See Precursors to Anne Shirley in L. M. Montgomery's Akin to Anne

I grew up on Anne of Green Gables, the classic L. M. Montgomery novel about a spirited redhead with an immense imagination and a vocabulary to match. Having loved that book and enjoyed the ones that followed, I was intrigued when I came across Akin to Anne, a collection of short “orphan” stories written by Montgomery mostly before the publication of her most famous novel. The book was published posthumously after Rea Wilmshurst collected and edited the stories, each of which had originally appeared in one of about a dozen different periodicals.

The book includes 19 stories in all, along with an introduction, acknowledgments and editorial note. In most of the stories, the orphan in question is a child, or at least a teenager, though in some cases, the focus is on lonely adults – and nearly every story does include at least one lonely adult who is as pleased to be a benefactor as the orphan is to find one. Most of the main characters are also female, though four involve boys and are among my favorites.

In The Fraser Scholarship, a studious lad named Elliot receives a scholarship mostly because his last name is Campbell, and he feels compelled to refuse it because Campbell is merely his adoptive name. In Ted’s Afternoon Off, a gentle boy with a gift for violin-playing has the opportunity to go to a picnic for the first time in his life but decides to pass it up in order to spend the afternoon with a lonely neighbor.

In both cases, the main character does something virtuous, and this leads to his discovery by a distant relation in the first case and an ardent mentor in the second. This theme is very prevalent throughout the book; either the orphan or an acquaintance makes a self-sacrificing choice leading to a revelation that changes the orphan’s life. Many of the stories include a statement right near the end along the lines of, “Just think, this never would have happened if I hadn’t done ____. I’m so glad I did!” It gets a bit repetitive, but then all of these stories have multiple similarities, and it’s easy to see shades of Anne in them.

While Anne herself does not stumble upon any unknown relatives, she helps facilitate reunions of this sort, and in Akin to Anne, we find long-lost relatives and friends of relatives popping up everywhere. It really is a small world in this book. Perhaps Montgomery, raised mostly by her austere grandparents, dreamed of being swept away by a glamorous aunt with a comparable disposition and so wrote this sort of thing for a succession of characters. It gets to be very predictable and certainly not very realistic when character after character just happens to run across someone who has been seeking her out for years, or would have if her existence had been known. The story usually ends with the orphan and the guardian competing for the right to claim the greater share of happiness.

My favorite story is the longest by far at about 35 pages, and that’s not mere happenstance. We get to know the characters quite a bit better in The Running Away of Chester: hardworking Chester, who has had it with being worked to the bone by his cruel step-aunt; maternal Miss Salome, who hires him to work at her farm; and gruff Clemantiny, who runs Miss Salome’s household. There’s a lot more time to flesh them out and make them feel real, and Clemantiny is particularly interesting because her stern manner hides a deep affection for the boy who showed up half-starved on the doorstep. Chester is also one of the most honorable and sympathetic children in the book.

The stories, aside from the high concentration of coincidence, are well-written, full of the lavish descriptions for which Montgomery is known. Most of them are quite short; only three exceed ten pages. It’s probably best not to read them all at once as I did. If you space the reading out, you might not be as aware of the fact that the tales are all so similar. Some are more inventive than others, but all of them involve a lonely person finding happiness through human (but non-romantic) companionship. They are feel-good stories, and saving each one for a time of loneliness might make them more appreciated. While Montgomery’s sparkling wit rarely shines through, her desire for a happy ending is in full force, and she does make us root for these displaced people’s contentment. All of these themes are realized more effectively in Anne of Green Gables and other novels, but if you’re a fan of her later works, Akin to Anne is a fascinating trip through her early musings on the subject of orphanhood.

Torontonians Find Joy in a Depression-Era Christmas in Booky and the Secret Santa

This week, while browsing Netflix, I came upon the Booky series of TV movies based upon the books by Bernice Thurman Hunter. I watched the last one first, then proceeded to Booky and the Secret Santa, which came out in 2007. The children in this G-rated slice of historical fiction directed by Peter Moss are noticeably a bit younger, but they look mostly the same, and whatever characters are in both movies are portrayed by the same actors. This movie is set in December, and I presume it’s supposed to be about nine months before Booky’s Crush.

While times are lean in Booky’s Crush, the sense of monetary crisis is even more acute in Booky and the Secret Santa. Toronto is teetering on the brink of Depression, and Thomas Thomson (Stuart Hughes), a hardworking harness maker, is out of a job as the company employing him switches over to using motorized vehicles. That’s bad news for the whole family, especially his daughter Booky (Rachel Marcus), whose best friend Laura Westover (Emilia McCarthy) is the daughter of a woman one character describes as a “social-climbing nobody.” Uppity Mrs. Westover (Nahanni Johnstone) doesn’t want her daughter hanging around with a girl whose family is practically impoverished. All Booky wants is the freedom to enjoy her friend’s company and enough money to make a nice Christmas like those to which she is accustomed.

I found the class dynamics at play in this movie interesting, and I love the Christmassy setting. It often seems to be the case that remarkable things occur around Christmas, and that’s what Booky is hoping will happen here. Unlike her practical teenage sister Willa (Sarah White) and angsty older brother Arthur (Dylan Everett), Booky has not yet entirely let go of the possibility that Santa Claus could exist. She doesn’t believe in him with the fervor displayed by her little brother Jakey (Noah Ryan Scott), who is desperate for a red trike, but she still thinks he might be out there somewhere. In fact, he might be living among her friends and neighbors, and they don’t even know it.

The most dynamic side character this time around is Mrs. Westover, who comes across as incredibly shallow and persnickety. One of the chief questions of the movie is whether she is capable of genuine friendship or whether every friendly gesture she makes is merely a means to an end. Silent sparks fly when she and Booky’s mother Francie, a spunky woman played by Megan Follows of Anne of Green Gables fame, are in the same room. Through the adults, we see the struggles that typified the late 1920s and early 1930s, while the children, particularly Booky and Laura, demonstrate the joy and hope that the season can bring even in the darkest times.

Johnstone is exquisitely annoying in her role, but the best addition to the cast this time around is Kenneth Welsh as Mr. Eaton, the kindly owner of one of Canada’s most prominent retailers. He and Booky, whom he affectionately calls “Little Bluebird” because of her vibrant winter coat, forge a friendship after she gets a job distributing nut samples outside her aunt’s store. He is a regular customer, and he finds her cheerful and inquisitive nature a delight. Booky, inspired in part by a comic book about a detective with a dual identity, begins to wonder if her elderly friend with the twinkle in his eye could actually be Santa. And if he is, might he be able to help the Thomsons have a merry Christmas after all? Walsh is wonderful in the role, especially whenever he lets loose with a rumbly laugh that sounds suspiciously like a “Ho ho ho,” and he and Marcus have quite a sweet rapport.

While the time period matters in Booky’s Crush, I would say that it’s even more significant in this movie, which shows more broadly the effects of the economic downturn as well as the creative ways that people dealt with it. Some of the Christmassy aspects of the film are most endearing. My favorite seasonal moment comes when a neighbor girl comes by, pulled on a makeshift sleigh hitched up to several children tied together and sporting twig-antlers on their heads. It just goes to show that you don’t need a lot of money or fancy gadgets to have a good time.

While I loved Booky’s Crush, I think I enjoyed Booky and the Secret Santa even more. Although one would be most inclined to watch it near Christmas, this story of friendship and optimism makes for great viewing any time of year.

Puppy Love Abounds in Booky's Crush

As someone who grew up with the exquisite Kevin Sullivan Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Avonlea miniseries, I was excited to happen upon a series of Canadian period movies featuring a spunky young main character and starring Megan Follows, who made such an impeccable Anne. In the Booky movies, based on the novels by Bernice Thurman Hunter, Follows plays Francie, the mother of intelligent, tomboyish Booky Thomson (Rachel Marcus), a middle schooler in Depression-era Toronto. She has two close friends in tall, blond Laura (Emilia McCarthy) and short, brown-haired Rosie (Ariel Waller), but in Booky’s Crush, she is fixated on a new classmate, cute but mildly troublesome Georgie (Connor Price). Her teacher selects her to tutor Georgie in spelling, but who will tutor her in the complex art of getting him to ask her to the upcoming school dance?

Booky isn’t the only one with a crush in this family-friendly made-for-TV movie. Shy Rosie carries a torch for Booky’s older brother Arthur (Dylan Everett), a quiet, artistic lad concerned by his father’s implication that he may need to give up his passion to take on more practical work. The oldest Thomson, sweet librarian Willa (Sarah White), has a fiscally unfeasible passion as well; she wants to go to medical school, as does the young man she fancies, a frequent visitor to the library. To quote the precocious 8-year-old author of How to Talk to Girls, “A crush is like a love disease,” and half the people in this movie seem to be infected. It’s all very innocent; the movie remains firmly within G-rated territory at all times. It’s also very true to life, and anyone who’s ever endured a powerful crush will likely find it easy to sympathize with Booky and giggle a bit over the heightened drama such emotions bring, especially in one so young.

Thomas Thomson (Stuart Hughes) is the character through whom we see the pinch of the Depression most acutely. He has a job – at a chocolate factory – but he fears he could lose it any day, and this makes him testy around others. His concerns about the unstable job market produce tension with the rest of his family, especially Arthur. Hughes and Follows, who are romantically involved in real life, make a realistic couple, fraught with material worries but still able to indulge in simple joys. While Thomas comes across as rather distant and cantankerous throughout much of the movie, Francie has a consistent warmth and sparkle, even when she is laying down the law.

Other indications of the era include the Thomsons’ ancient hand-me-downs, the discussion of how nice it would be if girls could wear pants and Francie’s recollection of hearing the news that the Titanic had sunk. In many ways, the movie reminds me of Kit Kittredge: An American Girl, the recent movie based on the Depression-era doll and her accompanying books. Both movies balance serious issues with light-hearted childhood fun set against a bleak but still vibrant historical backdrop.

Several engaging threads run through this movie, and since almost equal time is devoted to the adult and child characters, it really is an ideal film for the family to watch together, with different storylines resonating more with different people. Everyone in the cast does a great job, with Marcus nailing the dizzy confusion of realizing you’ve fallen for someone and Everett conveying the anguish of having one’s dreams squashed. This wasn’t the first movie in the series, but I don’t get the sense that order is particularly important. I plan to watch the rest of the movies, which currently are available through Netflix Instant Streaming. Old-fashioned family entertainment of this kind that is both well-crafted and educational isn’t that easy to come by, so I look forward to getting to know Booky and the rest of the Thomsons better as I explore the other installments.

