Finishing out my reviews of the Emily of New Moon trilogy by L. M. Montgomery, today is Emily’s Quest!

Book Three sees Emily back home at New Moon, continuing to pursue her writing.  Love-interest Teddy becomes a much more driving force in this volume, not so much in his presence as in his absence.  Emily and Teddy are driven apart through a series of circumstances and misunderstandings, and even though it’s sometimes far-fetched or conveniently coincidental, Montgomery grounds everything in such genuine emotion and human nature that I’m willing to go along with her.  Example: Teddy’s mother plays a convenient role in derailing their romance, but it’s so based in who she is as a character that I completely believe it.

Another strand of the plot is Dean Priest, Teddy’s only serious romantic rival.  He’s an odd one, as he’s likable and sympathetic in some ways, but I keep running up against the problem that he’s far too old for Emily.  This might be workable, except that it gets squickier because he harbors romantic feelings for Emily starting when she’s eleven, and is waiting for her to grow up.  On the other hand–Dean seems to realize this is all a little weird, and that he’s too old for her–which possibly should make matters worse but actually seems to help.  The realization comes with a strong overtone that he’s never, ever, ever going to do anything inappropriate, which makes it all a little less uncomfortable.

Although just as the Dean/Emily romance seems like a maybe, then he does some absolutely reprehensible things in the area of her writing, and I know some people have some very strong Dean-hatred as a consequence…  Personally, I think he’s a little like Mad Mr. Morrison from the previous book, in that Montgomery gives us just enough of how Dean sees the situation, and himself, that I end up feeling more sorry for him than angry.  Though it was reprehensible, and directly responsible for a lot of the sadder parts of the book.

Emily’s Quest was written directly after The Blue Castle, and it’s fascinating to look at Valancy’s blossoming from empty stagnation into a vibrant confidence and enthusiasm for life, compared with Emily’s vibrant youth and apparent path towards an emptier adulthood.

Emily is anguished at some points, and there are long stretches where she faces a very bleak future–and somehow that bleakness seemed even more affecting than the sharper pains.  As far as I can remember, the last time I read this I saw it as a pretty standard true-love-never-runs-smooth story where the point was to get through the travails to the happy ending.  This time I was really struck by all that’s being explored by those sections of darkness.  Maybe it’s just the effect of being older–maybe it’s because I read Montgomery’s journals and know exactly what she was drawing from to write these sections.  Either way, I found the book deeply moving on this read.

And for those who are worried…it’s worth noting that Emily believes in always giving her stories happy endings, and she’s a very autobiographical character. 😉

I feel like I’m making something of a litany of dark dark dark in these reviews!  But it’s so different from how Montgomery is usually viewed that I think it’s worth emphasizing.  And there is still soul-stirring beauty and occasional humor too.  If you really just want sunshine, then by all means, read Anne of Green Gables.  But if you want a few shadows to contrast with the light, then I highly recommend the Emily trilogy.

Other reviews:
Becky’s Book Reviews
Bookshelves of Doom
Stewartry
Jade Sanctum
Anyone else?

Buy it here: Emily’s Quest

Following on my review of Emily of New Moon, I’m looking at the next book in the trilogy today, continuing the story of Emily Byrd Starr and her dreams of being an author.

Emily Climbs by L. M. Montgomery gives us Emily’s high school years–even though she begins the book age 13, she felt about 16 to me throughout.  This volume focuses mostly on her writing and her family, as she starts to sell a few stories and poems, and spars with various relatives who cannot understand the things that Emily girl gets up to.  There are also a few ups and downs with best friend Ilse, who continues her wild flouting of propriety.

Male friends Teddy and Perry fade out for large sections of the book, which is a bit of a shame, as their scenes are some of the most compelling.  First, there’s a scene when Emily becomes accidentally locked in the empty church with “Mad Mr. Morrison” and Teddy comes to the rescue.  Later, all four friends take refuge in an abandoned house to escape a snowstorm, where Emily and Teddy share a suddenly soul-revealing glance; under the inspiration of new love, Emily spends the night dreaming out her great novel.  And Perry contributes one of the funniest scenes, narrating a disastrous dinner party he attended.

As you can probably already tell, we’ve left childhood, for the most part, behind by this second book, and ventured with Emily into more adult territory.  The scene with Mad Mr. Morrison is particularly striking for a number of reasons.  As I mentioned in my review of the first book, there’s a darker strain in Emily, and never more so than here.  Morrison is a generally harmless lunatic, endlessly seeking his lost love who died many years before.  He mistakes Emily for his lost bride, and the scene when he searches through the darkened church for her is truly terrifying.  Even though Montgomery mentions that when he finds girls he likes to stroke their hair (in other words–basically harmless), I don’t quite believe that, as the entire tone is that she’s in genuine danger.

Of course he doesn’t catch her, of course she escapes–it’s Montgomery, after all, and if she ever went to the really dark places I wouldn’t enjoy her so much.  But the Emily books go just far enough to make me feel like they’re set in a real world, where there are real problems–and I like that.  There’s also a beautiful conclusion to the scene, telling the reader how Morrison sees himself, the hero seeking his beloved, which brings him away from being a villain and turns him into a truly tragic figure shaped by lost love.

Emily also uses her second sight twice in this book, in more pronounced ways than she did in the first.  I always found these incidents a little baffling because the book is clearly not a fantasy, yet it has these moments…which somehow don’t read as though they’re meant to be fantasy.  Then I read Montgomery’s journal and found out she believed in prophetic dreams and, I would guess, other psychic phenomena (to a point!)

At the end of the book, we see Emily at a crossroads, making a decision about where her life will go next.  I understand her ultimate choice…but in a way I wish she had chosen otherwise, as I would have loved to see where her life would go down that path.  I also wonder if Emily’s decision is, to a certain extent, Montgomery’s efforts to satisfy herself about her path through life, when she never really had the opportunity to go the opposite direction.  I love reading Montgomery’s books from the perspective of knowing the contents of her journals too!

I was originally planning a combined review for both of the remaining books in the trilogy…but then I had more to say than I expected!  So come back next week for a review of Book Three, Emily’s Quest…

Other reviews:
Happy Endings
Becky’s Book Reviews
Lines from the Page
Bookshelves of Doom
Anyone else?

Buy it here: Emily Climbs