‘Eight Cousins’ - Louisa May Alcott
By Kate Norrish
Staff Writer
My mother works as a tour guide at Orchard House in Concord, where Louisa May Alcott lived, and told me that if I did not review one of Alcott’s works in this column, she would be disappointed in the way only a mother can. OK, she actually vaguely implied that. Relax Mom, I’m not mad. With that being said, and with familial pressure dripping from this article, “Little Women” is all well and good, but I honestly like this children’s book romp a little better. “Eight Cousins,” published in 1874, is a great example of the “spunky young girl” character archetype - something which has since become cliched, but I love it when it’s done well. One of the reasons I prefer to see classic novels capture this archetype is because they don’t fall into the cliche of “I hate sewing, Big Corset wants me dead.” As someone who loves history and was always pretty girly, those contemporary takes on the trope always made me uncomfortable. The story begins when 13-year-old Rose is sent away to a town right outside of Boston after being orphaned. The hope, according to the gaggles of aunts she is staying with, is for her to learn how to be a proper, feminine young lady. If you can’t see it coming, when you’re learning this in a house with eight young boys, that’s easier said than done, especially when they are just excited to have another kid around to rope into their shenanigans. Alongside these kids, Rose gets into a variety of scenarios that could serve as a manual for the proper use of the phrase “boys will be boys.” By that, I mean the way the phrase should be used, with these kids running around, starting fires by themselves, and crawling on the floor pretending to be donkeys. When Rose takes part, which she inevitably does, the book also shows the other phrase that we need not forget - “girls will be girls.” Listen, 1800’s expectations for female behavior is a lot for one kid to follow 24/7. The way this book handles the label of “hysteria” being slapped on women for every weird move at the time is so much fun. To tackle her “mental health condition,” Uncle Alec provides her with the greatest mental-state-changing pills of all time - breadcrumbs rolled into little balls. A childish solution for a childish diagnosis. The style of this book reminds me a lot of Charles Dickens, particularly “The Pickwick Papers.” The humor, writing style, and his famously over-the-top characterization is all over this novel. That is not too surprising, considering it is a fairly well-known fact that Lousia May Alcott was a big fan of that series, but aside from the extremely female-focused perspective, reading “Eight Cousins” kind of felt like getting a bonus Charles Dickens novel. I would also like to add that one of the aunts caring for Rose is obsessed with curing disease. She used to have a child named Caroline who died, and the other characters theorize that it was because said aunt overmedicated her by accident. I had to read that sentence twice for it to sink in. You’ve got to love kids books that aren’t afraid to pop in something creepy every once in a while. The first time I read the book however, my enjoyment was briefly stunted by a scene where Rose and her cousins pretend they are traveling to China while boating on a pond, and Alec, seeing their adventure, thinks they’ll enjoy seeing REAL Chinese people for the first time. He takes them to meet a little boy named Fun See and an old man named Whang Lo, both recent immigrants. They are described with exaggerated language, and play into a lot of Asian stereotypes. They also briefly appear at the end of the book, so anyone who would like to read this book should keep that in mind. Overall, I agree that “Little Women” is an objectively better book. If you haven’t noticed, “Eight Cousins” is mostly standard kids’ books fare. There’s not even really a plot beyond a series of short stories, but that’s exactly why I like it. Sometimes all you really need is a series of incidents where interesting people do mundane but interesting things. After you fall in love with this book, don’t thank me. Thank my mother, and visit Orchard House so she can teach you more.