Lindsay Eland Pays Tribute to Montgomery and Austen in Scones and Sensibility

As a lifelong bookworm, I have long found it difficult to disentangle my own life from my favorite fictional realms, so I empathized readily with Polly Madassa, the 12-year-old narrator of Lindsay Eland’s Scones and Sensibility. The books she most cherishes become very real to her, and it’s not uncommon for her to be carried away on the wings of fancy. I can relate all too well to drifting off into a daydream and being jolted back to reality barely aware of my own surroundings, and it’s not uncommon for my friends and family to look askance at me and wonder what strange mental leaps led me to an outburst that, to me, seems perfectly on-topic. But Polly’s bookish eccentricity manifests itself in even more powerful ways.

Polly’s parents own a charming bakery in a quaint New Jersey seaside town. It’s one of those picturesque places that seem lifted right out of a painting by Thomas Kinkade, and I often found myself wishing I could step into the pages and take in the salty sea air and the aroma of freshly baked goodies wafting down the street, where familiar faces peek through the lighted windows of cozy houses. Polly is a reasonably contented young lady, but like the titular protagonist of Anne of Green Gables, she has a tendency to wish her own life could be as exciting as the characters about whom she reads.

So engrossed is she in the worlds of Anne and of Elizabeth Bennet, the spirited heroine of Pride and Prejudice that she speaks in lofty language befitting those books. It’s an impressive feat, really, and only in times of great excitement or distress does she lapse into normal speech patterns. I get the sense that by the time we enter her head – through narration that is just as high-fallutin’ as her dialogue – she’s probably been speaking like this for so long that most people are used to it. Few of her acquaintances bother to comment on it; those who do are mostly politely bemused.

In addition to her immersion in lofty language, Polly takes something else away from her two favorite novels: a desperate desire to see epic romance unfold before her very eyes. The summer stretches before her, and she needs a project. What could possibly be more thrilling than trying to help some of her nearest and dearest find true love? Yes, Polly is determined to become a matchmaker – never mind that her sister Clementine is happily attached to a classmate named Clint or that her best friend Fran Fisk’s father seems to have fallen head over heels for a woman he’s met on the Internet. Polly disapproves of both of these matches, and she won’t stop until she has found someone she deems suitable – and if bringing these lovebirds together takes a little underhanded scheming on her part, so be it.

Polly is a flighty child who is both sweet and self-absorbed. She feels that she is acting in the best interests of those whose love lives she is trying to arrange, but she never takes their own feelings into consideration. Somehow, she believes that she knows better than they do what is truly best for them. Because of this, she is a rather exasperating character. Her intervention on behalf of genial kite shop owner Mr. Nightquist, probably my favorite secondary character, and reclusive spinster Miss Wiskerton is sneaky but fairly harmless. After all, they are both lonely, and neither one has any other prospects at the moment. But her tactics with Mr. Fisk and Clementine truly had me shaking my head in dismay at her utter gall and cluelessness.

This is a light-hearted read that is filled with minor disasters but nothing irreversible. It helps that all of the characters are just so nice. The most disagreeable is Clementine, but then wouldn’t you be too if you were 16 and your little sister was doing everything in her power to break you and your boyfriend up? While Clementine’s personality bears no resemblance to that of Elinor, from Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, Polly’s reaction to her romance reminds me very much of how disappointed Elinor’s sister Mariane is in the apparent lack of passion in her suitor Edward. Where are Clint’s grand romantic gestures? How can she abide someone so mundane? (Though perhaps if Polly were not so averse to the realms of geeky fantasy – at one point she derides her male peers for their interest in Lord of the Rings – she might appreciate the sentiment behind the “I love you” – “I know” exchange between Clementine and Clint that she overhears, much to her disgust.)

Polly’s role as delivery girl for the bakery proves a great aid to her matchmaking plans, though she initially sees it as a hindrance. It gives her an excuse to drop in on several people, sometimes slipping them pastries from fabricated secret admirers. Meanwhile, she has a secret admirer herself – a young man whose identity does not remain in doubt for long. Brad Baker is an unassuming kid who has had a crush on Polly since kindergarten. Polly dismissed him long ago after his first amorous advances, but Brad has decided to summon up his courage and try again. One might think someone with Polly’s starry-eyed sensibilities would see something cosmically appropriate about the notion of a Baker courting a baker, but she just can’t get excited about the affections of a boy whose idea of romance involves wilted flowers and poetry containing the lines “I love you forever / Like a flower that stinks.”

She has a lot to learn about romance. Most importantly, she has to accept that not everyone wants the same things that she does. And if she takes a good hard look at her motivations, she may see that her machinations are driven as much by fear as altruism. She and Clementine have drifted from each other lately; finding her a new boyfriend could be a way to restore the bond she fears is fading. Fran’s mother fell in love online and headed for the hills; if Fran’s father continues his relationship with this woman who lives several hours away, perhaps he and Fran will take off too. It’s much safer for him to fall for someone locally.

Though this aspect of her personality isn’t really explored until later books in the series, Anne Shirley is quite the matchmaker herself, as is the titular character in Jane Austen’s Emma, which gets a cursory nod in this book. Anne’s matches mostly succeed; Emma’s are more disastrous. I have yet to read it myself, but from what I’ve heard of it, Emma seems likely to have influenced this book just as much as Pride and Prejudice, the only Austen novel that Polly herself has read. The literary nods here are fun, and the inevitable messes that ensue from too much meddling often have a comical edge.

Scones and Sensibility is a cautionary tale against getting too wrapped up in inner worlds and interfering in the personal lives of others, however good your intentions may be. It’s also a loving tribute to the works of L. M. Montgomery and Jane Austen. Polly’s antiquated narration may grow a bit tiresome at times, but fans of those novels will likely appreciate it for the homage it is. This mid-grade novel won’t attain the status of those classics, but if you’re in the mood for a little breezy romance with literary underpinnings, you may just find this book as tasty as a fresh-out-of-the-oven chocolate chip muffin from Madassa’s Bakery.

A Dying Young Woman Finally Starts to Live in L. M. Montgomery's The Blue Castle

Anne of Green Gables is one of my favorite books, so I’ve curled up with several of L. M. Montgomery’s books over the years, but until I stumbled upon a review of it a couple months ago, I’d never heard of The Blue Castle. I was surprised to see several people laud it as Montgomery’s best, and I decided I would need to read it for myself.

Valancy Stirling is in some ways like Anne Shirley, the irrepressible orphan for whom Montgomery is best known. Although Valancy grows up with a mother and many close relatives, her childhood is quite as miserable as Anne’s pre-Green Gables days, and it stretches out into her adulthood. Like Anne, she delights in nature and literature, and both of these passions are frowned upon. Whenever she can, she retreats into her imagination, where she resides in a magnificent blue castle and sends gallant knights on dangerous missions. But while Anne is a spitfire, Valancy goes about her days sullen and silent, meekly obedient to her stern, self-centered mother. She sees life as something to endure, not enjoy. Moreover, she has never had anyone look at her the way faithful beau Gilbert looked at Anne from the moment they first met.

Valancy lives her life in a state of fearful subservience, and she has no reason to believe that anything will ever change. But then, on her 29th birthday, she goes to the doctor and receives a startling diagnosis. She has a heart condition and can expect to live no longer than another year. Suddenly, all of the terror that gripped her previously relinquishes its hold on her. Why fear offending relatives who she will only need to put up with for another few months? The knowledge of her impending death liberates her, and she decides to make up for nearly three decades of mere dreary existence. For the first time, she intends to really live.

I’m in the midst of reading Jane Austen’s Persuasion, and I found Valancy’s disposition quite comparable to that of the Anne in that book. Like Anne Elliot, she is quiet and obedient as the book begins. One parent is dead, while the other is tyrannical at worst and silly at best. In family gatherings, she tends to fade into the background, aside from tolerating the inevitable jabs about her spinsterhood. Montgomery has never seemed so Austenish to me as in this book, where she systematically skewers each of Valancy’s aunts, uncles and cousins, thereby slyly commenting on the ills of society in general. The Stirlings are really quite a ridiculous, hypocritical lot, from Uncle Benjamin, who fancies himself a comedian with his steady stream of stale riddles, to Cousin Olive, who is classically beautiful and has lorded her superiority over Valancy all her life.

I found myself laughing whenever Montgomery let us peek in on the Stirlings and see their reactions to Valancy’s unexpected behavior. This is a very funny book. At the same time, I was a little concerned because at first, it seems that all Valancy’s new lease on life does is give her license to be snarky. While it’s funny to watch her cut her relatives down to size like an early 20th-century Simon Cowell, and while most of them deserve it, I hoped that Montgomery wasn’t suggesting that the greatest pleasure life can afford is the freedom to insult others openly.

Thankfully, there is more, and as the months tick by and Valancy’s resentment subsides, she takes less visceral pleasure in shocking her relatives. There are deeper joys to be found, like the satisfaction of doing a useful job well or of providing companionship for a friend in need. And there is romance too, with an intriguing man whom most of society has overlooked, and here Montgomery provides one of the best descriptions of what it is like to fall in love that I have ever read. As Valancy distances herself from the chains of her childhood, she at last begins to find in her waking life some of the vibrance she thought reserved only for her dream world.

The Blue Castle is a rather strange novel that is by turns wickedly funny and achingly melancholy. It contains some of Montgomery’s most vivid, insightful writing, and the urgency of Valancy’s situation propels the plot forward. I’m not sure if any Montgomery book can quite trump Anne of Green Gables for me, but as someone Valancy’s age with some similar qualities – though fortunately a much better set of relatives – I certainly was drawn into the narrative. In fact, I could hardly put the book down. If you know and love Anne Shirley but have yet to meet Valancy Stirling, perhaps the time has come to acquaint yourself.

My 14 Favorite Movie Kisses (Plus a Couple From TV)

Yesterday was Valentine’s Day, a holiday that compelled me to watch a sappy movie or two. Then I came here to Epinions, and I revisited a list that my good friend Beth compiled of her favorite movie kisses. When she first published it, I said I’d have to compose a similar list soon, but I never did, so I’m doing it now. Of course, I’m terrible at coming up with lists like this because every time I think I’ve got it figured out, I think of another movie or ten that I need to add to the list. But here, in chronological order, is my not-at-all definitive list of 14 favorite movie kisses – a couple of which aren’t technically kisses, but feel like them – followed by my favorite miniseries kiss and TV series kiss.

