I have two or three pairs of them now, because of buying ahead of what I needed, and they are just not right. I am tugging them up in the back so often, I actually HURT MY SHOULDER doing it. One of the pairs also gradually pulls my underwear down, which cannot continue.
I made a little joke to Paul, saying that I was trying not to be offended that jeans meant to fit a genius didn’t fit me, har har, and he carefully explained to me that “genius” referred to the awesomeness of the fit, rather than to the wearer. Yes. Thank you, Paul. I understand now. Originally I was thinking that jeans would fit differently based on the intelligence of the person wearing them, but now I see my mistake.
(image from Amazon.com)
My sister-in-law, my sister-in-law’s sister, and I have all decided to re-read Little Women. As an aside, I don’t think of my sister-in-law’s sister as “my sister-in-law’s sister,” I just think of both of them as my sisters-in-law. But every time I go to refer to her that way, it seems I should provide an explanation, because otherwise it’s confusing: how would I have two sisters-in-law, if I only have one sibling? And actually I DO have two sisters-in-law, because Paul has a sister, but my brother’s wife and my husband’s sister don’t know each other. Plus, it seems like it matters that the two I AM referring to are sisters of each other. So anyway. “Sister-in-law’s sister” it is. Now the word sister is looking strange.
ANYWAY. We are re-reading it, if you’d like to join us. Our deadline is Saturday, and I started reading it this morning, and now here I am at the computer instead of reading, and this book is thicker than I’d remembered. It is also a LOT preachier than I remembered. My goodness. I had barely started it when the girls, who were not going to get any presents for Christmas, started reprimanding themselves and each other for feeling slightly sad about that. Most of them are doing it in a way I find funny/pleasing (like the way any of us might try to adjust our own behavior), but I’m finding Beth (and the way the others worship Beth) close to intolerable.
Here’s a funny about sisters and sisters-in-law and all that: My mom had two aunts that married two brothers. So they in fact were not only sisters, but sisters-in-law to each other.
And as a youngster my mom couldn’t figure out why all her cousins had the same last name, but she didn’t have that last name.
Regarding “genius” though not related to jeans: Why is everything on Pinterest “Genius!” – ? It’s so eye-rolly. No sorry it’s not “genius!” to use your storage areas appropriately – it’s more like common sense. “Common Sense!”
My husband’s mother passed away almost 11 years ago. About 2 years later his father got together with my mother, and they’ve now been married for about 6 years. So yes, even though we were first (we got married 12 years ago), I am now technically married to my step-brother. And my father in-law is now my step-father. And my sister in-law is also my step-sister. And my kids’ cousins are also their step-cousins.
It can be confusing, but it’s marvellously convenient on holidays.
Ha! I have a friend; she and her sister married twin brothers! So everyone has the same last name, and the cousins look like siblings. Thank goodness the marriages are happy–divorce would be even messier in that situation.
I am HOOTING over here at Paul’s explanation of genius fit pants. I don’t even bother to do the whooshing-over-my-head motion any more when Husband “explains” these things to me.
You got mansplained about the Genius Fit! Haaaaa.
I haven’t read Little Women in a thousand years, but I do remember finding Beth and others’ worship of her to be intensely annoying, to the point that I wanted a piano to fall on Beth’s head.
I have some good news for you…
When I was 9 my aunty bought me a set of classics marketed to be “Books for Girls!” They had sweet watercolor covers and I loved them to death; the covers fell off and the pages were wrinkled. I must have read Little Women twenty times in bits and pieces over the years. I was in a Barnes and Noble a year or so ago looking to replace my copy of Little Women and I picked it up and was like, this seems…too big. Maybe the print was different? I brought it home and read it…
She. Dies. WTF? My copy that I read all those years ago had been ABRIDGED. FOR TWENTY-FOUR YEARS I NEVER KNEW SHE DIED.
That is the WORST story of abridgement that I’ve ever heard.
Cut out some of the preachiness? Sure. And some of those long, inside interactions between everyone won’t be all that noticeable if you axe them.
But to skip a major death? That’s straight up fanfiction.
(I’m also curious – did you still like it once it was the longer version?)
I KNOW, I know, but her death was so saintly that it managed to be annoying, too. A sudden piano on the head would have been imminently more satisfying.
Oh, Paul. That made me laugh!
I reread Little Women periodically and Beth becomes more and more intolerable with each read. Meg, too. That said, I keep reading it because there are lots of funny little gems in there and I think Jo and Amy are a hoot. They are the real girls, I think. Meg and Beth are idealized versions.
You should follow it up with a biography of Louisa May Alcott. Let’s just say their father gets even more of a fictional whitewashing than Pa Ingalls did.
Really? What did Pa do? I recently read _Pioneer Girl_ and he didn’t seem terrible. And I also listened to _Stuff You Missed In History_’s Alcott episodes, and Mr. Alcott didn’t seem terrible there either. I was impressed that they wouldn’t wear cotton because it was made by slave labor. I admit that listening to an hour’s worth of podcasts is not quite the same as reading a biography, so I may be missing some key details.
