Anne of Green Gables (and any subversive subtext therein)

[vison]

You spelled Anne without an "e"!

vison, thanks for the info! I remember now that Pearl said in her first post that the Wilder books were written in the thirties - they do sound a lot like older stuff, I think. As to Montgomery, I think you can count something written before WWI with the 19th century more than the 20th.

But in your case it really seems that whatever books you could lay your hands on often were 19th century.
Is it still the same today? What did others read? Or, when you buy books for your kids, do you look for Tom Brown's schooldays and Francis Hodgson Burnett or do you browse the modern literature section?

And you should read some Astrid Lindgren!

I hadn't thought of that before, that so many of the books I read as a child were so old............We had no TV, either, so I read the way kids now might play video games or watch TV: constantly! And I read what there was, I had no way of buying books for myself, neither money nor bookstores. I daresay it gave me a taste for Victorian literature, a taste I still have and indulge a lot!

My kids were never the readers I was. Although my oldest son and I shared a liking for certain kinds of scifi. I don't think he reads for pleasure now, not at all. My younger son also read some scifi and fantasy, he liked Raymond E. Feist (who I cordially loathe). But we both liked the Dragons of Pern books.

My grandsons have both read The Little House books, partly by having them read to them, and partly by reading them to us. They liked them, more or less, but whether it's just because they're boys or because there are so many other things for kids to do, they don't read an awful lot. I require them to read for at least a half hour a day, though, so they get through books at a pretty good clip just the same. And their school has an excellent, excellent home reading program, I can't praise it enough. They both read well above their grade level. Tay, who just turned 11, has really loved the Lemony Snickett books. Oz, who is 8 1/2, liked Danny, Champion of the World, and he reads the Magic Treehouse books and some others. I wish they would read more, but I guess they read more than a lot of kids these days.

I can't picture either one of them sitting down and reading the books I read, to be honest. I think they would find Burroughs to be a real chore, and would they read Dickens? I doubt it. Tom Brown at Oxford? Oh, yeah, sure! And yet by the time I was 11 I had read most of Dickens and an awful lot of other "mature" work.

I think I was very lucky as a child. No TV, and living out in the back end of nowhere. So I didn't get my head messed up with a lot of pop culture, and it still isn't. I mean, my head might be messed up, but not in the common way.......a more superior way? Just a jest!

I still read a lot, but by no means like I used to. I used to get through a book a day or maybe every two days, and that's not an exaggeration. I am a very fast reader and yet my comprehension is good. Certain books I read over and over and over, such as LOTR. And many more. I think I've read it the most often, but there are many others I've read a dozen times or more.

One friend of mine is absolutely baffled by my habit of re-reading books. And I asked her, if you hear a wonderful CD and buy it, do you listen to it only once and then put it away, saying, "I've heard it once, so I won't listen to it again?" She just shrugged. She doesn't "get" what I "get" out of books. Books are like music to me, or looking at a great picture, the art of the writer is a pleasure I can enjoy again and again.

I browse bookstores in a fog, to be honest. I have some knowledge that there are great writers among us yet, but oh my word the amount of crap! Still, I know and love Alice Munro and Rohinton Mistry and John Cheever and Jane Smiley and many others. It's just that if I buy or borrow a book by someone I don't know, so often it's awful and how can you tell? If I pick up Trollope or O'Hara, I KNOW it's wonderful and I'm going to love it again. I read many book reviews and sigh. I have a kind of fixed interest in great writing, and so much of what is written now isn't great. The stories might be timely and important, but will anyone be reading them in 100 years?

My reading time is precious to me now. I tire very easily. Yet I can still lose myself in a book, and still do.

I am reading Rilla of Ingleside, right now, for the umpteenth time. And The Claverings. And still toiling away on Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. And that biography of Alexander, and a few others. I ordered some books online today from ABE books. I ordered: the 4 volume Master of Hestviken, by Sigrid Undset. (I have read Kristin Lavransdattir by Undset many times, but have never read the Hestviken books.), The English Orphans, by Mary Holmes, a Victorian tearjerker that I lost years ago and look forward to weeping over again, Loose Chippings, a weird little fantasy that I still have only it's held together by elastic bands, The Green Madonna, which I read in Highschool and could never find again. I love ABE books, they have EVERYTHING.