"Look at the skies, they have stars in their eyes on this lovely belle notte." - Lady and the Tramp (1955)

The spaghetti kiss.  Accidental, and only lasting seconds, but incredibly sweet.  Sheltered, elegant Lady and rough-and-tumble Tramp are enjoying a night out on the town, and for my money, this may be the most romantic dinner scene in movie history.  The fact that they are dogs makes it all the more romantic, especially when Tramp nudges the last meatball her way.  Anybody with a dog could tell you what a remarkable gesture this is...



“You can’t… marry someone when you’re in love with someone else.” - The Sound of Music (1965)

When I think of impactful movie kisses, this one almost always comes to mind first. The Sound of Music is such a perfect movie, with the romantic tension between Captain Von Trapp and Maria stretched out just enough to make us really cheer for the moment when they finally confess their love for each other. The scene is just so beautifully done, especially that instant when the eyes get all misty and the oh-so-composed captain reveals the extent of his vulnerability. And though the two are truly alone together for one of the first times in the movie, within that first blissful kiss are wrapped up a love of the Captain’s children, of the nuns who are Maria’s family and of the God who guides them both. Just beautiful.



“Look to me, reaching out to show as sure as rivers flow, I’ll never let you go…” - Pete’s Dragon (1977)

Up until a couple months ago, if you were to ask me to name my favorite Disney love song, I would, without reservation, say Candle on the Water from Pete’s Dragon, even though we don’t meet the object of Nora’s affections until the end of the movie, even though it’s not the film’s main focus. Ever since Tangled, it ties with I See the Light, a song of romantic awakening – and I can’t help finding it funny that my two favorite Disney love songs both use light on the water as the central metaphor. But Candle on the Water is all about steadfast devotion, about keeping the faith against all odds. Nora does, and when her faith is finally rewarded, what an embrace awaits!



“When he comes back, I won’t get in the way.” “Oh, Han, it isn’t like that at all. He’s my brother.” - The Return of the Jedi (1983)

When they first met, roguish Han Solo and haughty Leia Organa didn’t much like each other. By the second movie, they’d gained some respect for each other, but Han still had a major self-serving streak, and he had it coming when Leia called him a “stuck-up, half-witted, scruffy-looking Nerfherder” before kissing Luke. Leia and Luke don’t have the tumultuous kind of relationship she and Han do, and they share a deep psychic bond. Of course, early in the third movie, we learn that Luke and Leia are siblings, but poor Han, who is finally learning to live for someone other than himself, remains in the dark. While he’s fighting alongside Leia for Luke’s sake, he still views him as a romantic rival, and a clean-cut hero probably better suited to a princess. So the look on his face at the end of the trilogy when Leia laughs off his blessing to go with Luke, the slow shift from disappointment to confusion to blissful incredulity as she kisses him and reveals that Luke is her brother, is absolutely priceless.



“Since the invention of the kiss there have been five kisses that were rated the most passionate, the most pure. This one left them all behind.” – The Princess Bride (1987)

Well, the quote about says it all about Westley and Buttercup, doesn’t it? Here’s a couple who endured, among other things, presumed death, actual death, lengthy separation, quicksand, kidnapping, unusually sized rodents, torture and marriage to a pompous prince with a nose for iocaine powder. A couple whose love is so epic, so profound, that even a skeptical pre-adolescent boy doesn’t mind hearing about that one last kiss assuring that nothing will ever come between them again. After all, this is true love; you think this happens every day?



“It’s amazing, Molly, the love inside… You take it with you.” - Ghost (1990)

No, not the famous scene that my dad speculates caused enrollment in pottery classes to skyrocket. I’m talking about the final scene in the movie, when Sam has finally ensured Molly’s safety and is ready to move on. Suddenly, Molly can see with her own eyes what the eccentric Oda Mae has been telling her all along: that Sam is there. And finally they can speak one last time, without an intermediary. When Sam, engulfed in light, kisses the stunned Molly, it’s a moment at once joyful and melancholy, made inexpressibly more poignant by the celestial orchestral arrangement of Unchained Melody, one of my favorite pieces of movie music ever.



“Please don’t leave me. I love you!” – Beauty and the Beast (1991)

Who could ever learn to love a Beast? Belle, the noblest and deepest of the Disney princesses, could, and the extent of her regard for this man too long enslaved by his own selfishness carried the power to save a life and transform a kingdom. Granted, it’s a rather crummy stipulation that she must actually state the words; it was clear that she loved him when she left the castle to find her father. Was there ever any doubt that she would return once she had restored him to health? But then we wouldn’t have this climactic moment that so dramatically illustrates the power of love to bring light forth from darkness.



“It was the happiest moment of my life.” - Forrest Gump (1994)

Forrest and Jenny, bosom buddies since the age of five, do share kisses in the movie, but it’s this hug to end all hugs that best conveys the vastness of their regard for each other. As thousands of riled-up protesters look on, Jenny wades into the Reflecting Pool looking like Mary Travers and Forrest, sharp as a tack in his freshly decorated uniform, leaps into the crowd and does what he does best – runs. Right into the waiting arms of the woman for whom his love has never wavered, and never will. And the crowd goes wild. In that moment, this vagabond who’s already seen so much of the worst the world has to offer is genuinely as happy to see this man who has only ever shown her kindness as he is to see her. No kiss could trump the affection encapsulated in this moment.



“I come here with no expectation, only to declare, now that I am at liberty to do so, that my heart is, and always will be, yours.” - Sense and Sensibility (1995)

The kiss we didn’t see. When I read Sense and Sensibility, I was disappointed that we didn’t really get to see Edward and Elinor’s big moment first-hand. We spent most of the book leading up to it, and then it felt rather glossed over. Emma Thompson’s brilliant screenplay fixes that for us, and Hugh Grant is at his most adorable as he bumbles his way through his earnest declaration of love. It’s enough for us to see unflappable Elinor a mangled mess of laughter and sobs before the demure cutaway. But I am free to imagine the kiss that followed, and I imagine that it was a doozy.



“When was the last time you were decently kissed? I mean truly, truly, good and kissed?” - That Thing You Do! (1996)

I couldn’t leave Erie’s little claim to fame off the list, even if the lovebirds decide to remain in California instead of returning to these frosty shores. In this Tom Hanks-helmed charmer about a one-hit wonder band that starts out in Erie, fresh-faced 20-something Guy is a percussionist passionate about music. He’s also a deeply devoted friend to Faye, the neglected girlfriend of bandleader Jimmy. Throughout the film, he attends to her when Jimmy does not, and it’s obvious that he genuinely cares about her. After Jimmy takes his self-absorption one step too far, the band falls apart and Guy thinks the dream is over. But when he sees Faye sitting alone, preparing to return to her old life, he realizes that a new dream is just beginning.



“You saw me when I was invisible.” – The Princess Diaries (2001)

Ah, the foot-popping kiss. It’s such a Disney sort of moment, with the princess and her true love locking lips for the first time. In this instance, it isn’t quite the first kiss for Mia, who only recently was a gangly geek used to getting stomped on by nearly everyone in school, but it’s the first one that means something. Like Mia, I’ve always imagined my first kiss being something magical, with the orchestra in my heart, to borrow a term from Pushing Daisies, playing at full volume. But whatever the circumstances, I would want to share it with someone who, like Mia’s sweet admirer here, appreciates me for who I am, with all my kooky quirks.



“But I don’t understand. I was supposed to be beautiful.” “You are beautiful.” – Shrek (2001)

As much as I love Beauty and the Beast, I also love the scene in Shrek in which Fiona does not transform. Shrek already looks like a beast, and by night, Fiona does too. But the ogre is her true form, and she does not need the conventional beauty afforded her by the human princess body in order for Shrek to deem her beautiful. It’s really a lovely subversion of a fairy tale I adore that ultimately makes the same point: that true beauty is more than just skin deep.



“You wanna know a secret? … You’re the sweetest guy I’ve ever known.” - 13 Going on 30 (2004)

I saw this movie for the first time in October of 2005, when I was coming off a very depressing period and moving into a very fruitful one. Maybe it was partly my giddy state of mind at the time, but this movie threw me for a loop. I expected a light little romcom, but it took hold of me completely, touching me far more profoundly than I would have expected. “Well,” I thought, “that’s what love is all about.” It’s a shame that the movie’s most memorable kiss occurs when Matt, the childhood chum of Jennifer Garner’s teen-in-adult-skin Jenna, is engaged, but these two feel so right together that I can’t deny them that perfect moment, after which, she tells her teenage confidantes at a slumber party soon afterward, she “floated home on a cloud”. All I can do is long for the clock to reset so that Jenna can reclaim those lost years and treat the best friend she ever had with the respect and love he so richly deserves.



“Other lights may light my way; I may even find romance. But I won't forget that night when you taught me how to dance.” - Miss Potter (2006)

I’d half-forgotten this moment until Beth mentioned it on her list, but there’s something so incredibly sweet about the awkward, gradual courtship between confirmed spinster Beatrix and her starry-eyed young publisher Norman. It’s such a wonderfully touching love story, tragically cut short. If this movie is any indication – and given the restrictions that surrounded Beatrix under the care of her stuffy parents, it wouldn’t surprise me much – the two shared just one kiss, at once chaste and passionate, before they were torn apart for what was meant to be merely a brief separation. Wrenching.

*

”I don’t want diamond sunbursts or marble halls. I just want you.” - Anne of Avonlea (1987)

When I think of Gilbert Blythe, the first word that comes to mind is “patient”. In Kevin Sullivan’s brilliant pair of miniseries (we won’t go into the two that followed), it takes all of Anne of Green Gables just to get Anne to fully forgive him for the egregious offense of teasing her about her hair way back when they first met. He bends over backwards to try to win her friendship, and she stubbornly brushes him aside. In Anne of Avonlea, they’re friends, but Anne has her ideals of romance, and boy-next-door Gilbert doesn’t fit them. His proposal horrifies her – and her refusal horrifies just about every gal watching at home. It takes an extended separation, a proposal from a man who fits her dream profile and Gilbert’s near-death from illness to make Anne finally appreciate what she should have had all along. The kiss is understated; the catharsis isn’t.

