Review: Chronicles of Avonlea (novel)

Anne of Green Gables is well-known. Its sequels are more obscure. And most obscure of all are the short story collections L. M. Montgomery wrote about the village of Avonlea.

Chronicles of Avonlea is a book of twelve short stories set in and around Avonlea. It was first published in 1912, although some of the stories were written before L. M. Montgomery started Anne of Green Gables. She simply changed a few details to make these stories fit in. Some of the stories are adapted in the series Road to Avonlea, and a few events are referred to in other Anne books.

The plots range from an elderly woman who longs to hear an old friend sing, to an uncomfortable walk home leading to a quarrel finally ending. Romance plays a part in most of the stories. But not the sort of romance you might expect; instead of being about young people falling in love, they're about grown-up and middle-aged people getting married after overcoming obstacles like pride, disagreements, and a controlling older sister.

I have to admit, when I saw the title Chronicles of Avonlea I thought it would be about Anne, Marilla, Rachel Lynde, and other characters who appear in the Anne books. Instead it's about characters who are rarely or never mentioned in the main books. Anne herself hardly appears at all, but she helps bring about the marriage of one couple and attends the (highly unusual) wedding of another. I can't decide if I like the glimpse into new people's lives or if I'd like to see more of the characters I already know.

One of the stories comes perilously close to the sort of mawkish sentimentality common in Victorian and Edwardian literature. Strange, because L. M. Montgomery generally avoids falling into that trap. The rest are full of her brilliant descriptions, ability to let you know a character within minutes of their first appearance ("If they merely announce that they are going to peel the potatoes for dinner their hearers realize that there is no possible escape for the potatoes."), and humourous lines. (Mr. Leonard's "I'm very sorry for the Baptists" comment is my favourite 😆) Two stories in particular stuck in my mind long after I finished the book -- "Each in His Own Tongue" and "The Quarantine at Alexander Abraham's" -- for very different reasons!

This book isn't quite as good as any of the Anne books. But it's heartwarming and entertaining, and I enjoyed it from beginning to end.

Is it available online?: Yes, on Gutenberg.

Rating: 8/10.

Review: Anne With An E

This isn't an adaptation. It's butchery.

I was cautiously interested when I heard a new version of Anne of Green Gables was being made. I knew it would never compare to the brilliant 1985 film, but I thought it might be good enough. Then I read more about it, and other people's reactions to it. I was horrified. Surely it couldn't be as bad as that! Oh yes it could. It's worse.

What better title card for Anne of Green Gables than a stick with writing on it? To say nothing of the unexpectedly creepy credits.

I hesitate to say this is based on Anne of Green Gables, because it isn't. Someone took the names and setting of the book and attached them to characters L. M. Montgomery was too good a writer to invent.

I didn't recognise any of the actors. This series has not made me eager to seek out their other performances.

Episode one starts with... some guy in (what I mistook for) a cowboy hat galloping across a beach? Huh? I paused the video and double-checked to make sure I wasn't watching a Western by mistake. Then the scene randomly cuts to the opening credits, which only need eerie music to make them perfect for a horror show. Played over them is a song that's better fitted to a series about country music than something supposedly based on Anne of Green Gables.

Marilla and Matthew are nothing like their book counterparts. Marilla's personality bears a striking resemblance to Aunt Ruth's in Emily of New Moon. Matthew doesn't have a personality at all. And Anne is the worst of the lot. Instead of the cheerful, imaginative, occasionally hot-tempered girl who gained her author worldwide popularity, this "Anne" is your typical modern emo teen who whines about everything. She's as much like Anne Shirley as I'm like Queen Victoria.

In the book Matthew and Anne's first meeting is funny and heartwarming. She's so excited to meet him and she talks endlessly. He's terrified of approaching her, bewildered by her being there at all, but warms up to her after a while. Here Matthew just looks mildly surprised, and Anne immediately goes all "woe is me! I'm already a disappointment to you!". I'd expect that sort of whinging from one of Avonlea's much-maligned Pyes, not from Anne.

Rachel Lynde is yet another disappointment. This series does the impossible and makes her boring. How? It takes real talent to turn one of Avonlea's most memorable residents into a non-entity who says a few lines and leaves no impression. The scriptwriter and director are so unbelievably bad at their jobs that I'm honestly in awe.