Sorry to ramble on.

[truehobbit]

I liked reading your "rambling", vison!

I'll try not to get the thread off topic too much, but there are lots of things I agree with, even if my reading experience is a bit different.

I think I'd be interested in the Victorian tear-jerker, too.
There are also lots of stories I've seen as films that I'd like to read the original books of - I have such a looooong "must read sometime"-list.
Many of them are children's books, classics even.

(How's that for a link back to the thread topic? )

The stories might be timely and important, but will anyone be reading them in 100 years?

There was a French documentary on TV a few weeks ago, about children's reading habits, and one thing someone observed I thought was quite fascinating: they said that popular books for grown-ups were often about trifling things, characters dealing with problems about their looks or how to find their next partner, while children's books were often about vital questions, good and evil, life and death, and how to deal with them - which was why so many grown-ups were thrilled with children's books.

[Lalaith]

That is interesting, hobby.

Perhaps that's why I don't like most popular adult books. I rarely read fiction anymore. Most of my reading is non-fiction.

As for when I was a child, I don't know. I guess that I read quite a few contemporary works, e.g., Judy Blume. I was a voracious reader, so I basically read whatever I could get my hands on. I loved the classics, but also enjoyed the new stuff. I have read more than my fair share of drivel (AKA "crap") over the years. I loved romance novels when I was a young teenager; now I really hate them. I'm still a voracious reader, but I guess I've developed some taste over the years. (Though, others may disagree with that. )

Of course, something like Jane Eyre is in a class by itself and is also one of my favorite books.

Sorry to ramble.


Lali

[Pearly Di]

I re-read the Anne books over Christmas, while at my mother's, and fell in love with them all over again.

And I've just treated myself to brand new paperback editions - Puffin Classics - of Anne of Green Gables, Anne of Avonlea, Anne of Windy Willows and Anne's House of Dreams. The one missing is Anne of the Island, so I'll try to order that from Amazon.

I don't think I can ever have the same love for Anne of Ingleside though ... I'm just not that interested in Anne's children. Although Walter's cute. (And Vision is right, his death in WW1 is so, so moving.)

Although the cutest of all young lads is little Paul Irving, Anne's only American pupil. That boy is like a little Frodo Baggins, right there on Prince Edward Island. Oh, the love.

I might give Rilla of Ingleside another go, if I can trace it on the internet. It gives me a different perspective, knowing now how Lucy Maude felt about WW1.

And over Christmas I watched the Megan Follows sequel, all four hours of it, when she goes to Kingsport Ladies College and faces down the Pringle clan.

When Anne said goodbye to Mrs Lynde (who was perfect, in the TV series) and hugged Marilla (I adore the woman who plays her), I started tearing up like a good 'un.

Haven't got moist-eyed like that since ROTK!

I think my favourite Anne book, apart from the utterly glorious first one, is Anne's House of Dreams. Because of its sea setting ... I can just picture Glen St.Mary. And because the Leslie Moore story is so good. (Rather Daphne du Maurier-ish, really.) And Captain Jim ...!

Lucy Maude had a wonderful ear for dialogue. Miss Cornelia's rantings about Methodists are priceless.

It's been such a pleasure discovering Anne all over again.

[truehobbit]

Pearly - seems like you made the best of being down with the cold! - Good to see you back!

Hmmh, the sequels of the TV series - the first definitely has its moments, though I wonder how they could pick all girls for Anne's students who look twice as heavy as she!

Has anyone here seen the second sequel? "The Continuing Story"? It didn't even make it to TV here, but I saw it on video in England and bought it some years ago.
Hor-ri-ble!!! Let me put it this way: if you thought Filmamir was a bad deviation from the book, don't watch this one!


I agree on the enjoyable parts of "House of Dreams"!

When Anne said goodbye to Mrs Lynde (who was perfect, in the TV series) and hugged Marilla (I adore the woman who plays her),

Oh, absolutely!

