Review: The Blue Castle

Mention L. M. Montgomery and most people will think of Anne of Green Gables. Not many people realise she also wrote books aimed specifically at adults. And if you think this is like the Anne series, you're in for a surprise.

The Blue Castle is one of L. M. Montgomery's many novels, first published in 1926. It's been adapted into two musicals, but remains one of her more obscure books.

I didn't know this book existed until I saw it in a charity shop. When I saw the name "L. M. Montgomery" I decided to buy it. Surely, I thought, it would be another heartwarming story like Anne of Green Gables. Boy, was I in for a surprise.

A quick plot summary: Our heroine, Valancy Stirling, has just turned twenty-nine and is still living with her controlling mother and aunt. The doctor tells her she's dying of heart disease. Faced with her imminent death, she decides it's time she took charge of her own life. So she moves out of her mother's home -- under very unpleasant circumstances -- and tries to live in the short time she has left. Of course, things don't turn out quite as she expected.

From the beginning I was amazed at how depressing the novel is. At the start Valancy is abused, hopeless, and trapped in a dysfunctional family -- a grimly relatable situation nowadays just as much as it was almost a century ago. Even when she rebels and leaves them, she has a death sentence hanging over her head. Nor are side characters exempt from the misery: poor Cissie's death made me sob and give up hope of this story having a happy ending.

But it wouldn't be an L. M. Montgomery novel without a happy ending. I suspected Valancy wouldn't die; it's not Montgomery's style to write a tragedy. (SPOILER!) So the discovery of the doctor's mistake is easy to see coming.

In many ways this novel is pure wish fulfillment. Valancy escapes her family, marries the man she loves, and gets everything she wanted. But that's why I like it. True, it's no Anne of Green Gables, and its first half is thoroughly depressing, but towards the end it becomes a surprisingly uplifting book in its own way.

Is it available online?: Yes, on Gutenberg.

Rating: 8/10.

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 of Avonlea (novel)

I had no idea what to review today. Even when I sat down to start writing this one I didn't know what it would be about. At last I decided to review this book.

Anne of Avonlea is a 1909 novel by L. M. Montgomery, the first of many sequels to Anne of Green Gables. (Incidentally, it was also the first Anne novel I ever read.) It's been adapted into a 1975 miniseries and a 1987 film.

The story picks up shortly after the first book ended. Anne Shirley has just become the teacher at Avonlea school. We follow her lessons, her struggles with some pupils and parents, her friendships, and the inevitable scrapes she gets into. Along the way we renew our acquaintance with many of Avonlea's residents and meet some newcomers. There's just one problem: the writing often falls into the trap of gooey sentimentality that Anne of Green Gables avoided.

L. M. Montgomery only wrote this book because readers demanded more about Anne. Unfortunately it shows. Some of the characters, including Anne herself, aren't quite as memorable as they were in the first book. Gilbert hardly appears at all, which has the unfortunate side-effect of making Anne's developing love for him come almost out of nowhere. (Anne of the Island, the third book in the series, shows their romance much better.) The newcomers range from the distinctive and comical, like Mr. and Mrs. Harrison, to the flat and underdeveloped, like Miss Lavender and Paul Irving.

All I can remember about Miss Lavender is she's a kindred spirit who calls all her maids Charlotta. Paul is basically a male version of eleven-year-old Anne, but not nearly as interesting. The subplot involving Miss Lavender marrying Paul's father is sweet but doesn't stick in my mind as much as some other romantic subplots L. M. Montgomery wrote.

Much of the book is more like a series of connected short stories than a novel. There's Anne and her friends' attempts to improve Avonlea, and Anne teaching the students, and Marilla's struggles with the twins, but all of these feel like plots on their own instead of all part of the same story. At least all these subplots have enough entertaining moments to keep the reader interested. The incident of the cow in Mr. Harrison's field and Anne's trouble with the henhouse roof are the scenes that stick in my mind the most 😄

Anne of Avonlea isn't quite as good as Anne of Green Gables. It would probably be possible to skip this book entirely without missing much. But it has its good points in spite of its flaws, and I enjoy it enough to reread it on occasion.

Is it available online?: Yes, on Gutenberg.

Rating: 6/10.

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.

Review: Emily's Quest

The first two books of the Emily trilogy are very good. The last one, on the other hand...

Emily's Quest is the third book in L. M. Montgomery's trilogy about Emily of New Moon. It was first published in 1927.

Emily and her friends are now grown up. Emily stays at New Moon and writes more books, Teddy goes off to study art, Ilse and Perry go... somewhere (I really didn't like either of them in this book, so I didn't pay much attention to their scenes), and Dean Priest is still hanging around Emily. She falls in love with Teddy, but his apparent disinterest -- and an unfortunate accident -- leads to her becoming engaged to Dean. After she supernaturally saves Teddy's life (it's a long story) Emily breaks off her engagement and dedicates her time to writing while angsting over Teddy. And the charm of the first two novels is conspicuous by its absence.

Compared to L. M. Montgomery's other works, this book feels very unfinished. It reads less like a novel and more like a collection of scene outlines. Montgomery, usually an excellent and descriptive writer, plunges headlong into telling instead of showing, and it doesn't work too well.

Ilse, who started out a likable character, has now become a shallow, flighty brat who makes me want to break a slate over her head. Among other things, she gets engaged to a man she doesn't love, then abandons him literally minutes before the wedding to go and declare her love for the man she's mocked and derided for years.