*

“I love you, Penny… and I’ll never leave you again.” - There’s No Place Like Home, Part 3, LOST (2008)

And speaking of unions a long time in coming, I had to mention the epic romance that swept so many LOST fans off their feet. The season two finale of the trippy, emotional island drama introduced viewers to Penelope Widmore, the daughter of a wealthy businessman and the one true love of Desmond Hume, the Scotsman stranded on the Island for three years. Throughout the third and fourth seasons, we saw the trials they weathered and the lengths to which both were willing to go to finally reunite. Their first contact, by phone, after years apart remains one of the most brilliantly written and acted scenes in the series. In fact, I still rank it as my favorite Desmond and Penny moment. But when they finally physically reunite in the season four finale after two long seasons of build-up, the ecstasy in that reunion lip-lock may just be enough to nudge Westley and Buttercup from their exalted position.

So, there you have it: a collection of my favorite cinematic kisses, to which many could no doubt be added. What are some of yours?

Anne Of Green Gables Didn't Need a New Beginning; Stick With the Old One

For as long as I can remember, I’ve loved Anne Shirley, the protagonist of the beloved L. M. Montgomery series, and I’m equally swept away by Kevin Sullivan’s flawless adaptation of the first book in miniseries form. Almost as good is his sequel, Anne of Avonlea, though it takes considerably more liberties with the story. However, his third and fourth Anne films are a complete departure from the books, and they threaten to sap away much of the charm of his own first two installments.

The fourth, and presumably final, chapter in Sullivan’s Anne saga is Anne of Green Gables: A New Beginning. Right off the bat, he alienates most of his female audience by killing off Gilbert, that stalwart doctor who waited so patiently for Anne to accept his regard for her, setting millions of hearts aflutter in the process. Sullivan’s series is set a couple of decades after Montgomery’s, so while the books show us a middle-aged Anne and Gilbert watching their sons go off to fight in World War I, here we have a middle-aged Gilbert dying against the backdrop of World War II. Seemingly, he has been killed in action, though the movie barely bothers to mention why Anne is on her own. It all feels very glossed over.

Another problem is that the cast is almost entirely unfamiliar. Aside from brief glimpses of Jonathan Crombie and Colleen Dewhurst as Anne remembers Gilbert and Marilla and a quick appearance by Patricia Hamilton as Rachel Lynde, who’s still chugging along well into her 90s, no actors from the original miniseries remain, and few characters do. Anne is now portrayed by Barbara Hershey, as well as Hannah Endicott-Douglas in flashbacks to Anne’s youth. The present finds Anne back in Avonlea, hoping to sell Green Gables, but first she wants to enjoy its quietude once more as she tries to work out the kinks in a play she’s writing for a community theater production. When she stumbles upon an old letter sent to Marilla by her father, it drastically changes the direction of her play and sends her in search of some definitive answers about her past.

That’s where my biggest problem with the movie lies. Here, we find out that Anne lived happily with her parents until the age of nine or so, and then her mother died in a tragic accident and her father headed for the hills. As a coping mechanism, she made up a story about both of her parents succumbing to illness in her infancy.

Um... What?

I’m sorry, this is just too great a leap for this purist, and it cheapens Anne of Green Gables immeasurably if we’re supposed to believe that Anne just kept up this ruse indefinitely. It renders her not so much imaginative as an egregious liar. And Green Gables is such a glorious haven for Anne in large part because she never had a place she could truly call home. If she had a normal, happy childhood for nine years, then Matthew and Marilla’s impact is greatly reduced. The whole thing just puts a sour taste in my mouth.

I couldn’t connect much with the older, melancholy Anne with writer’s block and a boatload of daddy issues. Much more engaging were the flashbacks, and Endicott-Douglas was very believable as a younger Anne, capturing her feisty spirit and tendency toward the overdramatic wonderfully. Sullivan gives her several exciting adventures, including a sojourn in a horrific homeless shelter of sorts that is largely a rip-off of The Count of Monte Cristo. But her subsequent immersion in the Thomas family falls apart, and there’s a definite disconnect at the end, with her abandonment a little too abrupt and complete to make much sense.

I will always love Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Avonlea, and I thank Sullivan for making them. But he should have quit while he was ahead.

Heather Vogel Frederick Pays Tribute to Anne of Green Gables in Much Ado About Anne

One of my favorite literary heroines is Anne Shirley of L. M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables. I love that book, so when I saw that it was the subject of the second installment of The Mother-Daughter Book Club series by Heather Vogel Frederick, that was what really convinced me to pick up the series. I loved the thought of reading a book steeped in references to irrepressible Anne, dreamy Gilbert and picturesque Avonlea, and once I finished the first book in the series, I knew that I would enjoy Vogel’s story and characters just as much as the classic to which she was paying tribute.

Much Ado About Anne finds Emma Hawthorne, Jess Delaney, Cassidy Sloane and Megan Wong about to embark upon their second year with the book club that their mothers instituted. These four live in Concord, Massachusetts, an ideal setting for a series about the way literature can help to shape a life. Frederick makes note of all the famous authors who once lived in this tranquil New England town. In the first book, Louisa May Alcott got the most attention; this time around, she devotes a chapter to a field trip to Walden Pond, which involves plenty of discussion about Henry David Thoreau, whose passion for the environment fits in very well with the book’s most pressing storyline.

Quiet, intellectual Jess, an animal lover whose mother only recently returned from a stint as the star of a soap opera filmed in New York, lives on historic Half Moon Farm. Even stylish Megan, who is no big fan of tromping around outdoors, agrees that there is something magical about this place. So everyone is horrified to learn that, due to a change in tax law, the Delaneys stand in very real danger of losing their farm. Even worse, a developer has already expressed interest in paving over the plot of land and building condominiums. Jess feels the same sense of deep attachment to Half Moon Farm that Anne does to Green Gables, the beautiful home where she comes to live with the stern Marilla and her gentle brother Matthew after they agree to take her in, despite having requested that the orphanage send them a boy to help with the farm work.

As with the first book in the series, Much Ado About Anne is written in the present tense and divided into four sections - one for each season. Once again, each section contains four chapters, each narrated by a different member of the book club. Underneath the name of the narrator for the chapter is a quote from either Anne of Green Gables or Anne of Avonlea; the girls read both books over the course of the year, up from just one in the first year - though admittedly, Little Women is an especially long book. Anne’s love of language, her propensity for getting into mischief, her knack for finding kindred spirits and her complex relationship with the dashing Gilbert Blythe all resonate with at least one of the girls, but it’s Montgomery’s profound sense of place that really sets the tone of this second installment. Most people who have read and cherished Anne of Green Gables would be disturbed at the thought of that gorgeous estate falling into the hands of developers, so the comparison makes Jess’s predicament seem all the more poignant.

While Jess frets over the potential loss of her farm, her best friend Emma joins the school newspaper, an ideal step for an aspiring writer. Unfortunately, this brings her into even closer contact than usual with Becca Chadwick, the Queen Bee of the mean girls at Walden Middle School. Becca and her overbearing mother have already invaded the book club, making it feel like less of a safe haven and more of a war zone. In the midst of all this Chadwick saturation, Becca’s older brother Stewart, a klutzy bookworm, becomes much more prominent, and as she begins getting to know him, Emma is startled to find herself wondering if her raging crush on handsome jock Zach Norton might be fading.

Cassidy doesn’t want anything to do with all this boy-crazy nonsense. She’s the only one of the book club girls who doesn’t have the hots for someone, and she doesn’t intend for that to change anytime soon. In fact, she’s downright hostile to the idea, which may be partly because her mother, former supermodel and current host of a cooking show shot in her home, has begun dating again. To Cassidy, a daddy’s girl through and through, this feels like a deep betrayal of her father, who died in a car accident two years earlier. Everything that we see of Stanley Kincaid suggests that mild-mannered accountant is a kind, generous man who wants to reach out to Cassidy, but she is too hurt to be open to that possibility.

The depth of her resentment becomes plain in the chapter in which Stanley takes her to a Bruins game for her birthday. I have a young friend who, like Cassidy, is a middle-schooler who plays on a local hockey team and adores the Bruins. Recently, she got to attend a game with her family, so reading this chapter, I felt as though I was able to experience her excitement. Cassidy can’t help being caught up in the thrill of the game, but that doesn’t stop her from seething when someone makes the mistake of asking if Stanley is her dad. The quote for this chapter is the only reference to the saddest event in Anne of Green Gables, and it’s presented in such a way that someone who hasn’t read the book might not be able to guess the context. It surprised me that Much Ado About Anne never mentions this moment directly, since there are several references to the death of a main character in Little Women in the first book. I wonder if someone complained about spoilers and Frederick decided to avoid that this time around?

Megan, who was so antagonistic to Emma, Jess and Cassidy at the beginning of the series, has been fully integrated into the group, but although she now is disgusted with Becca’s mean behavior, she doesn’t want to totally abandon her friendship with Becca and her cronies Ashley and Jen. After all, they have a lot of things in common with her that the other three don’t, most notably a passion for fashion. But Becca has been so cruel for so long that Jess, Cassidy and especially Emma have adopted an Us and Them attitude about her and her friends, leaving Megan is a tough spot. If she continues to hang around with them, Emma and her friends will feel betrayed. While this is largely Jess’s story, I find Megan the most interesting character to watch, since she is the only one with one foot in both camps. She is in a position to do what I had hoped the heroic Jack would do after spending a week with the Others in season three of LOST: use her knowledge of both groups of figure out a path to diplomacy. For much of the first book, Megan comes across as a pretty frivolous character, but in this book, she shows real maturity.

It may help that as a result of a serendipitous encounter with a pair of fashion designers during a trip to New York at the end of the previous book, she has now been given a rare chance to follow her passion all the way to the pages of a premiere fashion magazine. She spends all year working on designs for the feature they intend to do on her in their new teen magazine, and even her mother, an ardent environmentalist who wishes Megan’s goals involved the betterment of Earth and humanity, asserts that she is very proud of her.

Frederick has created several wonderful characters who struggle together to overcome the trials of middle school. Their mothers are just as richly drawn, and it’s especially great to get to know Jess’s mother, who’s just as warm and encouraging as the rest, since I spent much of the first book suspecting that she would never return to Concord on a permanent basis. These girls feel very realistic, and they certainly don’t always make the most noble decisions. I was particularly disappointed in the girls - sans Megan - for concocting a prank to humiliate Becca on live television. Did she deserve it? Probably. But shame on them for stooping to her level. As in the first book, however, the girls learn from their mistakes, and this incident has deep repercussions driving several key events in the book.

I’ve started in on the third volume, in which the focus is on a book I’ve never heard of, but that doesn’t matter to me. I’m glad that allusions to Anne led me to this series, but Frederick has more than demonstrated that these are books that can stand on their own merits.

The Anne of Green Gables Series

In Anne Shirley, L. M. Montgomery created a heroine for the ages.

