Anne of Ingleside marks the last of the Anne books currently in
my possession. There are two more, but I have been told that they have
much less to do with Anne than with her children. The same might be said
of this book, but she does come back into focus at several points in
the narrative, even if her children hog the spotlight most of the time. I
will probably get those last two books eventually, but I may not rush
right out to do so.
I found the back-cover description on this
book confusing. The first sentence places us directly at the beginning
of the novel, but the second skips right to a moment 20 pages from the
end of the book and speaks of it as though it were a great central
conflict in the book. It struck me as rather misleading. I kept waiting
for an unpleasant change in Gilbert’s demeanor, but by the time it
happens it’s so late in the game it almost feels tacked on, especially
after so many chapter focusing on the Blythe children.
There
can be no question at this point that Anne is an adult. We see a bit of
the old Anne in the beginning when she has a chance to wander through
Avonlea with Diana and again, later in the book, when she puts forth
great effort in an ill-conceived matchmaking attempt. Now comfortably
settled at the stately manor of Ingleside, Anne presides over a brood of
five – soon to be six – children and seems to be the envy of the town.
Certainly her children worship her and share in her earlier capacity for
getting into any number of unsettling situations.
It is the
children on whom Montgomery focuses most of her attention: Jem (named in
honor of Captain Jim), the oldest and perhaps most practical of the
bunch; Walter, an especially imaginative boy reminiscent of Anne’s
beloved pupil Paul; Nan and Di, a pair of twins – which Anne just can’t
seem to escape – who, rather to their mother’s dismay, look and think
nothing alike; Shirley, the youngest boy who is scarcely mentioned in
the book at all; and Rilla, who is born during the course of the book
and completes the Blythe crew. Each of the children have their own
adventures chronicled in this volume – except, unless it was so
insubstantial I forgot it as soon as I read it, for Shirley. (And is it
just me, or is Shirley a rather inappropriate name for a boy?)
I think I enjoyed the first portion of this book the most. It is during
this part that the Blythe household is overshadowed by an affliction by
the name of Aunt Mary Maria. The dourest of sourpusses, this
55-year-old woman makes the Blythes miserable, casting a pall over their
otherwise cheery household. But they cannot turn her out, in spite of
the fact that she has a home of her own that is lying vacant, because of
Gilbert’s sense of family loyalty. How they eventually manage to get
rid of her is surprising and makes for a very satisfying conclusion to
that problem. As I read this part of the book, I found myself thinking
again and again that they had to get rid of this horrible woman, knowing
deep down that the book would be less interesting without her. In fact,
she provides a crucial conflict at the beginning of the book. Without
that, the remainder of the novel is unfocused, mostly a series of
vignettes concerning the misadventures of the young Blythes.
I
enjoyed this book, and I found the antics of Anne’s children amusing.
But it did make for a rather odd reading experience, with the focus
jumping around so much. At least Anne has the beginning and end of the
book to herself, and we are able to get a glimpse of how she has changed
– and hasn’t – over the course of the book. It almost seems, though,
that Mary Maria could have had a book to herself had the details of her
stay been expanded upon more and that the rest of the book could have
stood on its own as a series of adventures with nothing in particular
tying them together except for the Blythe name. In any case, this is a
very different Anne book from the fifth. Having actually been written
after the fourth, it reintroduces Rebecca Dew and allows her and Susan
to become fast friends. It retains the anecdotal quality of that book,
wherein the most pressing conflict was similarly resolved within the
first quarter of the novel.
This is still a very worthwhile
addition to the Anne chronicles, but it shifts away from Anne herself to
her children, introducing a whole new generation of youngsters with
whom, it can be hoped, we will eventually fall in love. I suspect,
however, that when I do read the last two books, none of them will be
able to capture my fancy nearly so strongly as that plucky, red-headed
orphan who talked Matthew’s ear off on the ride to Green Gables.
No comments:
Post a Comment