Aurora, Little Women, & Artistic Release

Okay, last week I was listening to Breaking Benjamin while writing about Puccini's La Boheme. This week I'm taking it one step further and comparing the generation of the latest version of "Dear Agony" with Southwest Shakespeare's production (by Tier 5) of "Meg Jo Beth Amy & Louisa."

I can't just talk about the play because my feelings on it are mixed. On the one hand, it delivered striking emotional chords the likes of which I don't remember seeing since the January 2017 Hamlet (oh, that was one was amazing). On the other, I'm uninterested in mixing things up and modernizing things just for the sake of mixing up and modernizing--for instance, why does the audience get so excited whenever they add in cuss words, is that really that creative?

And I also can't just talk about "Dear Agony." It's part of Breaking Benjamin's new acoustic album, Aurora, and it has the exciting first collaboration with Lacey Sturm formerly of Flyleaf (their Memento Mori is probably my top album of all). So I can say, yeah, that's a great song and so is the story about how they came to collab and the possibility of them doing a whole album together. Her comment to him about how the song is Jesus in Gethsemane is really a reflection of the relation between art, the artist, and the processing of emotion.

And that's where we come back to the play. It is so-titled as it is because it shows Lousia May Alcott writing Little Women and fighting with her publisher over what she doesn't want to write (we all know she had no interest in writing a book for little girls). She is literally onstage with her characters, deciding what they will do, trying to find a connection by writing about her own family, and then along the way realizing that she is invested in this story because it has become something that she does care about.

On one hand, Little Women is as flat as her publisher wanted. On the other, it is quite a contrast to other moral stories of the day and that's why it has continued to be read even today. She did what was asked and somehow tweaked it just enough that it wouldn't be too shocking as to not be published and yet that it would be enough that it would subtly start to shift things. Meg's Mishaps particularly stands out to me; she didn't just write about the good wife, she wrote about a young wife crying over the jelly that didn't jell and getting into the first friction with her husband over buying expensive clothing fabric. So Louisa wrote the moral tale--but she somehow also wrote real at the same time.

What does this have to do with Breaking Benjamin and Lacey Sturm? Throughout the play, we see Louisa struggling with her relationship not just to her publisher but also to her past and to her family and to her society and to herself. Through the creation of the book and the unraveling of her memories that comes with it, she is able to forgive people in her life (whether her sister or her father), to appreciate things in her life (particularly her sisters), and to better come to terms with her place in the world. So it is essentially an emotional unwinding process. Like what led to the Aurora collaboration.

On the one hand, you have Benjamin Burnley writing a rock song with whatever inspiration. Then Lacey Sturm comes in (I love that picture of them where she doesn't even come close to reaching his shoulder) saying, this is what your song is about. And then he in a way agrees to take on that interpretation by inviting her to collab with him on the new version. So the song starts angling into a new or perhaps simply more full meaning as the artist's relationship with it develops. Emotional unwinding.

The play is over, but here is the Spotify link to the Aurora version of "Dear Agony."

Nostalgia

I have been lonesome lately, without entirely realizing it at first, for my dear old nineteenth century fiction. I took something of a break from it after college because I was finally able to read other neglected categories, including many new publications. Years later now, I've found something missing. I've been feeling like it's time for another reread of Jane Eyre, which I've been reading about every four years for a while now (and I'm getting overdue for the next reread). And reading Ruth Goodman's How to Be a Victorian (which is a wonderful non-fiction book that I'll post about after I've finished it) has made me think anew of all the little nineteenth century cultural things that I learned from growing up on Victorian fiction.

Suddenly I had a strong desire to reread Louisa May Alcott's Little Men (the sequel to Little Women). Little Women with Winona Ryder was a familiar movie when I was in fifth grade, and I read its book in sixth grade, which launched the reading of as many of her books as I could get my hands on (I remember going to the bookstore to inquire after Under the Lilacs and another title and being disappointed that the stock was just Little Women and Little Women and Little Women, so to this day I still have not read Under the Lilacs). Little Women I did reread quite a bit for the simple fact that (along with the Little House on the Prairie series, Anne of Green Gables, and Black Beauty) I owned it. Little Men I read from the school library (one of the many books that I checked out there that had sadly hardly been read by anyone else). Its sequel, Jo's Boys, I ended up reading online. This was a novelty: having a computer at home was a new thing, as was this exciting concept of free books to read online (I don't think I even knew the phrase "public domain" yet, though I think I understood the gist of it since it was plain to see that only the dear old "classics" were available to read in this way).

Fortunately I once picked up a set of vintage Louisa May Alcott books at an antique store, so when the aforementioned desire for a reread came up, I had the books on hand (I don't read online anymore--it just doesn't suit me). As soon as I started, I knew I would have to read both books because my mind was starting to recall all the little scenes more quickly than I could read them all.

Both these books are quite sappy, possibly even more so than Little Women. And yet the fact that they contain generally realistic sappiness makes said sappiness endearing and the images of each scene permanent in the mind. Especially since I read these stories at that age where memory is . . . strong and seems to recall every detail, rereading them transported me back.

