Allusion is not Illusion
You'll pry my books off my cold, dead body. By the time you shift them all I'll be flat and dessicated.
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Most insipid story I've ever read.
Okay, maybe some other Victoria moral literature I've read is equally insipid, but with more plot tension. This story really has no point, other than the obvious "You should be a dutiful young relative and live with grandmother and brighten her declining years, even if she was fine without you and didn't know you existed and vice versa."
Kate is a young woman has been orphaned. Since women don't live alone even if they have plenty of money (which she does; this is in no way a hard-luck story) she must pick one of her four uncles' families to live with. They all seem perfectly nice and are willing to have her. She goes to meet her grandmother and decides to live with her instead, because Duty. No one objects.
Okay, so what? There is just no conflict here. There is a slight implication that the uncles are too worldly and not dutiful enough, but Alcott says that they all offered to have their mother live with them and support her, and she refused. She has a nice house and a servant. She's lonely but, I'll repeat, declines to visit her children ever. I'm not exactly overwhelmed with pity here.
Kate arranges for the sons and their kids to come for Christmas. There is a pleasant gathering and everyone has a nice time. The End.
Yawn.
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