And, re good-bye scenes - one of my absolute favourite passages:

The day finally came when Anne must go to town. She and Matthew drove in one fine September morning, after a tearful parting with Diana and an untearful practical one-- on Marilla's side at least--with Marilla. But when Anne had gone Diana dried her tears and went to a beach picnic at White Sands with some of her Carmody cousins, where she contrived to enjoy herself tolerably well; while Marilla plunged fiercely into unnecessary work and kept at it all day long with the bitterest kind of heartache--the ache that burns and gnaws and cannot wash itself away in ready tears. But that night, when Marilla went to bed, acutely and miserably conscious that the little gable room at the end of the hall was untenanted by any vivid young life and unstirred by any soft breathing, she buried her face in her pillow, and wept for her girl in a passion of sobs that appalled her when she grew calm enough to reflect how very wicked it must be to take on so about a sinful fellow creature.

How true and insightful this is!

[samaranth]

My Anne books are packed away in storage. Given the fact that when we last moved I didn’t label the boxes and there are a lot of them, and I’m too much of a coward to venture in and find them, I’ve been contemplating buying a new set too.

The set I do have is a mish-mash of very old and relatively new editions. ‘Anne of Green Gables’ was my mother’s copy, published sometime in the 1920s. ‘Anne of Avonlea’ was second hand, but ‘Anne of the Island’, ‘Anne of Windy Willows’, ‘Anne of Ingleside’ and ‘Anne’s House of Dreams’ were new hardcover reprints that came out just as I was up to reading them, but I could only buy one every couple of weeks, because I needed to save my pocket money to do so. ‘Rainbow Valley’ was also my mother’s copy. I haunted second hand shops to find ‘Chronicles of Avonlea’ and (some years later) ‘Further Chronicles of Avonlea’. But had no luck with ‘Rilla’. It was very definitely out of print. However, the brother next up from me – who could go further afield than I could at that time - found a copy in an antiques shop that also held some books, and gave it to me for my 12th birthday. I’ve always treasured that, because he went to so much trouble to find it.

I had to buy the books, you see. They were ones to keep, just like the CS Lewis books.

I was never all that fond of ‘Anne of Ingleside’ either, and thought it was because it seemed so out of LM Montgomery’s usual style. The chapters aren’t named, just numbered. The stories have a more adult, gossipy feel. Anne is beginning to seem quite middle-aged, even thought she could only be in her mid-30s. I was told that this book hadn’t actually been written by LM Montgomery, but by someone else. I doubt that’s actually true, but there are enough stylistic differences between this and the other books to make me at least consider it. Such a thing did happen – ‘Pollyanna’ and ‘Pollyanna Grows Up’ were written by Eleanor Porter, but the string of ‘Pollyanna’ books that came later were very much the products of other imaginations. I just did a google search and can find no trace of those others, but I know they existed because at least two of them are in my mother’s ancient collection of novels. I guess they were paid fan-fic, in a way.

This site tells me that Anne of Ingleside was the last published in the series, and ‘was intended to ‘fill a gap’. Maybe so, but it could have made the transition from telling Anne’s story to telling the story of her children a little more gracefully than it did. As it is, there is still a huge leap there. After House of Dreams we don’t really see through Anne’s eyes again.

My favourites in the series are ‘Anne of Green Gables’, ‘Anne’s House of Dreams’ (which not only has Captain Jim, and the story of Leslie Moore, but other quite heartbreaking and also joyful moments, including the birth of two of Anne’s children), and ‘Rilla of Ingleside’.

I’m really intrigued by the cover art on all the various editions – particularly the ones that make Anne look like something out of a 1930s Hollywood movie.

It’s interesting how many here have said that Megan Follows was close to how they’d imagined Anne. I’d second that, and also Colleen Dewhurst at Marilla. Wow, that was ideal casting.

Pearl, you’ve had a cold? I hope you’re feeling 100% again now. Here’s an etext version of ‘Rilla’, to help you feel better.