Bradley Trevor Greive Issues a Heartfelt Apology With I'm Sorry... My Bad!

Earlier this year, while I was browsing the bookstore, I spotted a new title by Bradley Trevor Greive, author of The Blue Day Book and about a dozen other irresistible gift books featuring black-and-white photographs of animals above the author’s words of wisdom and humor. I bought a copy and stuck it on my shelf next to the rest of his books. It wasn’t until much later that I cracked open the cover to discover that this would likely be the last in the series.

I’m Sorry... My Bad! is an interesting sort of farewell. It implies that he’s feeling very guilty as he wraps up this stage of his career and can’t move on until he’s come clean, and indeed, the humble introduction seems to support that. Not that Greive did anything extraordinarily cruel or vile, but who among us hasn’t felt remorse for, as we say in the Confession of Sins at the beginning of church, “what we have done and what we have left undone”? So this book seems to have a two-fold purpose. Greive is apologizing to everyone in his life who he may have ever let down or offended, and he’s giving each of us a means by which to open those doors of communication ourselves when we feel compelled to apologize but can’t quite find the words.

In most of Greive’s books, he comes across as a sort of omniscient narrator. We get a taste of his personality, but he’s speaking in general terms to a lot of people at once. Here, however, there’s a definite sense of intimacy. The words “I” or “me” appear on nearly every page, so that it feels very much as though he is talking to us, or as though whoever has given the book as a gift is talking to the recipient. Almost as prevalent throughout the book is the word “you”. This is one person talking directly to another person, apologizing for an unknown offense and begging for forgiveness.

Greive doesn’t offer advice like he usually does; he simply makes a contrite request. “I’m sorry,” he says again and again. And “please” - please hear him out, which isn’t hard to do in such a sparse book filled with such engaging photographs. At about 60 pages in length, with few pages featuring more than a sentence of text, this may well be the most concise book in the series. Stark. Simple. The photos accentuate this. There is an aura of isolation about the book; out of more than 50 pictures, only eight feature more than one animal. One of those, incidentally, is perhaps the most affecting image of all: two goldfish bowls, its occupants facing each other, unable to bridge the gap between them. The solitary creatures gaze out from the pages, oozing loneliness and regret. It’s quite affecting. I would think it would be hard to refuse an apology so earnestly presented.

Of course, Greive does get a little goofy at times, particularly with the hyperbolic “May God, in his infinite wisdom, afflict my tender buttocks with ten thousand explosive boils for all eternity if I ever upset you again.” But mostly, the tone is very solemn, and page after page of sad-faced animals lowers the reader’s defenses. A wistful-looking chimp hugging himself. A downcast seal. A raccoon doing his best Huge-Eyed Puss In Boots impersonation. What heart could remain stony against such an onslaught?

I hope that I have few occasions to merit such depths of contrition. This is the sort of apology I can imagine Anne Shirley issuing, an apology powerful enough to win over even the likes of persnickety Rachel Lynde. Because Greive leaves the response entirely up to the recipient, the book ends plaintively, with a simple “Please?” So the conclusion lacks closure, and it does little to make the rest of the book feel like less of a downer. But then, as Hermione tells us in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, remorse is supposed to be painful. So, too, is parting. In his introduction, Greive writes, “If my humorous gift books have brought you pleasure over the years, then I apologize that this series has come to an end.” Apology reluctantly accepted.

Robert Browning's Pied Piper of Hamelin Is Pensive But Playful

The Pied Piper of Hamelin is one of those stories I’ve known for longer than I can remember. I’ve encountered the tale in various forms, found it referenced in L. M. Montgomery’s later Anne of Green Gables books and been enchanted by The Minstrel of Cranberry Lane, an Irish Rovers song that treads similar ground despite the lack of rats to start things off. But I’d never read the famous version of the story by poet Robert Browning, and recently I decided to correct that after encountering the title in 1001 Children’s Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up, a book that has given me a very long list of items to put on hold at the library.

I’ve always thought of The Pied Piper as a primarily sad story, especially for the parents who are left in a town devoid of children. It’s never entirely clear what happens to the youngsters who prance away after the merry sound of piping, but there is at least the possibility that they find themselves in a lovely land hidden from outsiders, as Kate Greenaway’s cover to this edition suggests. While portions of the poem are certainly tragic, Browning also emphasizes the humor of the events that lead up to the fateful disappearance of Hamelin’s children. His is a tale that often made me laugh out loud at his witty turns of phrase.

Browning presents his tale in 15 parts of unequal length. The first section consists of nine lines and is printed on the first page, while the second contains 11 lines and stretches across six pages, which accentuates the absurdity of the rats’ hold on this town. On one page a mother comforts her infant, who has been bitten by a rampaging rat; in another, a woman holds up a cheese upon which a rat has been snacking. These rodents “made nests inside men’s Sunday hats / And even spoiled the women’s chats / By drowning their speaking / With shrieking and squeaking / In fifty different sharps and flats.”

Just as amusing as the description of the rats is the depiction of the town council, a corrupt and ineffective bunch of buffoons who don’t know how to stop the infestation and who prove themselves woefully unethical when a solution to their problem manifests itself. The Mayor gets this unflattering portrait: “With the Corporation as he sat, / Looking little though wondrous fat; / Nor brighter was his eye, nor moister / Than a too-long-opened oyster, / Save when at noon his paunch grew mutinous / For a plate of turtle green and glutinous”. This isn’t a man we’re primed to like, and by the time the Piper comes along, his offer of an effective solution is so welcome, it’s hard to see him as a villain rather than a hero. And indeed, he comes across as humble and hard-working, asking a reasonable sum for his services and merely expecting that the Mayor will make good on the agreement when the job is done. Alas, he expects too much.

Browning offers a detail in his version I don’t recall hearing before - the testimony of a lone rat who survives the hypnotic effect of the Piper’s music and manages not to drown in the river that sweeps the rest of them away. The survivor rhapsodizes wistfully about the symphony of food-related sounds that tinkled in his ears when the Piper began to play: “I heard a sound as of scraping tripe, / And putting apples, wondrous ripe, / Into a cider-press’s gripe: / And a moving away of pickle-tub-boards, / And a leaving ajar of conserve-cupboards, / And a drawing the corks of train-oil-flasks, / And a breaking the hoops of butter-casks...”

So it is that we are left with two very distinct possibilities for what happens to the children whom the Piper, enraged by the mayor’s decision to pay him a pittance instead of the promised fee, lures from their homes with his music. Perhaps he draws them away into an idyllic wonderland such as that described by the lame little boy who is left standing alone, gazing morosely at the mountain as it swallows up every other child in the village. Or perhaps his vision is every bit the deceptive delusion the rats experience. Browning seems to suggest some combination of the two - that the children are led away not to doom but to grim captivity from which they manage to escape, though never to return to their own hometown.

Browning’s poem is pensive but playful and most artfully written, and Greenaway’s illustrations, while old-fashioned, are lively and full of personality. Particularly striking is the series of pages in which she illustrated, line by line, the twelfth section, during which the Piper uses his mysterious musical gift to draw away Hamelin’s children. Over the course of 17 pages, we see individuals and groups of children stop what they are doing and join the ever-growing throng, which stretches across two pages by the end of the section.

It’s a rather lengthy read at 47 pages, with many pages entirely filled with text, and as it was written in the 1800s, some of the words are likely to be unfamiliar to young readers. Additionally, those who are especially sensitive may be troubled by the darker elements of the story, including the mass extermination of the rats, despite its convenience to the townspeople. But this is an expertly written piece of literature, and it carries with it the important message that promises are not to be given lightly. If you haven’t encountered the Browning / Greenaway version of this centuries-old story, consider making a promise to yourself to read The Pied Piper of Hamelin - and then be sure you keep it!

The BBC's Anne of Avonlea Sticks Closer to the Book Than Kevin Sullivan's Miniseries

A long-time fan of Anne of Green Gables, I grew up watching the Kevin Sullivan miniseries based on the book and its sequel, based on the second, third and fourth books in L. M. Montgomery’s series. Those two adaptations have been firmly lodged in my mind for so long that I have a hard time thinking of them as anything other than definitive. Nonetheless, while Sullivan’s Anne of Green Gables is very true to the book, Anne of Avonlea takes all sorts of liberties, angering some purists. So when I discovered that the BBC had done a miniseries of Anne of Avonlea in the 1970s, I was eager to check it out.

Anne of Avonlea, as adapted by Elaine Morgan and directed by Joan Craft, is 350 minutes long and divided into six sections (or two DVDs). The first four are drawn from the book Anne of Avonlea, while the last two are from Anne of the Island. Upon reflection, I would have to say that of the five books in which Anne is the central character, Anne of Avonlea is probably the least eventful. It’s pleasant because we spend the whole time in a beloved locale, full of familiar characters like Marilla Cuthbert, Rachel Lynde, Diana Barry and Gilbert Blythe. But with Anne happily settled into village life and most of the major disasters of her impetuous youth behind her, there’s just not a lot of drama there.

I was all too aware of that throughout the first half of this miniseries. It was enjoyable enough, but it just seemed to move very slowly, especially because this is a very basic production that almost feels more like a play. The stirring score and gorgeous cinematography that contributed so much to the atmosphere of the Sullivan productions are absent here, making the whole thing seem quite drab. Additionally, if you’re familiar with the movies but not the books, as is the case with my mom, you’ll spend the first half of the miniseries comparing the actors from the two productions and wondering who all these new characters are that Sullivan skipped right over.

Rowdy Davy (Nicholas Lyndhurst) and mousy Dora Keith (Annabelle Lanyon), the orphaned children of Marilla’s cousin, are two of the most prominent newbies. Marilla (Barbara Hamilton) and Anne (Kim Braden) take the children in, and while Dora doesn’t cause much trouble, Davy is a bundle of angsty energy, fueled by his fear of abandonment and his jealousy that Anne is so fond of Paul Irving (Keith Steven), an eccentric, poetic pupil of hers. Of the three, Lyndhurst is the best actor, doing an effective job of conveying Davy’s emotional state and sounding more convincingly Canadian than the other two. Lanyon doesn’t sound Canadian at all, and it makes me wonder why that wasn’t a dealbreaker during casting. Maybe they figured she could learn; as it is, her British accent stands out jarringly whenever she speaks. Claire Lewis, who plays a young housekeeper nicknamed Charlotte IV, has a similar problem.