Well, Pa always seemed like a bit of a crazy man to me, always moving the family whenever the whim struck and thus keeping them on the brink of starvation most of the time. But admittedly, I haven’t read an in-depth bio of that family. That’s just my takeaway from reading between the lines of the books.
In Susan Cheever’s biography of Louisa, Mr. Alcott was a man of ideas but very little action, at least of the money-making variety. He was always going broke and they moved constantly. He liked to start things and then take off whenever actual work was required. His utopian community failed because none of the men ever felt like farming and they were all on the brink of starvation. Basically Louisa and her mother held the whole thing together and Louisa’s books saved the family, if I remember correctly. It’s been a few years.
Then there’s Pa’s participation in a minstrel show…not that he was likely more-racist-than-average for the era. But it’s jarring now.
That’s true about Pa. I just finished reading Farmer Boy to my son, and there is such a difference in Laura’s early {fictionalized} memories of constant moves, hardship, and lean meals of “salt pork and corn bread” (CONSTANTLY) and Almanzo’s well-fed, comfortable childhood. Reading Farmer Boy makes me hungry. So much good food described.
I haven’t read _Little Women_ in a long time, but I have occasionally thought back to Marmee’s teaching Jo how to hold her temper. I remember feeling somewhat weird about that scene when I read it as a child and I have thought of it many times since, and how messed up it is.
“What you do, Jo, is anytime you feel vexed, annoyed, or angry – perhaps at the news that your husband is going to be gone ten months longer than you thought, or maybe because your husband’s aunt won’t stop belittling your daughter every time she opens her mouth – is you stuff those feelings way, way down, deep inside, and bottle them up. Don’t let them out. Put a tight little smile on your face and think of Jesus. Say nothing until you can be certain that what you say will be only quiet and loving words of support for your betters, who are men. Maybe do some patchwork until the bad feelings pass. THAT is what being a good woman is all about.”
At least, that is how I remember it.
This comment suggests that I didn’t like the book, and that is not the case. I am quite fond of it. I don’t know what I’d think of Beth now if I reread it though. I can definitely see how she might grate.
Omg i don’t remember that AT ALL. How awful!
I have given up on LB jeans & pants and switched to Dress Barn. Sometimes the fit is annoying, but less so than LB jeans. I had this awesome pair of Dress Barn super dark blue trouser jeans that I adored so much I paid full price. They fit purrrrrrrrrfectly. When they were on the floor of the laundry room my son set a bottle of bleach on them on it’s side and it slowly drip drip dripped on the thigh. So I went back to DB for another pair and in the meantime they had slightly changed the jean. More spandex so they can only be worn once before they are falling down, and these odd leather bits at waist band. I make due, but they are not the same.
I run into that problem with my cousins’ wives. I really just consider them cousins, but I feel like I need to clarify if I refer to them as such. I think if I were you, I would say “my brother’s wife and her sister,” with a little aside that you’re all close.
I haven’t read Little Women in years, but I have three sisters and we were all sort of fascinated by the four-girl household. We even played Little Women, but it wasn’t my favorite game because I am daughter #3 and had to DIE.
I have this problem too, with my husband’s cousin and his wife! And how to describe their kids and our kids’ relationship. I just call them all cousins to keep it simple.
I love Little Women, and I re-read it at least once a year. I am firmly TEAM AMY. She’s the best part of the book.
I love Old Navy jeans. They’re a good mix of denim and spandex. They wear well. The petite actually fit my very short legs.
So preachy. I believe Little Men and Jo’s Boys are less preachy but I haven’t read all three in a couple of years so maybe I don’t remember.
The Stuff You Missed in History class did a podcast on Louisa May Alcott and another one on her father and younger sister May. (The Amy sister. Anagram! I love it!) They were really interesting and might be a fun add on.
I have read Little Women more times than any other book I’ve ever read, and love it. It IS preachy, but a lot less preachy than any other book for young people at that time. Girls get to have big feelings and ambitions! Lose their temper! Do mean things! This didn’t happen much in other books at the time, unless it was some girl who was about to get her comeuppance and get eaten by a bear.
That said, my sister and I used to go into hysterical laughter over our mini acted-out version of Beth’s life, (which I’ll spare you).
We need to come up with a good nickname for you and me and my sister all hanging out together. SLAWs? Sistles-rhymes-with-Swistles? I got nothing. Also, I’m really happy to be encouraged to read Little Women again because I love it in spite of preachiness and impossibly-good-ness. I still have, uh, almost 400 pages to go.
There goes Swistle, inspiring us to read again. ;-) She got me to read Sense & Sensibility and Pride & Prejudice earlier this year, (first time), now I’m reading Jane Eyre (first time), now I’ll go home and put Little Women next on the stack (it’s been years!)