Hobby, I did see some of the sequel that you mentioned – I was trapped in a doctor’s surgery and they had the TV on, and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Oh dear. Oh dear oh dear.

That's probably enough from me for now.

[Pearly Di]

I had to buy the books, you see. They were ones to keep, just like the CS Lewis books.

Absolutely. I have all the Narnia books, all the Little House books ... now I must build up my Anne collection again.

I guess they were paid fan-fic, in a way.

Cool! Paid fanfic!

My mother has some of those Pollyanna sequels, Sam ... she's kept them since she was a girl herself, back in the late '40s. And that goes for her Anne books too ... all ancient hardbacks falling to pieces ...

As it is, there is still a huge leap there. After House of Dreams we don’t really see through Anne’s eyes again.

I suspect that's another reason why House of Dreams is one of my favourites ... in that one, we say goodbye to Anne, really. Her story ends there ... and her children carry it on.

By the way, some of those book covers are just BIZARRE.

E-text 'Rilla of Ingleside'

Sam! What a find! Oh my goodness, I did enjoy reading all those samples from 'Rilla'! Thank you!!!!!

Little Dog Monday knows.



I too was warned off the sequel to the sequel. Yikes.

Am offline for a few days now so ... long live Anne!

[Lalaith]

Yes, that last movie they put out was horrible. I mean, it was okay, in its own right, but as something that was supposed to be Anne's story? <shudder> PJ got Faramir closer than they got Anne and the story in this movie.

Green Gables and House of Dreams are my two favorites, too. I hadn't really thought about it before, but it probably is because we do sort of say "goodbye" to Anne in HoD.




Lali

[Griffon64]

I recently re-read "Anne of Green Gables" and I'm amazed to report that ... I like "Anne of Avonlea" better!

I was looking forward to some of my favourite moments of the book, and I enjoyed reading it, but I truely found "Anne of Avonlea" to be my favourite between the two ( can't get my hands on any of the others, see ), except for my dislike of Davey.

[Pearly Di]

Davey is ADORABLE!!!!!!!!!!!

And as for little Paul Irving ...

Well, I'm nearly through 'Green Gables', reading it properly for the first time since I was 11 years old.

Boy, have I been enjoying it!!!

Anne as a child is so utterly winsome. But what I am really loving about the book is the sophistication and lyricism of Lucy Maude's prose and her thorough understanding of the psychology of her characters. Rachel Lynde is superbly drawn (the woman who plays her in the Kevin Sullivan series was brilliant) but goodness, so is Marilla.

OK, so it's popular fiction, but man is it QUALITY popular fiction.

I really want to go to P.E.I. There's an Anne centenerary in 2008 but no doubt the Island will be over-populated with Japanese people.

No offence to anyone from the Hall of Fire who is Japanese ...

[vison]

Davey never seemed like a real boy to me, too much like Dennis the Menace. He would have been more believable if she'd toned him down a little.

As for Paul Irving: ! I COULD not like that child. He was just too precious for words. A perfect little creep.

IMHO, of course!

A real boy would have been a combination of Davey and Paul and a lot more loveable.

[Griffon64]

Paul Irving was fine as a character ... why, I was a dreamy little child like that ( but then again, a good streak of Davey! )

But I totally agree with vison - Davey never seemed real to me.

I suppose both Paul Irving and Davey was a bit overdone - toned down they would have been perfectly believable!

Anne as a child is so utterly winsome. But what I am really loving about the book is the sophistication and lyricism of Lucy Maude's prose and her thorough understanding of the psychology of her characters. Rachel Lynde is superbly drawn (the woman who plays her in the Kevin Sullivan series was brilliant) but goodness, so is Marilla.

OK, so it's popular fiction, but man is it QUALITY popular fiction.

I totally agree

[truehobbit]

I can't believe it's been over a month that I've been here!
I've been reading all the time, but never got round to post somehow.

sam - thanks for the link to the cover art! It's a fabulous site, I've spent some hours there, I think!