The adults are more consistent, and David Garfield as Mr. Harrison, the cranky neighbor with whom Anne develops a bond, is especially entertaining. Hazel Bainbridge is a kindly Mrs. Blythe, and Kathleen Byron does a good job of demonstrating the ethereality of Miss Lavendar Lewis. I also loved Susan Field in the role of Charlotte E. Morgan, a famous authoress Anne adores; she appears in just one small segment of the miniseries, but it’s one of the comedic and inspirational high points. Toward the end of the miniseries, we’re introduced to Philippa Gordon (Sabina Franklyn), a worldly student who boards with Anne and Jane (Zuleika Robson) at college, as well as her beau Jonas Blake (David Troughton), a humble clergyman. I thought that both of these characters came across very well, with the contrast between them accentuated effectively. I was less impressed with Anthony Forrest, who failed to elicit a flutter from me as Anne’s sophisticated college boyfriend, Roy Gardiner, even though this production’s Gilbert (Christopher Blake) is nothing like the heartthrob Jonathan Crombie is. He’s sweet but awkward in a Neville Longbottomish sort of way, and it’s a little easier to understand how Anne could have failed to fall madly in love with him years ago.

The performances of Megan Follows and Colleen Dewhurst are so iconic that I have a hard time adjusting to Braden and Hamilton, but I tried to remind myself that this adaptation came first and that nobody who watched it in the 1970s had such preconceived notions. Comparisons aside, each does a good job with the material. Braden comes off as passionate but less moony than Follows, while Hamilton has a permanent pout on her face that makes me think of Narnia’s Puddleglum. I miss the crinkle around Dewhurst’s eyes, but I do enjoy Hamilton’s dowdy take on the character. As Rachel Lynde, Madge Ryan is every bit as shrill and annoying as Patricia Hamilton, who happens to be Barbara Hamltion’s sister, but she lacks Hamilton’s impeccable comic timing.

The first half of the miniseries is comfortable but poky. If you love these characters already, it’s not a bad way to spend three hours. But the second half is much more interesting. It’s in this portion that adulthood really starts creeping up on Anne. Along with going to college, she receives marriage proposals from four different men, two of whom are laughably unsuitable, reminding me of Mr. Collins in Pride and Prejudice. On the more somber side of things, she suffers the loss of a childhood friend to illness, an experience that will haunt her all the more when Gilbert nearly succumbs to typhoid fever. The realization of how much Gilbert means to her finally dawns in a sweet scene that brings her some answers to the questions she had about her parents, but it isn’t until the very end of the miniseries that she makes Gilbert aware of this. It’s such a momentous occasion, I do think that Morgan and Craft could have given us a bit more; the tiny concluding scene hardly seems sufficient and certainly isn’t as eye-mistingly tender as Sullivan’s.

So my loyalties remain with Sullivan, his unfortunate third installment aside. But if you felt the Avonlea gang got the short end of the stick under his watch, you can get your fill of Davy, Dora, Paul, Mr. Harrison and the rest in the BBC version of Anne of Avonlea.

Anne of Green Gables: The Continuing Story Takes Anne in Desolate Directions

I've been on a bit of an Anne of Green Gables kick for the last couple of months, ever since I pulled out the first two Kevin Sullivan miniseries on a whim and watched them. We own the third, but it arrived completely mangled, and we never got around to going to our local PBS affiliate and requesting a new copy. So I decided to refresh my memory of the third installment courtesy of Netflix. I remembered Anne of Green Gables: The Continuing Story fairly well, but it had been nearly a decade since I'd watched it. I'm glad I saw it again, but I really don't think we're missing out on much by not owning it. This isn't a miniseries likely to get a lot of repeat viewings.

In reading up a bit on this production, which came out in 2000, I learned that Kevin Sullivan was in the midst of a dispute with the family of series author L. M. Montgomery. One might think that under such circumstances, he wouldn't make another movie with Anne as the subject, but he went ahead and did it, evidently free to use Montgomery's characters but not allowed to replicate any of her plots. Hence, making a faithful adaptation was impossible. Nonetheless, Sullivan and co-writer Laurie Pearson took enormous liberties with the story and characters, so that even fans of the miniseries who've never read the books might object to the drastic shift in tone.

The first two miniseries have their share of darkness, but for the most part they are fairly light and funny and thoroughly heartwarming and life-affirming. The Continuing Story, by contrast, is pretty dreary right from the get-go. Within minutes, Anne (Megan Follows), who has been away on a teaching position with an orphanage, beholds Green Gables and nearly gets into a fight with its cranky owner, who is content to let the house of Anne's happiest years fall into squalor. As usual, we see far too little of Gilbert (Jonathan Crombie), and while he's clearly devoted to Anne, he spends most of the movie seeming exhausted and depressed. Similarly, Diana (Schuyler Grant), who has grown up into a proper lady rather like her mother, fears her marriage to Fred (Greg Spottiswood) is falling apart. He's surly all the time, right up until he sneaks off to join his comrades in World War I, leaving Gilbert to explain things to Diana - and to find his own sense of duty stirred.

Probably my favorite portion of the movie occurs when not-yet-married Anne and Gilbert are living in New York. Initially, I thought they were co-habitating, which seemed a little odd for early 20th-century devout Christians, but a throwaway line from Gilbert explains that they have separate apartments. Gilbert longs to make a difference as a doctor, while his superiors seem keen to limit his skills to healing the prestigious members of society. Anne gets an in with a publishing company and strikes up a friendship with suave Jack Garrison (Cameron Daddo), a bestselling adventure novelist, who insists that her work has potential and might actually reach a decent audience if his name were attached to it. There are hints of romance between these two from Jack's end, but Anne keeps very firm boundaries. It's nice to see her actively pursuing her writing dreams, which she abandons in the novels by the time she and Gilbert are married, and there's some humor and spunk in the way she deals with her curmudgeonly boss and his rather persnickety assistant.

In the books, by the time World War I hits, Anne and Gilbert are around 50 years old. But this movie takes place only five years after Anne and Gilbert's engagement, which puts them in their mid-20s. Montgomery does write in some detail about the war in Rilla of Ingleside, but it's from the home front perspective, and neither Anne nor Gilbert ever come anywhere near a combat situation. But here, Gilbert is guilted into signing on as a trauma surgeon, and Anne decides to spend the bulk of the war traipsing around Europe searching for him. So instead of idyllic Avonlea, we spend most of the movie in one war zone or another, as Anne absurdly searches for Gilbert, making a nuisance of herself as often as not. In the process, she manages to track down Fred and get tangled up with Jack again, which leads to a fulfilling writing job but also a dangerous mission. Moreover, despite her obsession with finding Gilbert, she grows somewhat uncomfortably close to both Fred and Jack during this time.

Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Avonlea are both family films, but I wouldn't say there's much here to hold the interest of children. There are basically no juvenile characters, with the exception of Jack's infant son, and the movie has a very adult, bleak tone. War is raging, so there is violence and peril as well as hints of marital discord and extramarital tomfoolery. Rarely do we get to see Anne's sparkling smile; Follows still plays Anne well, but this Anne spends so much of her time depressed, she's not a very uplifting character. All the old faces are fine for what they have to work with, but the writers have bathed everyone in disillusionment, making Anne feel like Ring-tormented Frodo, Avonlea like the polluted Shire. I suppose it's somewhat interesting to put Anne in such a different setting, but I don't think most Anne fans really want heart-racing adventure. They'd prefer the simple pleasures and mishaps Montgomery details in most of her books.

To that end, they may find themselves more drawn to the Special Feature, which is a rather extended promo for the episode of the television series Road to Avonlea in which Marilla dies and Green Gables falls into the hands of land-grubbing neighbor Mr. Harrison. I wish the whole episode had just been included; the clips are wonderful, quite touching and occasionally funny despite the dark circumstances. There's little humor to be found in The Continuing Story, whether it's Fred glowering at the world or Anne in hysterics as she asks every nurse in France if she's seen her husband. If you're a fan of Sullivan's previous Anne projects, you'll probably want to check this out, but don't expect the same level of satisfaction. You may also want to look into Montgomery's later books, especially Anne's House of Dreams, to see how Montgomery covered this period of Anne's life. For me, The Continuing Story is an interesting but dreary side trip, and I don't think I'll ever be able to think of it on the same level as Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Avonlea.

Budge Wilson Imagines Anne's Life Before Green Gables

I've been on an Anne of Green Gables kick lately, so when I ran out of L. M. Montgomery's Anne books, I decided to read Before Green Gables, the prequel released in conjunction with the 100th anniversary of the publication of the original novel. Canadian author Budge Wilson tackles the tale of Anne's life prior to her life-changing encounter with Matthew Cuthbert. Based on what Montgomery's Anne had to say about her early years, I expected a prequel would be pretty grim, and Wilson's certainly is that. Virtually gone is the humor so characteristic of Montgomery's stories, and poor Anne has to dig deep to find something to be happy about in her unpleasant circumstances.

Wilson does a pretty effective job of populating young Anne's life with a variety of interesting characters. She first introduces us to Walter and Bertha Shirley, giving us a solid idea of the love-filled life Anne might have enjoyed had her parents survived beyond her early infancy. Wilson lets us peek into the heads of various characters throughout the novel, but she focuses mostly on Anne, who is resilient and hard-working and whose imagination keeps her resentment from consuming her.

The childhood I imagined for Anne was similar to Wilson's in some ways. I envisioned a lot of hard labor and little love, and that's basically what Wilson conveys. While neither of Anne's homes is anywhere near as idyllic as Green Gables, however, Anne doesn't find herself entirely devoid of affection. On the one hand, she is expected to shoulder an even heavier burden than I'd guessed, cooking, cleaning and in all other ways caring for a series of young, unruly children. On the other, each of her guardians cares about her to some extent, even though they don't treat her very well, and in each place she finds kindred spirits to comfort her.

Wilson seems determined not to give us any cardboard villains. Mrs. Thomas, with whom Anne lives for her first nine years, served as a housekeeper for the Shirleys, a job that brought her more happiness than any portion of her marriage to an alcoholic, unstable husband. She begs him to let her adopt Anne, but when she bears four children over the next five and a half years, she quickly loses interest in the orphan girl. Working outside the home, she starts absurdly early in delegating responsibility to Anne, and she often snaps at her. Yet occasionally, she treats Anne with kindness, if only because she reminds her of her parents. Mr. Thomas is a brutish monster of a man when he is drunk, and his addiction nearly leads the family to ruin on several occasions. Yet he never mistreats Anne, and in fact, he comes to quite enjoy conversing with her and trying to get the knack of her ability to imagine away her problems.

