Women's Lit and Ladies' Wit: Writers Gotta Write

Fabulous Felt Book Barrettes

Top: Marshalls

Skirt: Vanilla Star, Macy's

Shoes: Chase & Chloe, Zulily

Bag: Dancing Days by Banned, Modcloth

Belt: Belt is Cool, Amazon

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I don't like classic literature.  It's as moldy as Brie, its thees and thous sticking in my throat like errant Doritos as yet someone else dies of consumption.  And yet, I love Louisa May Alcott's Little Women.  I think that almost everyone knows this novel about the four March sisters coming of age in Massachusetts during and after the Civil War.  Meg is pretty and traditional, Jo is a rebellious writer, Beth is sweet and shy, and Amy is a social-climbing artist.  Women of all ages love this story and these characters just as I do.  It just took seeing Greta Gerwig's big screen adaptation to remind me.  

Did I check Little Women out of my elementary school library multiple times so I could finish reading it?  Yes.  Did I ask the super nice librarian, with not a little (totally unwarranted) trepidation, what * * * meant?  Yes.  (Scene change, it turns out.  To this day, I can't see a series of asterisks and not think about that.)  Did I watch the 1994 movie with Winona Ryder as Jo and Christian Bale as Laurie?  And did I cry when Beth (Claire Danes) died and Jo refused Laurie's proposal?  Um, is Aunt March an asshole?  Spoiler alert: she is.  Yet despite or perhaps because of spending all this time with the March family, I was instantly under Ms. Gerwig's spell as the first scene opened that day in the theater.  Maybe it's because the story starts in the middle and shows what came before in flashbacks.  We first see Jo (Saoirse Ronan) when she's living in New York at that boarding house, teaching and publishing her vampire stories and dealing with Professor Bhaer's cruel-to-be-kind dismissal of them.  Still, despite Jo's troubles, her life has a kind of vitality, a promise that threatens to explode when she's swept up in a dark yet lively dance scene.  By contrast, when we meet Meg (Emma Watson), she's peering sadly outside the door of her shabby house, resignedly telling her children to go play.  This makes it all the more poignant when we see Meg come to the same house, then sunshine yellow, years earlier as a bride, as euphoric and blind as the teenager she undoubtedly is.  She wanted marriage and children more than anything, but money troubles drive a wedge between her and her schoolteacher husband, a problem that becomes obvious when they quarrel over the $50 that Meg spent on fabric for a dress.  They make up, of course (although not after Meg has sold the fabric), but their reconciliation is bittersweet.  John's a good man, and Meg loves him.  But Gerwig makes no mistake in showing that Meg's life is limited.

Little Women is full of romance and girlish dreams.  But it's also about women's rights and being allowed to want more than being someone's wife and mother.  Gerwig shines a spotlight on that, making this classic seem as if it were happening today.  

Anyway, here's my copy of the book.  I hate how the cover features two randos instead of the four March sisters.  But then, bargain book buyers can't be choosers.

And now for some arts and crafts!  As a nod to Little Women and other timeless tales, I made this set of Fabulous Felt Book Barrettes:  

The spines are supposed to imitate old-timey leather, all rich and scholarly like the kind in the nineteenth century library of a land baron who never reads.  Speaking of which, here I am with some of my books.  Most of them are paperbacks, and most were written by women.    

I think that Jo would agree with me when I say this: women, uncap your pens.

You Look Like a Doily

 Not So Dainty Doily Necklace

Dress: So, Kohl's

Shoes: Guess, Marshalls

Bag: Marshalls

Belt: Apt. 9, Kohl's

Jacket: Decree, JCPenney

These were my wedding shoes.  I purchased them for $12.99 from Ami Clubwear.  They started out life solid red, their only adornment the rhinestone-sprinkled flower perched above the peep toe.  I added Hennytj's lovely pink satin roses and rhinestone buttons as well as craft store peach, yellow, and mint ribbon roses and danced all night with nary a mishap.  Talk about a testament to Gem-Tac!

Garden Guest Star Necklace

Dress: Modcloth

Shoes: Ami Clubwear, embellished by The Tote Trove

Bag: Krystala Creations, Etsy

Scarf: Gifted

Campus Queen Corsage Brooch

Top: Delia's

Jeans: Sears

Shoes: Worthington, JCPenney

Bag: Fred Flare

Scarf: Marshalls

So said Ethan Hawke's Troy to Winona Ryder's Lelaina in Reality Bites when she emerged in a crochet dress to meet Ben Stiller-as-Michael-the-smarmy-record-producer back in the mid-1990s.  A grunge coming-of-age classic if ever there was one, it went right over my head the first time I saw it. (I think I was twelve.)  