It was probably via that page that I found the "LMM Resource Page", which has all the e-texts and some fun stuff - and via that I got to the "Avonlea Message Board", which, to my own surprise, I joined (because, you know, I'm not busy enough with messageboards yet... ) - no deep discussions there and it mostly has younger readers, I think, but it seems quite nice and friendly and has the occasional bright spark.

What I meant to ask is whether anyone is familiar with the Japanese animated Anne of Green Gables series?
And if so, what did you think of it?

It's one of those 50-part TV series the Japanese produced from children's books classics in the 70s - there is some great stuff, and I virtually grew up with those based on children's books we know here.
But as AOGG was virtually unknown then, it didn't make it to German television.
Ten years or so ago, then, I saw that on TV not long after I'd read the book - a cable TV station here was broadcasting a number of those series based on books that aren't so well known here.
Of course, compared to the Sullivan movie version, the drawings might take some getting used to, but when I saw the series I was surprised with how close to the book it is! The version for purists, really!

(And of course the style is so similar to those of the other series I'd loved as a kid, so it wasn't hard to fall in love with it - ahh, the good old days before the horrible manga-look invaded Japanese animation! )

[truehobbit]

(Putting this in a separate post, because it's a different topic - back to the real topic of the thread, really. )

People mentioned Davey! Argh, I can't stand Davey! I want to punch him on the nose each time he appears!

I was very disappointed with Montgomery's treatment of the Davey and Dora characters as it seemed to me the first betrayal of the character she had created in Anne.
IIRC, Anne keeps saying she loves Davey, because he reminds her of herself - but I think Davey is just a little creep, Anne never had such wickedness in her.
All my sympathy went to Dora, who, in spite of being a sweet person, didn't get any love.

I couldn't help wondering if there wasn't some hidden boy/girl ideology in there: Davey was much more unruly than Anne had ever been - but, then, he's a boy, and boys are entitled to some unruliness anyway, right? So, in order for a boy to qualify as more than normally "interesting" you have to make him a complete idiot - while Anne's comparatively mild unruliness is quite enough to make her riotous for a girl.

Any thoughts?

[Primula Baggins]

Hobby, I haven't read these books, though I think I will, based on this thread! But I think your assessment is dead accurate. Traditionally, any girl who behaved like a reasonably well-trained and polite boy would be considered a little hellion. Any boy who showed the politeness and deportment expected of all girls would be considered a cause for concern, because it wasn't "natural." So Anne's "excesses" could be much less than a boy's and be cause for much more concern.

[Pearly Di]

I'll take a different tack.

In Davey and Dora, you see the first example of Montgomery taking a slightly more caustic, even manipulative, view of her characters. Yep, we're meant to love Davey. Dora is just boring.

It's quite cruel. But perhaps Montgomery was also making a statement about little girls being expected to be docile and submissive ... and encouraging her readers to rebel against the idea. After all, Anne wasn't docile and submissive!

All the characterisations in 'Green Gables' are sympathetic. Even Josie Pye is not presented as an out-and-out villain the way that Nellie Oleson is in 'The Little House' books. Montgomery portrays Josie with delicious irony, but she's not as merciless as Jane Austen is in the portrayal of Caroline Bingley. (Oh, how I love it when Austen skewers her characters!)

I have to say that in 'Green Gables' LMM doesn't put a single foot wrong.

IMO.

[BrianIsSmilingAtYou]

Anne is enormously, unbelievably popular in Japan for some reason.

A television series of Anne of Green Gables was produced in Japan starting in 1979. Some of the main creative talents in the production included Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takehata, who are among the best animators in the world today.

Miyazaki and Takahata later formed their own studio, Studio Ghibli, and I would recommend all of their films, many of which have been recently dubbed into English and distributed by Disney in recent years. I recently picked up the latest one to receive this treatment, Whisper of the Heart, and this may be one of the best films of any kind I have ever seen.

IMDB: Akage No An (Anne of Green Gables)

The newest Studio Ghibli release will be Ursula K. Leguin's "Tales from Earthsea".

http://www.ghibliworld.com/news.html#0807

Trailers: http://www.kith.org/journals/jed/2006/05/02/3509.html

BrianIs AtYou