Tag: L. M. Montgomery

What Are You Reading…in January?

On By cherylmahoneyIn Ruminations, What Are You Reading?9 Comments

itsmondayIt’s been a few weeks since I posted for the What Are You Reading meme from Book Journey, so now seems like a good time for a new installment.

I’ve been making all sorts of headway with my science fiction reading.  I’ve managed to dip into just about every type of sci fi I was planning: Pern, Star Wars, Star Trek and two Burroughs books.  I also finally finished Reflections by Diana Wynne Jones, a wonderful collection of essays about storytelling.

On audio, I’m about halfway through Walden by Henry David Thoreau.  It’s a funny thing–sometimes he seems to just drop brilliant gems every two sentences.  Other times he loses me for five minutes at a time.  But overall I’m enjoying listening.

Pat BooksIt turns out to be a good thing after all that I decided to join the L. M. Montgomery reading challenge…after three weeks of sci fi, my excitement was flagging.  So I was all set to jump into Pat of Silver Bush, which is a completely different world.  I’m midway through now, and may or may not (but probably will) go straight on to Mistress Pat.

After that, I expect to  have renewed eagerness for sci fi, so it’ll be back to Star Wars for Darksaber, the next volume of the Callista Trilogy.  And then…more Star Trek or else Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card.

Still lots of good books in the stack!

P1020254

Beside the Shore with L. M. Montgomery

On By cherylmahoneyIn Reviews5 Comments

L. M. Montgomery Reading ChallengeI’m continuing my wander through L. M. Montgomery for the L. M. Montgomery Reading Challenge, and it’s a good day to remark on a few more short stories and poetry.

I’ve moved over to another collection, Along the Shore, which collects various short stories with a seaside focus.  It can get a little repetitive if you read it straight through, but there are some gems in here.

“A Sandshore Wooing” is a delightful story, told in journal fashion.  Marguerite is at the seashore with her domineering aunt, a man-hater who believes her niece still needs “bringing up.”  Marguerite catches sight of–and catches the eye of–a young man on another part of the shore, who conveniently turns out to be the brother of an old friend.  They carry on a clandestine and unconventional courtship, mostly by way of spyglasses and sign-language.  It all works out rather neatly, but is very fun and sweet.

The story also reminds me of the first part of Rebecca, when the narrator carries on her romance with Maxim behind the back of her domineering employer.  There’s a similar feel of the young girl finding the courage to defy the harpy in her life.  As far as I know, however, Marguerite’s love interest doesn’t have a first wife!

“Fair Exchange and No Robbery” is another fun one.  Katherine bumps into her friend Edith’s fiance while on vacation at the shore, and finds herself in a dreadful mess when she likes him a bit too much.  Meanwhile, Edith meets Katherine’s fiance and…well, it’s not terribly shocking when it all works out.

I’ll defend Montgomery’s conveniently happy endings by noting that they don’t all end so pleasantly.  Just drawing examples from this volume, “The Waking of Helen” and “Mackereling Out in the Gulf” both center around unrequited love, and end tragically.

But anyway, I like Montgomery’s happy endings.  Some dreadful quote somewhere says that a short story should begin with a question and end with a bigger question (which results in stories that make me tear my hair out, figuratively speaking).  I like better Neil Gaiman’s description of short stories as adventures you can have and still be home in time for dinner.  Most of the time Montgomery’s short stories pose a puzzle or a problem for the main character, and resolve it by the end, which I find much more satisfactory than being left with a bigger question.

Perhaps another poem to wind up this post?  And since I’m reading her seaside short stories, here’s a sea-focused poem too, with lovely magical images.

The Voyagers

We shall launch our shallop on waters blue from some dim primrose shore,
We shall sail with the magic of dusk behind and enchanted coasts before,
Over oceans that stretch to the sunset land where lost Atlantis lies,
And our pilot shall be the vesper star that shines in the amber skies.

The sirens will call to us again, all sweet and demon-fair,
And a pale mermaiden will beckon us, with mist on her night-black hair;
We shall see the flash of her ivory arms, her mocking and luring face,
And her guiling laughter will echo through the great, wind-winnowed space.

But we shall not linger for woven spell, or sea-nymph’s sorceries,
It is ours to seek for the fount of youth, and the gold of Hesperides,
Till the harp of the waves in its rhythmic beat keeps time to our pulses’ swing,
And the orient welkin is smit to flame with auroral crimsoning.

And at last, on some white and wondrous dawn, we shall reach the fairy isle
Where our hope and our dream are waiting us, and the to-morrows smile;
With song on our lips and faith in our hearts we sail on our ancient quest,
And each man shall find, at the end of the voyage, the thing he loves the best.

