Little Women

E has been reading M's copies of Beth's Story and Meg's Story from the Portraits of Little Women series--and you probably already know this, but my position on prequels, sequels, and abridgements is that they are A-OK, so long as they are upfront about their status, and E's reading of these is a perfect case in point: she really is not ready for the full book, and I think in fact is next going to tackle the abridgement that was my childhood copy, which I only realized was abridged when I went to read it to M when she was around seven, but she--now we're back to E--is falling in love with Little Women, and these books will bridge her right to the real thing, just like the Little House picture books led her into the novels.

But this post is not about literary principle, it's about Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy, and more broadly about sisterly attributes.

Of course the question of which sister E resembles came up, it is sort of an innate kind of thing, there must be a gene attached to the gene for reading which is the gene for identification and sorting of real people by fictional characters. But at any rate E asked which sister I thought she was like, and I said Beth--not that she is musical or sickly, but that she is very alert and somewhat shy and gentle--except when she's not, oh my god, did I just call E, the feral maniac child, gentle? OK, but this actually supports my point: E said that she thought she was like Amy, and we did not have time to get into why, and I'm sure it has nothing to do with pickled limes, but I said I thought she was a combination of Amy and Beth (spoiled, baby of the family, observant, loving), and then we started talking about M, and realized that she is a combination of Meg and Jo (loves fashion, domestic, responsible, adventurous).

And that made me think that perhaps there are a series of sisterly attributes, or perhaps I should say sibling attributes, and if there are only two of you, they sort out among the two of you, and if there are four of you, they sort out among the four of you, kind of like differentiation of labor--is that even a real thing? You know, if there's one person in the restaurant, they cook and serve and do dishes. If there are two, one cooks and one serves and probably they both do dishes. Three: cook, serve, dishes. With four, you get to divide up the cooking. At seven, probably, you get a host.

Then again, when you get to a dozen siblings, I think the characteristics start to double up, like in Cheaper by the Dozen, where the kids are in groups: big sisters, little boys, etc.

Anyway, just a thought.