Forty books down, sixty to go! My goal was to be halfway through by June 1. I don't think I'm going to quite reach fifty by that point, but I shouldn't be more than a book or two off! The last few books have flown by, and I've enjoyed them immensely. This book, number 40, also fulfills the requirement of "book that continues a series I've started already" for the Nest Spring Book Challenge (SBC). So let's get to it.
I first read Lucy M. Montgomery's classic Anne of Green Gables when I was in fifth grade (I was captivated by the paperback cover picture of Anne "walking the ridge-pole of the roof"), and it's safe to say that I loved it from first read. I never really bothered to get into the rest of the series as a child. I picked up the second book a year later and couldn't get into it. The other day, I decided to download it to the Kindle and give it another shot.
As the title suggests, Anne Shirley has grown and branched out from her earlier moniker, and has now become Anne of Avonlea. Fifteen years old and now the mistress of the school she used to attend, Anne believes she has become quite grown up indeed, and sets out to do a world of good for anyone she meets. Whether it's the crotchety old bachelor who moved in next door, or a pair of orphaned twin cousins that she and her adopted mother, Marilla, resignedly adopt, or pretty imaginative Miss Lavender, the self-proclaimed "old maid", Anne is determined to spread her good influence (and a little bit of cheer) to everyone she encounters. And of course, there's always Gilbert Blythe, her tormentor-turned-competitor-turned-friend, who seems to have something else entirely on his mind...
It is nice to go further in the series and find out exactly "what happened?" to Anne, Marilla, Mrs. Lynde, Gilbert, Diana, and the host of other "Avonlea folk" from the first book. The hamlet of Avonlea is still, author Lucy Montgomery assures us, the prettiest place on earth with the most interesting and well-meaning inhabitants to ever grace Prince Edward Island. Yet, I wasn't prepared for the amount of reminiscing on what happened in Green Gables. Montgomery clearly doesn't belong to the writing school of "show, don't tell." In nearly every chapter, I was greeted with another recap of one of Anne's many misfortunes from the first book. I guess, for the reader who isn't familiar with Green Gables, it would be helpful, but for someone who has read it so many times, it just came off as tedious.
Some of the character development (especially Anne's and Marilla's) was interesting and continued to captivate me up until the very end. Unfortunately, I can't say the same for all of the characters -- Dora Keith and Paul Irving in particular. Montgomery has mixed feelings about "perfect" characters. Where Dora and Paul were equally praised for their sweetness, diligence, and obedience, Dora was referred to as placid and boring, and Paul was "angelic". I can't think of a reason why Montgomery would choose to exalt one character and patronize the other -- unless it is because Paul, unlike Dora, aped the same penchant for "imagining" that our heroine Anne did in Book One.
Going down the road to Avonlea a second time was fun. But I am not sure I'll be continuing on with book three, Anne of the Island. Maybe I, like Marilla, just want to keep Anne the same scrapgrace she was when she first came to Green Gables at age 11 -- red hair, freckles, imagination, and all.
Rating: ***
No comments:
Post a Comment