Someone decided L. M. Montgomery's excellent prose wasn't good enough for them. So they wrote new dialogue. The effect is like William McGonagall rewriting Shakespeare's sonnets. Anne's speech at the breakfast table ("howling wilderness"! "I'm glad it's a pretty morning"! 😆) had me in stitches. All right, so Anne is supposed to have her moments of melodrama. But the book, and a good actress (read: Megan Follows), can make her melodrama endearing rather than ridiculous. Anne's actress here plays all her scenes completely straight, and elevates them from "bad" to "amazingly, pricelessly bad".

I considered abandoning the series in the middle of the first episode. But I wanted to see how the series portrayed Gilbert. So I skipped ahead to the second episode and fast-forwarded in search of Gilbert -- or the caricature that bore his name.

Another absurdity is the episode titles. Literary references work well as titles, provided they fit the themes of the story using them as a title. A Jane Eyre quote would be a good title for a Gothic story, but for an Anne of Green Gables episode?

What on earth is happening five minutes into episode two? Some random strangers appear (I assume they were introduced in the second half of episode one, but who knows) and a child almost chokes to death. It took me ages to connect this with the incident of Diana's sister having croup. That happens quite far into the book, after Anne accidentally set Diana drunk, and it resolves the "forbidden from seeing Diana" subplot. It has no business being placed near the start of an adaptation. As for Diana, it goes without saying that this version of her is nothing like the book's. I didn't know she was Diana until I realised what was happening.

A boy and his dying father appear shortly after this. I had no idea who they were and thought they must be inventions of the series-makers. No, apparently the boy is Gilbert. He has all the personality of a cardboard box and -- most damning of all -- he doesn't have book!Gilbert's dramatic first appearance. I suppose the director thought Anne breaking a slate over Gilbert's head was "too violent" and "setting a bad example" or some similar tripe.

Well, now that I know what Gilbert's like, I've had more than enough of this series. I haven't watched a full episode and I hope never to see it again.

Is it available online?: Who cares?

Rating: 0/10.

Review: Anne of Green Gables (novel)

Real life has been pretty bad lately, so I reread one of my favourite novels to cheer myself up. Of course I decided to review it when I finished it.

Anne of Green Gables was L. M. Montgomery's first novel, published in 1908. It's the first in a series of nine books. Over the years it's been adapted into films, anime, cartoons, musicals, and TV series.

I'm sure everyone knows the plot. Marilla Cuthbert and her brother Matthew decide to adopt an orphan boy. Instead they get an orphan girl: Anne Shirley, who'd rather be called Cordelia, who really doesn't like her red hair, and whose imagination baffles everyone and gets her in trouble frequently.

Words cannot describe how much I love this book 😄 It's so sweet and comical, yet there are sad moments too. Matthew's death breaks my heart every time I read it 😭

Anne herself is the sort of character I wanted to be like when I was a child. Her imagination is my favourite thing about her, closely followed by the consequences of imagination colliding with reality. Her midnight walk through the Haunted Wood is painfully relatable. I've experienced the same thing late at night after reading ghost stories 😨 And the incident of the hair dye is one of those scenes I love so much I read again and again 😄

It's easy to see which parts of this book L. M. Montgomery reused in her later works. Marilla is rather like Aunt Elizabeth from Emily of New Moon, but she undergoes character development much earlier and becomes much nicer than Aunt Elizabeth ever did. Matthew is very like Cousin Jimmy, and Miss Stacey is a much less peppery Mr. Carpenter.

Other characters aren't as immediately recognisable. Diana is much sweeter than Ilse. Gilbert has much more personality than Teddy, and his friendship and growing romance with Anne are shown much better than Teddy's and Emily's. Then there's the inimitable Mrs. Rachel Lynde, who reminds me a great deal of Miss Pole from Cranford, and who very quickly learns never to mention "carrots" around Anne 😆

Enduring popularity isn't always a sign that a book is good. But in this case, Anne of Green Gables absolutely deserves all its renown. Like all really good children's books it's not aimed only at children. No matter how old you are, you'll find something to enjoy in this book.

Is it available online?: Yes, on Gutenberg.

Rating: 10/10.