Kind of like "Girls."  Yep, that's right.  I'm retracting my former criticism of Lena Dunham's critically acclaimed angst-filled HBO series.  Partly due to my new-found mission to be a kinder, gentler blogger, and partly because I recently watched the entire first season on DVD.  It was good.  Gritty and real and in-your-face and all those other adjectives attached to things that make you squirm.  In the wake of the sad-song-staged final credits, I couldn't help but think that it should be mandatory viewing for twelve-year-old girls, a kind of cautionary tale counseling tempered by a good mom's tough love commentary.  (The irony of my twelve-year-old self lacking the perspective to appreciate even Lelaina's considerably tamer trials is not lost on me.)  Life, after all, isn't all tea house heroine getups.  A point, by the way, most masterfully made in the romantic comedy Austenland, albeit ironically and with more glitter than grit.  But more on that later.  

And with that, we've come full circle.  Not an unfit end for a post starring a doily.  

Movie Moment: The Dilemma

Martin Luther King Day found my mom and I shopping and going to the movies, as per usual. We settled on The Dilemma, which had opened that weekend, the only competition having come in the (weak) form of Country Strong.

The movie began promisingly enough. Two couples, Ronny and Beth (Vince Vaughn, Jennifer Connelly) and Nick and Geneva (Kevin James, Winona Ryder) are hanging out in a bar when Ronny asks, "How long does it take to really get to know someone?" (Ronny and Beth aren't married, Nick and Geneva are, and they've all known each other a long time). Nick says ten minutes because that's how long it took him to realize he wanted to marry Geneva. But Ronny disagrees, insisting that you can know someone for years and think you've got him or her figured out only to learn something new that changes everything. It's a compelling question. Nick and Geneva hit the dance floor, spurring Beth to ask Ronny to dance. He points out that great men don't dance, then recites a list that includes Martin Luther King in a well-timed holiday shout-out.

Unfortunately, the whole thing goes downhill once Ronny sees Geneva kissing a tattoo-riddled young punk named Zip (Channing Tatum) and begins obsessing over whether or not to tell Nick. Ronny is also trying to get up the nerve to propose to Beth but is confronted by commitment issues that are compounded by what he learns about his best friend, a scenario that made me think of that "Family Guy" episode where Stewie pokes fun at Vince Vaughn: "Oh, Vince Vaughn is on the cover of Entertainment Weekly. Here's my summary of every Vince Vaughn movie: Oh, I'm incapable of loving another person. Oh wait, no I'm not. The end."

For some reason, Ronny decides to spy on Geneva and Zip, which leads to a string of gratuitously violent events. (At one point, Zip brandishes a gun, all the while insisting that he's the "sensitive type." To be fair, he is pretty broken up when Ronny shatters his fish tank.) Clearly, this wasn't the light, romantic comedy I'd been expecting. It was dark. And not in the good, indie-flick kind of way, but in the potentially funny story gone horribly wrong kind of way. For a movie about honesty, it was awfully dishonest in its marketing. At some points I was so bored that my mind wandered to the metallic pink chain-strapped Guess handbag and metallic bow-adorned Paris Hilton pumps I'd left behind in Marshalls. (After the movie, I went back for the bag, but not the shoes. I just couldn't own something being peddled by Paris.)

The plot finally culminates in Beth staging an intervention for Ronny. Apparently, all his covert activity has made her think he's gambling again (He's a gambling addict; I forgot to mention that). The scene is nail-bitingly awful. (To give you an idea, Zip shows up as Ronny's presumed bookie.) As you'd predict, all hell eventually breaks loose and all the secrets come tumbling out. Despite some gloomy aftermath, Ronny finally proposes to Beth, rather inelegantly by hiding the ring in a takeout bag.

Nick and Geneva, however, don't make it.

In the final scene, Ronny, Beth, and Nick are at a hockey game, the bookend to a scene from the beginning of the movie. Nick is chosen from the audience to shoot a goal and makes it, winning a dream vacation. As my mom put it, you just know he's taking Ronny as his guest in a perfect end to this fraternity-esque who-needs-women-anyway bromance. Not that she used the phrase fraternity-esque who-needs-women-anyway bromance, but the sentiment was there.

All in all, I don't regret seeing The Dilemma, if only because I like to collect movie-going experiences the way I like to collect shoes. Because even when your shoes pinch, you're (mostly) still glad you made the journey. Which reminds me, I'd better hop to it and get the Jack Handey quote of the week up here . . .