As a fan of the Kevin Sullivan adaptation of Anne of Green Gables, which begins with Anne still living with the Hammonds before the man of the house suffers a fatal heart attack, I have always pictured Mrs. Hammond as middle-aged and exceptionally cross, constantly subjecting Anne to a barrage of verbal assaults. But Wilson paints Mrs. Hammond as a young woman in her twenties who is merely overwhelmed. Her husband is decent and hard-working but basically uninvolved in the raising of his unwieldy family, which eventually includes eight children, all under the age of six. Mrs. Hammond never hollers at Anne or knocks her around; she merely wanders around in a daze, scarcely aware of what is happening around her and leaving Anne to do the bulk of the child-rearing.

I have mixed feelings about these semi-sympathetic portrayals of Anne's guardians. On the one hand, it's nicer to imagine that Anne's childhood wasn't completely miserable, and one might wonder how someone who suffered nothing but abject neglect and abuse could turn out so well. And after all, Anne does tell Marilla that she feels sure her guardians "meant to be" good to her, even if they didn't quite manage it. But she also spoke of always being unwanted, and that's not really the case here; she's too indispensable to be truly unwanted. And there are several people in her life who genuinely love her.

Eliza, the eldest of the Thomases, is as much a mother to Anne as Anne's daughter Rilla is to the "war baby" Jims in Rilla of Ingleside. For nearly six years, she tells Anne stories and showers her with love. Then she marries out of the family and Anne's life. Her next kindred spirits arrive when the Thomases move to Marysville, where Anne gets her first schooling. There's the saintly teacher, her sympathetic aunt and a withdrawn intellectual who learns to live again after befriending Anne. The frustrating thing about these three is that while they do little things to cheer Anne up and expand her mind, none of them offer to take Anne in when Mr. Thomas dies and she is left without a home. Once with the Hammonds, she bonds with the schoolteacher there, and even the orphanage teacher takes a shine to her.

I always pictured Anne's first 11 years as being comparable to Harry Potter's, with no kindred spirits in sight. But nearly 400 pages of nothing but ill treatment would make for a rather tedious story, and the novel is enough of a downer as it is. It could definitely use a dose of Montgomery's humor. Little Anne doesn't get into any ridiculous messes like Green Gables does; it's just day after day of dreary diaper-scrubbing, vegetable-chopping and baby-minding. I imagine Wilson figured she has enough to deal with already, but I would have loved at least a couple of laugh-aloud scuffles.

Along those lines, Anne is just a little too perfect. She speaks in complete sentences at the age of three and even makes use of metaphors. By the time she's five, she speaks like a college English major, and she's practically running the household to boot. It doesn't seem very realistic, and certainly not too consistent with Montgomery's depictions of five-year-olds. Yes, Anne is an unusual girl, but Wilson takes it too far. Also inconsistent with Montgomery is the narrative style, which is fairly stark as opposed to flowery, and Wilson doesn't make a great deal of effort to align herself with late-19th century sensibilities, particularly when she has characters openly discussing biological issues that would never have been broached by Montgomery.

If you are a fan of the Anne books, Before Green Gables is an interesting installment. Wilson does a pretty good job of filling in the gaps in Anne's early life, despite lacking Montgomery's distinctive style. Was a prequel really necessary? Of course not. But if you've always wondered about Anne's early years and could use a little help in imagining them, Wilson's book is worth a look.

The Blythes and the Merediths Enjoy a Few Blissful Years in Rainbow Valley

Last week, I read Rilla of Ingleside, the eighth book in Lucy Maud Montgomery's series of books that focus on plucky orphan Anne Shirley and her children. This week, I backtracked to the seventh. I should have read that one first, of course, but my curiosity about Montgomery's take on World War I was more immediate, plus I wanted to complete the series on a positive note, and I figured Rilla would be rather depressing. In Rainbow Valley, we meet four children whose mother has died and who like to hang out in a graveyard, as well as a pair of adult sisters who have lost both of their parents and, in the case of one, a sweetheart. Despite these specters, however, the book never feels gloomy or oppressive. After all, death taints every installment in the series, and on the whole, this is one of the cheeriest of the "Anne" books. I call it an Anne book loosely because she is barely involved in the occurrences of the novel (though she's even less visible, and only referred to as "Mrs. Blythe" or "Mrs. Dr. Dear", in the eighth book). Her children are more involved, but the main focus is on John Meredith, the new minister in town, and his four free-ranging children.

It's interesting to read this book in light of the one that follows, since we get to know the Merediths so well here. They move into the background in Rilla, as sweethearts of Blythe youngsters, participants in Ladies' Aid efforts and soldiers. They have important roles to play, but Una is the only character who is fairly well fleshed out within that book itself. If I'd read this book first, I certainly would have cared more about the Merediths when I got to the concluding volume.

Twelve-year-old Jerry is the oldest, and he doesn't let his siblings forget it, particularly when they form the Good Conduct Club in an effort to stop inadvertently giving local gossips something to talk about. He is the one who most often points out transgressions, and he also is in charge of coming up with appropriate punishments, some of which have severe consequences. Eleven-year-old Faith is kind but spunky. She is the most Anne-like child of her generation. Trouble seems to follow her around, and her attempts to make amends sometimes lead to even further scandal. Still, her courage is admirable; she's determined to help her father as best she can, whether it's by making a public speech, printing a letter in the newspaper or paying a visit to a wealthy potential parishioner.

Gentle ten-year-old Una is a delicate child with a slightly otherworldly air about her, which makes her a good match for poetic Walter Blythe, whom she secretly admires. Shy and compassionate, she puts her own reservations aside on more than one occasion in order to appeal on someone else's behalf. I like all of the Merediths, but Una is my favorite. Nine-year-old Carl is the youngest. An impish, fun-loving chap, he is rarely without some small creature or another stuffed in his pockets. Every reptile, rodent and insect in the valley seems to be his friend, which doesn't bother his siblings but startles many in the community.

In this book, there are essentially only four Blythes as well. Jem, the oldest of the bunch, carries himself with authority, reveling in masculine games as he teeters on the brink of higher learning, which will take him away from his newfound friends. Classically handsome Walter spends his days mooning about with his head stuck in a book, much to the disapproval of some and the derision of others, though generally, the Merediths appreciate his storytelling abilities. Nan and Di are twins, with Nan especially beautiful and Di especially clever. Rilla, the chubby six-year-old who will go on to be the main character in the last book, is involved in one memorable scene but generally is absent, while Shirley, the second-youngest, is scarcely mentioned at all. He's the invisible Blythe; over the course of three books, we learn practically nothing about him except that he has brown eyes, hair and skin and that he is especially close to Susan, the housekeeper.

Susan is a part of this book and makes her opinions on a number of subjects known. She is particularly outspoken in her concern about Walter wasting his time with poetry, which of course is an opinion that Anne does not share. Another prominent side character is "Miss" Cornelia, a family friend who is married but distrusts men in general and harbors a deep prejudice against Methodists. She is most important to the book because Una persuades her to take in Mary Vance, a coarse, street-smart orphan the Merediths find sleeping in a barn. Mary is likable enough, and the matter-of-fact way in which she describes the ruthless woman she escaped makes her easy to sympathize with. But she also has a tendency to scold the Merediths and make them feel badly about themselves. Her self-righteousness makes the Blythes and Merediths glad that her playtime with them is limited.

John Meredith is kindly but distracted. He spends so much time immersed in thought that his children scarcely see him, and he has no idea how much mischief they get into while no one is supervising them. A widower who cannot imagine falling in love again, he keeps his mind on heavenly things. His children adore him, but they worry that their shenanigans could cost him his job. Across town lives a very different sort of widower. Argumentative, agnostic Norman Douglas never comes to church, and he's known throughout the glen for his terrible temper, which cost him the love of his life in his youth. Despite his subsequent marriage, he still carries a torch for fiery Ellen West, the only woman he's ever known who can keep pace with him in a debate. She lives in a house on a hill with her younger sister Rosemary, who is as kind as Ellen is abrasive. Rosemary develops a close bond with the minister, much to the alarm of her sister, who lives in dread of the thought of solitude.

The romantic entanglements of these adults are rarely in the forefront of the novel, but Montgomery slips hints of them in until the final chapters, when she explores them more thoroughly. It's nice to have the adult perspective to counter all of the exploits of the lively children, though their misadventures are well-written and quite engaging. The romance that gradually blossoms between John and Rosemary is one of the best in the series, and heaps better than Rilla's non-courtship with her longtime crush Kenneth in the eighth book. One thing that makes it so satisfying is the consideration for the children involved. It isn't until Faith stumbles into a heart-to-heart talk with Rosemary after suffering a calamity that she realizes just how bereft she has been without a mother in whom to confide. It's clear that while Rosemary is falling in love with John, she's falling in love with his children as well, his children who so desperately need a little more attention and guidance than their father is able to give.

It seems fairly plain to me that Montgomery had already planned on writing the eighth book as she was working on this one. For one thing, it's dedicated to the memory of three soldiers who died during World War I. For another, there are hints of things to come sprinkled throughout the novel. Jem is obsessed with playing soldier; Anne thinks it's a passing fancy, but he's every bit as gung-ho about the idea when the opportunity comes for him to actually sign up in Rilla. Ellen West discusses her conviction that the Kaiser is a threat to the peace of Europe and her frustration that almost nobody seems to agree with her. There's a rather elegiac quality to some of the writing about the idyllic valley, as Montgomery knows that not only will the children soon face adulthood, but war will tear them apart.

Most heavy-handed, though, is Walter's vision of "the Piper", which occurs in the eighth chapter after he tells his playmates in the valley the story of the Pied Piper coming and leading all of the children away from their homes. He gets a faraway look in his eye, and he announces that the Piper will come to the valley and that he and the other boys will be forced to follow him while the girls stay at home and wait for their return. Just before this, Una demonstrates her perceptive nature when, instead of pitying the lame lad in the story who cannot follow the Piper, she is happy for his mother, who is able to have him home safe, unlike all of the other mothers in town. The image of the Piper concludes the novel as well, with Walter asserting that he has grown closer, to which notion Jem responds enthusiastically. More foreshadowing of Walter's actions in Rilla comes in the form of his decision to get into a fistfight with a classmate who insults his mother and his friend. After the event, John Meredith tells him, "My motto, Walter, is, don't fight till you're sure you ought to, and then put every ounce of you into it." It seems likely this advice comes back to him when he finally decides to become a soldier.

