March to the Writer's Group

I finished reading "March" by Geraldine Brooks awhile ago. And it goes to a theme on my blog, Jenny's, Ali's and Deb's about imitation or using other people's characters. In this case, the novel uses the character of Mr. March in the "Little Women" novel and tells an adult story of his experiences in the Civil War as a pastor. It's really the story of the breaking of a man, which certainly couldn't be told in a children's story. And it uses the character to illuminate Louisa May Alcott's real father, who was a friend of Emerson and Thoreau and was an abolitionist. And he was a tragic figure, failing at everything he tried and never living up to his two friends or his daughter. This I get from reading the biography of the 3 men plus Hawthorne in "The Concord Quartet" by Samuel Schreiner............Anyway, I think it was a good use of a fictional character belonging to someone else. But also, it does what good historical fiction does best- speculate about the empty spaces in the record of how a brilliant man like Mr. March became so broken and such a failure when he was around such inspiring friends, But then I bring other sources into the reading like the book mentioned above and I'm currently also listening to "Walden" by Thoreau. The main question I came away from all this related reading is: what in the world was in the water in Concord at this time? And what was in the water in Oxford when Lewis and Tolkien met and formed the writer's group (as described in "The Inklings" by Humphrey Carpenter)? What is it about these sets of like-minded friends to inspire such creativity in each other? It's rather hopeful concerning friendship and even for writer's groups by implication. Anyway this is my best chain of reference thinking today. Got from Concord to the writer's group in 3 easy steps.