January in Prince Edward Island

On By cherylmahoneyIn Reviews1 Comment

L. M. Montgomery Reading ChallengeI am racing about in a flurry of science fiction this month, but in between the aliens and the dinosaurs and the superheroes, I’m also visiting beautiful Prince Edward Island for the L. M. Montgomery Reading Challenge.  So far I’ve been wandering through short stories and a bit of poetry, so this Friday I thought I’d remark on a few of the ones I’ve visited.

I have a funny relationship with L. M. Montgomery.  More than any other, she’s the writer I feel like I’m always reading.  Not literally, but with two books of poetry, 199 short stories, and five enormous journals, it’s always easy to pick up a bit of Montgomery.  And that’s not even counting more concentrated reading in a novel.  But I dip in and out of her short stories on a fairly regular basis.  I own every available collection, so rather than reading any one straight through, I’m spending this month bouncing to whatever story strikes my fancy.  And whichever poem I have a hankering for.

“Old Man Shaw’s Girl” in The Chronicles of Avonlea is a lovely story, quite sentimental but very sweet.  Old Man Shaw’s neighbors think he’s a bit shiftless and lazy and has never made much of his farm, and maybe that’s true–but he also knows how to enjoy life and value what’s really important.  His only family is his beloved daughter, who has been away for three years at school.  He is eagerly anticipating her return–until a meddling neighbor points out how much the girl may have changed.

“A Dinner of Herbs” in At the Altar is one of my very favorites of LMM’s short stories.  Very little happens but it’s delightful and romantic.  Old maid Robin must choose between marrying a widower she doesn’t much like, or continuing to put up with her domineering sister-in-law and chattering niece.  And she’s terribly fascinated by Michael, the shell-shocked war veteran next door, with his two cats (First Peter and Second Peter) and love of natural beauty.  This story is rich in its simplicity, and the dialogue between Robin and Michael brings them to life as much as any characters I’ve met.  It occurred to me rereading this that there are definite echoes of this story in The Blue Castle–or the other way around, I don’t know which came first.  And I LOVE The Blue Castle.

This story also provides one of my favorite quotes from anywhere: “They had laughed together the first time they had talked, and when two people have laughed–really laughed–together, they are good friends for life.”

I keep Montgomery’s poetry collections by my bed and occasionally read a poem or two.  I’m not even a fan of poetry, but I love her poems for some of the same reasons I love her books–she makes the world so much more beautiful than anything my eyes can see.

So I thought I’d end by sharing one of my favorites.  I’ve no idea if it’s great poetry, and I do know occasionally the rhyme or the meter jangles.  But the concept–and the images!  Lovely.

And having read her journals, well…even though she wrote this before her beloved friend Frede died, it’s still about Frede.  It just is.  If Montgomery ever looked at this one again later, I KNOW she was thinking of Frede.

As the Heart Hopes

It is a year, dear one, since you afar
Went out beyond my yearning mortal sight­
A wondrous year! perchance in many a star
You have sojourned, or basked within the light
Of mightier suns; it may be you have trod
The glittering pathways of the Pleiades,
And through the Milky Way’s white mysteries
Have walked at will, fire-shod.

You may have gazed in the immortal eyes
Of prophets and of martyrs; talked with seers
Learned in all the lore of Paradise,
The infinite wisdom of eternal years;
To you the Sons of Morning may have sung,
The impassioned strophes of their matin hymn,
For you the choirs of the seraphim
Their harpings wild out-flung.

But still I think at eve you come to me
For old, delightsome speech of eye and lip,
Deeming our mutual converse thus to be
Fairer than archangelic comradeship;
Dearer our close communings fondly given
Than all the rainbow dreams a spirit knows,
Sweeter my gathered violets than the rose
Upon the hills of heaven.

Can any exquisite, unearthly morn,
Silverly breaking o’er a starry plain,
Give to your soul the poignant pleasure born
Of virgin moon and sunset’s lustrous stain
When we together watch them ? Oh, apart
A hundred universes you may roam,
But still I know–­I know­–your only home
Is here within my heart!

What Are You Reading…in 2013?

On By cherylmahoneyIn Ruminations, What Are You Reading?9 Comments

itsmondayWe’re about to turn the calendar to January, making this the perfect time to look ahead at reading plans for the beginning of the new year.  So here’s a new installment of the What Are You Reading meme from Book Journey!

I have been on a mad quest to clear up final reading plans before the end of the year, and so far, it’s going pretty well.  I read Superior Saturday and am midway through Lord Sunday by Garth Nix, to finish off one last series.

I reread Mischief of the Mistletoe by Lauren Willig over Christmas, and I just madly, madly love this book.  It’s so sweet and adorable and witty and funny and the characters are so good and…well, I just madly love it.