I don't recall that I've ever had an objection to Montgomery's language before, but I was taken aback when she put a certain racial epithet beginning with "n" in the mouth of Mary Vance. What's more, while the Meredith children are shocked and affronted by her use of the word "darn," none of them seem bothered by it. Its inclusion is indicative of the time in which this book was written, though, and thankfully, she only uses the word once. My only other major issue with this book is its limited connection to Anne, and having grown used to her decreased presence in the series after reading the sixth and eighth books, I found I didn't really mind that she didn't have much to do. I would have preferred for her to be a more involved character, but she does have a role to play. All of the Merediths feel comfortable talking with her when they have problems, and Anne's spirited defense of the family in the face of her neighbor's criticism is a shining moment. Even though the thread that links Rainbow Valley to Anne of Green Gables is fairly tenuous, I enjoyed this light-hearted novel very much and would recommend it to any fan of Montgomery's work.

War Taints the Idyllic Blythe Family in Rilla of Ingleside

Last week, I was seized by a sudden desire to watch Anne of Green Gables, the lavish Kevin Sullivan mini-series adapted from the beloved L. M. Montgomery book of the same name. I promptly followed that up with Anne of Avonlea but could not proceed to Anne of Green Gables: The Continuing Story because when we purchased it as part of a PBS pledge drive, it arrived damaged, and we never got around to sending it back and requesting a new copy in its place.

I did see it once, though. It was before I'd read more than the first two books in the Anne series, so I didn't have an intimate knowledge of Anne's future life to go on, but it seemed out of step with the first two installments. I later realized that Sullivan's sequel had no consistency with the books, nor did it fit their chronology. The Continuing Story is set during World War I and has a just-married Gilbert enlisting, with Anne then chasing him throughout Europe as a nurse and an entertainer. In the books, Anne and Gilbert are in their 50s during "the Great War." It is their children who enlist, and both parents remain behind to fight a different sort of battle on the home front.

A few years back, I started to read the rest of the books in the Anne series, but I'd heard that in the last two, Anne really takes a backseat to her children, so I wasn't as intrigued by those. I still have yet to read Rainbow Valley; curiosity over Montgomery's wartime novel compelled me to skip ahead to Rilla of Ingleside, which begins as breezily as any of the others, with Blythe housekeeper Susan Baker, a spunky precursor to The Brady Bunch's Alice, perusing the paper for the local news: "There was a big, black headline on the front page of the Enterprise, stating that some Archduke Ferdinand or other had been assassinated at a place bearing the weird name of Sarajevo, but Susan tarried not over uninteresting, immaterial stuff like that; she was in quest of something really vital. Oh, here it was–'Jottings from Glen St. Mary.'"

Of course, at the name "Archduke Ferdinand," anyone remotely acquainted with world history must pause and consider that Susan's priorities are likely about to change a great deal. Indeed, in the weeks and months to come, Susan becomes intimately acquainted with European geography and military tactics, thus providing much of the essential historical backdrop as she fervently discusses the headlines. All of the Ingleside women find themselves changed greatly because of the war, none more so than the title character, who goes from being a giddy, rather spoiled 14-year-old to a mature, hard-working 19-year-old by book's end. She is robbed of the gaiety she had expected those teenage years to bring, but in its place she gains wisdom and industriousness.

According to Wikipedia, this was the only Canadian novel written about World War I by a woman in its immediate aftermath. There are several male characters in the novel, but we really are getting the female perspective for the most part. Gilbert is too busy with his medical practice to spend much time around the house, so we only occasionally get his comments. We hear more from Jem, the eldest Blythe who is all gung-ho to go to war and looks on it all as a great adventure, and more still from Walter, the second-oldest son whose sensitivity and idealism lend him an ethereal quality and help cement him as the favorite sibling of Rilla, the baby of the family. But mostly, we see the war from the viewpoint of those who experience it from the sidelines.

Rilla is a terrific character. She may not be quite so memorable as the teenage Anne, but she has spunk enough to get her into some memorable scrapes as well as undertake responsibilities that would have been unthinkable to her pre-war self. Chief among these are heading up a Junior Red Cross and taking in Jims, a "war-baby," even though she has no attachment whatsoever to infants. In fact, though she cares diligently for the child, it is several months before she comes to feel any affection for him. Ultimately, however, the discipline of tending to him and the joy of observing his milestones is an immeasurable comfort as Rilla struggles to endure the atrocity of war.

I also am generally very fond of Susan, though she sometimes can become a tad repetitive with her constant interjections of "Mrs. Dr. Dear" and "...and that you may tie to." She freely offers her opinions on everything, and her outspoken nature means that she is often at the center of comical scenes, particularly Rilla's near-disastrous visit with handsome Ken Ford that ends in her first kiss. An incurable optimist, she plays well off of the gloomy Sophia, her cousin and neighbor, and Gertrude, the schoolteacher boarding with them.

I recalled Walter rather vividly from Anne of Ingleside, which was written later but takes place much earlier in the Blythe marriage, beginning shortly before Rilla's birth. That book contains some fairly explicit foreshadowing of his role in the eighth book, though of course if read in the order of publication, it's simply a reminder of what will occur. Walter reminds me a bit of Fiver from Watership Down. Delicate and oddly precognitive, he is the first to truly understand what lies ahead when news of the war first reaches their little town. "Before this war is over," he warns, "every man and woman and child in Canada will feel it ... feel it to your heart's core. You will weep tears of blood over it. The Piper has come–and he will pipe until every corner of the world has heard his awful and irresistible music. It will be years before the dance of death is over... And in those years millions of hearts will break."

The image of the Piper is one that recurs throughout the novel, eventually inspiring a poem Walter pens when he finally joins up after enduring months of disdain from those who see any healthy young man who does not volunteer for military service as a disgraceful slacker. Adoring Rilla never sees him that way and is merely relieved that it initially seems he will not follow in Jem's footsteps. Walter despises war, yet he feels himself a coward for not wanting to participate, even though he fears the killing more than the dying. Montgomery sympathetically shows his deep struggle with the morality of war, but she ultimately uses him as a rallying cry, even proclaiming that he wrote the greatest poem of the Great War. It does seem a bit presumptuous to place such a distinction on a nonexistent piece of writing when there are several real poems by soldiers that had a profound impact. Perhaps she ought to have limited its influence to Glen St. Mary. At any rate, I was disappointed that we never get to see this poem, though I suppose it never could live up to her description of it. Readers are left to take what they know of Walter and thereby try to imagine the poem's contents.

Up until the time when he enlists, Walter strikes me as a borderline conscientious objector, but there's only one character who protests the war and Canada's participation in it throughout the novel. That distinction belongs to Mr. Pryor, the man whom Susan nicknames Whiskers-on-the-Moon and easily my least favorite aspect of the book. Mostly, his exploits are just mentioned in passing; we rarely get to see him directly, and only once do we really step into his perspective for a moment. It's not all that uncommon in Anne books for our impression of characters to change as the novel progresses, and I felt sure that this was a character who would find some vindication by the time the war was over. Montgomery lets the characters spit "pacifist" out like it's a dirty word, but after four years of misery, I thought that Susan, his most vehement detractor, or at least Rilla would come to understand where he was coming from. If Montgomery had waited another ten years to write this, I wonder if she would have approached it any differently, knowing that the hard-won peace would prove sadly ephemeral.

As I read, I found myself often reminded of The Green Fields of France, a folk song written in the '70s and recently recorded by Celtic Thunder about a soldier who died as a teenager during World War I. Toward the end, the speaker wonders, "Did they really believe when they answered the cause, / did they really believe that this war would end wars?" Clearly, the Blythe boys and all of the other young men who march off to war in this novel do believe just that. As Walter writes to Rilla, "It isn't only the fate of the little sea-born island I love that is in the balance–nor of Canada nor of England. It's the fate of mankind. That is what we're fighting for. And we shall win–never for a moment doubt that, Rilla." He is only one of many characters to paint the war in apocalyptic terms, with an implication that after all the horror is ended, it will pave the way for a new world in which war will no longer be a possibility.

Nonetheless, though the book ends on a note of jubilation as the war ends and most of the local lads return home, Montgomery keeps a realistic tone. She acknowledges that life will never again be quite the same in bucolic Glen St. Mary; the evil effects of the war remind me of what happens to the similarly idyllic Shire in The Lord of the Rings, while the impact on individual soldiers recalls the experience of the hobbits who go off on their grand adventure so naive and return forever changed by their sobering experiences. Knowing that Tolkien fought and lost several close friends in World War I, the comparison seems all the more apt, particularly in the case of Walter, who, like Frodo, is an innocent who leaves his home with the desire to preserve it, but not, as he comes to understand, for himself, "for it could never be beautiful for me again," he writes. I also found it interesting that Montgomery, like Tolkien, associates death with "the west," as well as referring to the veil that is such a prominent metaphor for death in J. K. Rowling's fifth Harry Potter novel.

While death has played a part in all of the Anne books, it is much more omnipresent here as Rilla and the others spend each waking moment in dread of a phone call or a mail delivery bringing news of a casualty. Even without having read Rainbow Valley, I think I can safely say this is by far the darkest of the Anne books. But there is still some room for less oppressive elements, like schoolgirl squabbles and romance. Rilla must contend with Irene, a haughty young woman who can be quite as insufferable as Josie, Anne's schoolyard nemesis, and she learns first-hand that having two beaux is not nearly as thrilling as it sounds. Unfortunately, her courtship with Ken, the true object of her affections, isn't anywhere near as satisfying as Anne and Gilbert's. While Green Fields of France is my favorite song on Celtic Thunder's new album, my least favorite is Happy Birthday Sweet 16, and that's what kept running through my head whenever Ken showed up. Their relationship seemed very frivolous to me, with Rilla having a longtime crush on him and Ken finally falling for her simply because it had been a while since he'd seen her and suddenly she was pretty. They don't really seem to have spent any time together, and Ken's condescending attitude and Rilla's fawning don't do much to engage me. I was much more concerned about the fate of Jem and Walter than Ken. Then again, he's a more interesting character than Shirley, the youngest Blythe boy whose existence I'd half-forgotten by the time he left college to enlist.

While none of the later books has ever managed to charm me quite as completely as Anne of Green Gables, I've enjoyed them all, and Rilla of Ingleside is no exception. It's a unique installment in the Anne series, since the tone is much more serious for the most part, but it's interesting to read about World War I from the perspective of a woman who so recently lived through it. Though I think she could have fleshed Ken out some more and done away with Whiskers-on-the-Moon entirely, I otherwise found this eighth volume in the Anne series to be quite a satisfactory conclusion.