Teddy never had much personality. Here he might as well be a piece of cardboard. And his mother is an absolute lunatic. We're supposed to feel sorry for her when she reveals her past. But that past includes poisoning her husband's dog and emotionally abusing her son for years, including keeping letters from him out of jealousy. I didn't shed any tears when Mrs. Kent finally dies. If only she'd died earlier. In the first book, for instance!

Perry made so little impression on me that I can't remember a single thing about him beyond his marriage to Ilse. Same goes for all Emily's other suitors -- except Dean, who's even more creepy than before. Any sympathy I felt for him disappeared the minute he admitted to lying about Emily's book.

Emily herself has become the Edwardian equivalent of an emo teen. Mopes around the house, angsts constantly, spends all her time feeling sorry for herself... What happened to the Emily of the first two books, who had some moments of depression but didn't spend an entire book going "woe is me"?

At least Aunt Elizabeth, Aunt Laura and Cousin Jimmy are still recognisable. They provide some of the book's scarce comedy when they read the reviews of Emily's book. Cousin Jimmy's (paraphrased) line "I know what those words mean separately, but put together they don't make any sense" perfectly sums up many "professional" book reviews 😄

Even the writing is more choppy and vague than L. M. Montgomery's usually is. Reading it I get the feeling that for some reason she didn't have time to revise and edit it, and sent the publisher a first or second draft. It's still miles better than my first drafts, but nowhere near the quality of her other works.

Overall this book is a disappointment, and not a satisfactory end to the series 😔

Is it available online?: Yes, on Gutenberg.

Rating: 4/10.

Review: Emily Climbs

This review was sitting in drafts for days, ready to be posted today... And planning my Camp NaNo July project is taking so much of my time that I almost forgot about it. Oops.

Emily Climbs is the second in the Emily of New Moon trilogy. If the first book was the more cynical equivalent of Anne of Green Gables, then this one is the more cynical equivalent of Anne of the Island.

Emily and her friends go off to high school, but Aunt Elizabeth only allows her to go on one condition: she must agree never to write fiction while she's there. Anyone who was born with the urge to write will understand how difficult it is for Emily to obey this order. Nor do some people around her make her time at high school any easier. She has to stay with Aunt Ruth, a woman so stubborn and unsympathetic she makes Aunt Elizabeth look jolly. And she constantly clashes with Evelyn, one of her schoolmates. Aunt Ruth improves later on (wonder of wonders!). Evelyn doesn't. And along the way Emily has a series of adventures that are decidedly more eerie than anything Anne encountered.

The incident of Emily being locked in the church with a madman wouldn't be out of place in a horror novel. Nor would Mrs. Kent. That woman gives me the chills 😨 And then there's the case of the missing child, a tragedy that's averted thanks to Emily's "flash" -- something that is even more frightening here than in the first book. All this is topped off with a more mundane but infuriatingly unjust incident: Emily and her friends are embroiled in a completely fictional scandal, and Emily is shunned because of it.

Still, the book has some humour. Large portions of it are from Emily's diary, and she makes no bones about what she thinks of certain people. Then there's the incident of the overturned ink-bottle, something that anyone who's spilled something messy can relate to. And the question of who owns a certain troublesome dog is the funniest part of the book.

I enjoyed this book even more than the first one, and I definitely recommend it!

Is it available online?: Yes, on Gutenberg.

Rating: 10/10.

Review: Emily of New Moon (novel)

I once heard someone describe this book as "Gothic Anne of Green Gables". That isn't the best description of it, but it's partly accurate.

Emily of New Moon is one of L. M. Montgomery's many novels, and the first in a trilogy. It was published in 1923. It's been adapted into a TV series and an anime.

The story has many similarities to Anne of Green Gables. An orphan girl goes to live in a farm on Prince Edward Island, befriends a boy and a girl there, and dreams of becoming a writer. But at the same time it's thematically quite different. Emily has a more eerie, less idealistic atmosphere. At times when I was reading I wondered if L. M. Montgomery looked at Anne, thought "How can I use this plot without telling the same story?", and invented Emily.

Unlike Anne, Emily occasionally includes the supernatural. Anne's encounters with the supernatural, in the form of ghosts and fairies, were always imagined (even if they didn't always seem that way to her!). Emily, on the other hand, experiences something she calls "the flash", which is clearly described as a glimpse into another world, and in the rather spine-chilling conclusion to a subplot she actually witnesses events she never saw or heard about.

Some of the characters are very likeable; Emily herself, Cousin Jimmy, and Aunt Laura stand out. Then there are some who are sometimes likeable and sometimes not; Ilse, Teddy, and Aunt Elizabeth fall into this category. And then there are the utterly unlikeable ones, of whom the deranged and terrifying Mrs. Kent reigns supreme. This woman is supposed to be pitiable, but I found her utterly repulsive. She's so possessive and controlling of her son that she kills his pets when she thinks he loves them more than her!

Nor is the offscreen pet-killing the only dark moment in this book. There's also a woman who's believed to have abandoned her husband and child to run away with her cousin. (She didn't, as Emily learns in her measles-induced "dream" or whatever that thing was.) And then there's Dean Priest. He isn't the evil creep some modern readers think, but he's certainly unsettling.

There are occasional moments of humour in the book, though not as many as in Anne. There's the incident of Emily's visit to Father Cassidy, and Emily's comments about certain things and people in her diary. But overall the book is much more depressing than I expected an L. M. Montgomery novel to be. I still enjoyed reading it, though, and -- wonder of wonders! -- in some ways I like it better than Anne.

Is it available online?: Yes, on Gutenberg.

Rating: 9/10.