I’m still working on Reflections by Diana Wynne Jones, but since it’s a series of essays, it’ll be an easy one to intersperse among new reading plans…because I start new reading challenges on January 1st and look forward to diving in.

P1020254First of all, I’m joining the Sci Fi Experience, so that should tell you the general trend of my reading for the next couple of weeks.  I think I’ll start with the Pellucidar series, reading At the Earth’s Core by Edgar Rice Burroughs, followed by Children of the Jedi by Barbara Hambly, then maybe whichever Star Trek book is appealing to me.  Somewhere in there I also plan to read Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey for the readalong, but I haven’t quite decided where yet.  Then I might circle back to the next Pellucidar book, or else I’ll take a break for something completely different…and read Pat of Silver Bush by L. M. Montgomery.

Pat BooksYou see, all against my better judgment, I have also decided to join in with the L. M. Montgomery Reading Challenge at Reading to Know.  It only runs for the month of January which is terrible timing…but it’s an L. M. Montgomery reading challenge!  To paraphrase one of her characters, her writing is in the very core of my heart.  I can’t resist.  So, I’ll definitely be fitting in some LMM short stories and poetry in the next month, and hopefully the Pat books in there somewhere too.

WaldenWhile all of that is going on, I also want to get started on my Chunkster Challenge…because if I don’t start in the first month, I’ll never reach my goal there!  The thought of fitting a 1,000 page book into January is making me feel faint (sorry, Les Mis) so I got an audiobook of Walden instead.  I can’t see listening to Thoreau while I’m driving (it just doesn’t feel right…) but while I’m taking a morning walk…yeah, I think that’ll work.

Whew.  If I didn’t enjoy all of this so much, reading plans would be exhausting to contemplate!  But since I very often feel like I want to read all of the books right now, it’s actually quite exciting to have a big stack to pounce on.  I know how I’m spending January 1st!

Addendum: apologies for sending you two posts in one day!  This one accidentally got scheduled a day early.  Oh well…I guess I’m really looking forward to the new year!

Favorites Friday: Short Story Collections

On By cherylmahoneyIn Favorites Friday6 Comments

I haven’t done a Favorites Friday for a while, what with NaNo and other features, so I thought I’d come back to that for this week.  Today, let’s look at a different-than-usual medium, and talk about short stories.  I don’t read a LOT of short stories, but there are a few collections near to my heart.

To start with an author I’m pretty sure I’ve never mentioned–I love O. Henry’s short stories.  I had a habit in high school: if I finished my book during school, I’d run to the library between classes and pick up an O. Henry book for the rest of the day.  Because I couldn’t be bookless for three hours!  I have no particular favorite collection, but O. Henry in general is excellent.  I always enjoy his twist endings–even when you’re expecting them, he still surprises.

MerlinDreams1Merlin Dreams by Peter Dickinson is a book I’ve reviewed before.  It was a beloved favorite at the library through my childhood, and I finally bought it myself last year.  He tells semi-Arthurian stories about love and loss and honor and falling prey to your own tricks, all in a frame story about Merlin sleeping through the centuries somewhere below the moor.  The stories are haunting, with characters and ideas that have woven themselves into my mind.  And I about fell off my chair when I realized that Robin McKinley was married to Peter Dickinson–the Dickinson of Merlin Dreams!  And that’s definitely how I thought of him… 🙂

An author I often talk about 🙂 is L. M. Montgomery, so you must have expected she’d be here too!  She’s best known now for her novels, but she also wrote hundreds of short stories.  I’ve read 199, all of the ones presently available.  My favorite collection is The Road to Yesterday, with three of my favorite Montgomery short stories.  “Fancy’s Fool” is about dreamy Esme, who long ago went into a secret part of a garden and met a ghost boy she can’t forget.  “The Cheated Child” is about Pat Brewster, who must choose which of an awful assortment of relatives he’s going to live with…until one day he breaks free and finds himself at beautiful Sometyme Farm.  “Fool’s Errand” is about Lincoln Brewster, who reckons he’d better get married but dreads the thought–and ends up going in search of a girl he met on a beach one long ago day in his childhood.  With the possible exception of Esme’s story, these aren’t fantasies–but they’re magical.

Book of EnchantmentsMore directly magical, I so enjoy Patricia C. Wrede’s Book of Enchantments (my review here), with fantasy stories that are funny or sad, traditional or modern, silly or profound.  And yet somehow, they all fit together too.  There are even two excellent short stories connected to her truly excellent Enchanted Forest quartet–which is such a treat for fans!

I’m open to reading more short stories, so…any recommendations?