Little Men is a good book, I was almost surprised to find. I guess after reading the Eight Cousins duo, my interest in Alcott started to wane (Eight Cousins was generally good, but since its sequel, Rose in Bloom, seemed to consist mainly of Rose proceeding to date all of her cousins one by one, it got to be a bit much for a modern perspective). But she did have a particular power of storytelling. She could paint a picture of a family community and all of the various members therein and she could strike right in at the stories that we would most want to hear, the stories of happiness, sorrow, and humor. And she gives everything a good moral angle, which is very similar to that of the Little House TV series (the books were too straightforward to include this sappily heartwarming and yet also quite stark morality).

By the time you get to Jo's Boys, all thoughts of quality fade because you're simply invested in seeing the last scenes with these characters. Little Women, you'll recall, is in two parts; while they're published together now, it used to be that the second part was separate and titled Good Wives. So the style with Little Men and Jo's Boys is similar to that of Little Women and Good Wives, except that ten years pass in between instead of just four and there are more characters.

I always quite liked Nat: that opening scene where he walks in to find such a welcome at Plumfield won me over right away. This time I was amused to see that Jo really doesn't like Nat that much; I didn't remember that from before. And Dan didn't seem quite as "bad" as I remembered, and in fact I did find him one of the more interesting characters this time. He's almost the heart of the story, the boy that Jo truly did need to rescue--personally. Nat would've just ended up in the street, dead physically, but Dan would have died spiritually if not for Jo's help.

You see, the thing about reading these stories now versus at eleven years old is that now I'm looking at them with the same sense with which they were written, which is very much a nostalgic style. At eleven years old, you can't have nostalgia for being eleven. But when you go back later, then you see it.

There was a time when I decided that Louisa May Alcott's books sat with a certain simplicity that made them less noteworthy, though casually enjoyable. Now I see so much more in them, and realize that the "simplicity" is entirely intentional. She was an intelligent, thinking woman, and it shows. While we, as modern readers, are apt to point out what we consider "outdated" elements, there are actually quite few of these considering how long ago she was writing--and even some bits, on further reflection, aren't as out of date as they at first seem. (I don't really have enough space in this post to give examples of what I mean.) There is much to learn from the morality of the Little Women/Little Men set, and it's all told in such a straightforward way.

I always believed that it was important to know your own mind and make your own decisions about who you want to be and what standard you want to hold yourself to (this is why some people falter when they go off to college: they haven't learned to stand on their own two feet--if you learn this, then you can stand in absolutely any environment). And I see now that Louisa May Alcott was one of the sources that taught me this. So my nostalgia to see the old crew again led me back up to the present, showing me lessons I could still learn or things I could keep working at, things that never go away.

It's been an interesting reading trip, and now I find myself utterly charmed by this group of characters.

Hair

We all remember the characters in literature who sold their hair for needed money . . . Jo from Little Women is the only one I read, and I could sympathize with her loss. It was around this time that I was a little obsessed with the 1800's, wishing I had been born then; while I still like that century, I've learned that I was born in the century I need to be in. But back then, the idea of long skirts and hair down to the ankles was somehow appealing; in fact, I think this was when I started to grow my hair out longer. Currently, the longest layer is just reaching my waist. For the past four years at least, I have only been getting my hair cut enough to keep it clean-looking; consequently, it's able to grow longer each time. But being a short person, I wonder each time I get it cut if I should be getting it shorter so that my hair (which is quite voluminous already) doesn't overpower me. I always decide to let it keep growing just a little longer. I tell myself that I might as well enjoy long hair while I'm young.

But now I'm reconsidering the question, and also considering what my mom and I once talked about. Some people donate blood; some donate money. I don't really have a job yet, so the last one is out, and I don't even weigh enough to donate blood (let me post the reminder again that I'm short). But hair, I definitely have the hair to donate. Now I learn that my cousin's first grader daughter just donated her hair, all on her own idea. She is happy to do it, but I hesitate? My, my, the things we can learn from children.

I hesitate, though, when I read that you need ten inches in order to donate. Though that would still leave my hair just below the shoulders, that's a lot to cut off. I was looking at my hair (which is wavy from the braid I wore today) in the mirror, and the thought of having it "short" (though this would be a length I once thought was long) again was very sad. What a lot of love for her family Jo must have had to cut off feet of hair instead of inches, especially during a time when women's hair was expected to be long. Today, if I cut my hair, I am the only one who will feel the loss; I could leave myself with only three inches and still blend in with the crowd.

How concepts of appearance change over time; the humanity, though, does not.

It Is In The Madness

My next paper will be on the Charlotte Perkins Gilman short story The Yellow Wallpaper. This story centers on a woman going mad and is based partly on Gilman's own expression with depression and the "treatment" she was given (which included orders not to write, which would just be heartbreaking of itself). I enjoyed it.

There is something to be found in certain "madnesses." I recently heard of a book called Touched with Fire, which centers around the connection between mental illness and genius. It sounds quite interesting; one of the points it makes is just in the mental image we have of a great artist. You imagine the great musical conductor with his messy hair, crazed expression, and almost savage aura. Madness and genius meeting? And of course, there are people like Edgar Allan Poe that no one doubts had some trouble, let's say, in their lives, but are remembered by history for their artistic endeavors. Like I said, interesting.

It makes me think of Jo in Little Women. When she goes into a writing fit, she locks herself in the garrett, away from food and sleep for days, with her quote "genius burns." Genius burns from being "touched with fire?"

Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament

Bran Hambric: The Specter Key