I’m continuing my way through a reread of the Anne of Green Gables series, and continue to have more thoughts.  This time I’m thinking about Book 7, Rainbow Valley.  Rather like certain Oz books, this is the Anne book that isn’t an Anne book.  But it’s very much a Montgomery book, with certain of her attitudes on full display.

By the time Montgomery wrote Rainbow Valley, I really don’t think she wanted to write about the Blythes anymore.  This was her fifth book (4 and 6 were written later), and because she wrote it before Anne of Ingleside, it was the first with Anne and Gilbert’s children.  With the partial exception of Walter, Montgomery doesn’t seem very interested in the Blythe children.  She gave Anne a happy ending, Anne’s children grow up in the midst of said-happy ending, and Montgomery was not yet at a point in her life when taking refuge in that happy ending was welcome to her (as in Anne of Ingleside).

So she did what other authors have done–billed the book as next in a popular series, then proceeded to write an almost original novel.  We get about two chapters of Anne and her family, then the focus shifts irrevocably to elsewhere in the neighborhood, to tell the story of the less fortunate and more interesting (to Montgomery, and by narrative convention) Meredith family.  I have to admit, the bait and switch has taken me many reads to get over.  I think this is the first time I’ve managed to really accept that this is not and was never going to be a Blythe novel, rather than feeling that we somehow got cheated out of the story that was meant to be here in the series.  And you know, after getting past that, this is a good novel! Continue reading “Book Review: Rainbow Valley by L. M. Montgomery” →

I’m going to be a bit timey-whimey, and after reviewing Anne of Ingleside (Book Six), I’m going to jump backwards and review Anne’s House of Dreams (Book Five), of the Anne of Green Gables series by L. M. Montgomery.  I reread them in the proper order—but I was excited about Anne of Ingleside so that review was written faster!  I had a lot of thoughts about Anne’s House of Dreams too though…and along some of the same themes, in fact.

Anne of Green Gables has grown-up by this book.  Near the beginning, Anne marries her sweetheart Gilbert, and they set off from Avonlea to their new “house of dreams” in another village on Prince Edward Island.  Changing location gives Montgomery the opportunity to introduce an entire new community of friends for Anne, including sharp-tongued Miss Cornelia, storyteller Captain Jim, and beautiful, tragic Leslie.  Although Anne is still in theory the protagonist, it’s the “supporting” characters who truly shine here.  Spoilers galore to come!

Besides being chronologically earlier, this book was also written significantly before Anne of Ingleside.  It doesn’t have the same themes of disillusionment–and yet, for a series that is generally classified as for children, it has very adult themes.  Montgomery writes with a light touch and an ultimate positivity that somehow masks how dark some of her concepts actually are, and like Anne of Ingleside, I didn’t fully appreciate it until I got older.  And now I think I appreciate the book even more because of those mature notes that have more depth than childhood idylls. Continue reading “Book Review: Anne’s House of Dreams” →

I kicked off my L. M. Montgomery-related reading challenge this year with a book that’s sat on my shelf unread for a while (I love when challenges get me to read unread books I own!): Remembering Lucy Maud Montgomery, edited by Alexandra Heilbron.

I’ve seen it said elsewhere that Montgomery’s novels reflect the sunnier side of her personality (with their pastoral scenes, romances and happy endings), while her journal was her grumble book for her darker pains and worries (especially in the last few years).  This book tries to fill in a third side, the face people around her knew.  It’s a series of interviews with people who knew her, about what they remember.

This book is a brilliant idea that came thirty years too late.  Montgomery died in 1942, and the book was published in 2001, nearly 60 years later.  Since Montgomery was herself in her sixties when she died, simple math and the human lifespan indicates that people interviewed must have been much, much younger than she was.

Despite that, the book starts out relatively strong, interviewing relatives who, though children at the time, seem to have some genuine insights into who she was and how she related to their family.  One fun note, among the relatives’ interviews and elsewhere, is that she routinely talked to herself, while she was plotting out stories and shaping dialogue.  She mentions in her journal that she thinks stories out before writing them down, but doesn’t describe speaking them aloud.  The best relatives’ interviews are from a series of nieces and nephews, though there was one from her granddaughter, who had surprisingly little to add. Continue reading “Book Review: Remembering Lucy Maud Montgomery” →