For jeans, I’ve been wearing A.N.A. for years — just the right amount of stretchy. Like you, I always eBay. Sounds like maybe the “genius” fit is a size too large? When I’ve had that trouble with jeans in the past, I tried a smaller size — and using eBay meant that if the experiment failed, I was not spending that week’s grocery money on jeans. No one wants to feel their underpants puddled around their thighs in a public place, but giving up a formerly beloved brand is scary. The world of jeans is an unforgiving place when you have actual curves to contend with.
Gotta love mansplaining. Where would we be without it??
I read and re-read Little Women for years, plus all of the sequels. :) My children are all boys, and completely uninterested in the travails of Jo & Co.
Then you have to rewatch the Friends episode where Joey reads Little Women and Rachel reads The Shining.
Thanks for that!
That’s all I could think about, too, as I read through the comments.
Little Men and Jo’s Boys are a little preachy too, but still lots of fun. 8 Cousins is good also (you have to overlook some of the preachiness and go for the story!). I think jeans are just tough to fit no matter the brand, style etc.
Little Men I still love, but Jo’s Boys is classist in a way that I found intolerable even at the age of twelve when I first read it. Yeesh.
One of my all time favorite books! Yes, definitely a little preachy, but remember when it was written. I did find that re-reading it as an adult and mother found me crying through some parts; where I don’t recall crying at all when I read it as a young girl.
Yes! I think it was feminist for its time. I was especially struck by the frustration of Meg by being put “on the shelf” once she was married. Rings true for me.
Louisa May Alcott’s sister Elizabeth died at 22 in the same way as Beth does in the books – she contracted scarlet fever while helping a family of poor German immigrants. After two years of slow heart failure, she died in her sleep.
In the preface to Jo’s Boys, Alcott wrote about how much trouble she had writing fiction about her sisters after their deaths. (The youngest sister, May, had died ten years before Alcott wrote Jo’s Boys.) I think she really struggled to separate the characters from her sisters.
While Beth’s death comes across as saccharine in the book, some of the things the character said were what Elizabeth herself said, per her father’s letters and sister’s journal.
Thanks for a good laugh. Genius. Ha ha ha! Sorry I can’t concentrate on Little Women because I’m sitting her chuckling thinking what, in Paul’s schema, the other jeans would be called. Smart-ish (or Dull-ish)? Educable?
After hearing me and my cousin chat at length about Little Women, my husband read it. He was FURIOUS that (spoiler alert!) Jo doesn’t end up with Laurie. Talked about it for WEEKS. Made me giggle at first, then it turned to “Geeze, sorry I suggested you read that one.” Jo and Laurie never seemed well suited to me as a child, so I wasn’t bothered.
As for Paul, I wonder if men get so tense when we talk about clothes that they can’t understand humor.
This is such a timely post as I just started listening to Little Women on CD. (I love listening to favorite childhood books on CD…so comforting on traffic-filled commutes.) I had just finished listening to Anne of Green Gables, and, gah, there is such a contrast to me (possibly aggravated by the fact that I do NOT like the narrator’s voice for Little Women, and I loved it for AoGG)…but SO, SO PREACHY. And none of the LW sisters can compare with Anne as an enjoyable, endearing character!
Could you share the audio version of Anne of Green Gables that you liked? I am so with you, the narrator’s voice can really make or break an audio book. I just listened to one where her voice goes up in like a question at the end of every sentence. It seriously sounded like a computer instead of a person. If I wasn’t in the midst of a 7 hour solo drive-I would have tossed it out the window.
Well, not really-I would never litter ;)
Oooh, I was reading through Swistle’s archives and saw this question from last year.
The narrator I liked was Barbara Caruso. Hopefully, she was not the one who annoyed you so much. She has narrated a lot of books I have listened to, including another childhood favorite: Dicey’s Song by Cynthia Voigt.
I hope you see this some day, and, if so, I hope you enjoy Barbara Caruso!
Oh, Beth. What a pain in my ass she is. Sometimes I feel like Beth and Eleanor Roosevelt were both put on this earth to make me feel bad and weak. Ha!
My littlest always says genius when she means gorgeous. “Jayden Moffett wore his church clothes to school today and he looked GENIUS.”
The Laura Ingalls Wilder books were definitely closer to my heart than Little Women the first time around, but now you (and team swistle) have me wanting to re-read them all and maybe listen to some podcasts. I am trying to remember why I didn’t love LW…I think I was really irritated by the Amy/Laurie thing. Not that I necessarily wanted him to marry Jo, but I still felt like they belonged to each other and marrying a sister seemed so wrong.
Uuuughhh, jeans. My shape has changed after having a second kid and, weirdly, because I’ve been working out a lot. Rather than just slimming down, I actually got bigger in some places. The most comfortable jeans for me now are high-waisted. On the one hand, they look quite nice with a long shirt, and don’t require a belt. On the other, high-waisted. Just the name gives me shudders.