Anne of Somewhere or Other

[nineveh_uk]

I picked up a couple of later Anne books at a secondhand bookstall. Re-reading Anne of Ingleside confirmed, alas, that I don’t like it very much. Anne herself doesn’t do much except float around being the perfect mother (with occasional jealousy) wearing nice clothes, and I am entirely uninterested in her children. Can’t we at least hear what she does occasionally beyond gloat over babies and teach her children the wonders of the universe*. Is she organising Gilbert’s practice (someone must be, and he seems to spend all his time out slaving over midnight bedsides), doing household management beyond sewing, or ever writing anything at all? I found myself wishing that she had a gardening column a women’s magazine. I am also irritated by the narrative snobbery, which strikes me as particularly ironic given that Anne herself was an orphan and child nurserymaid who if she had been a boy and thus been required to work would no doubt these days be someone her children are not encouraged to associate with. It strikes me as a bit like the later Abbey Girls books, written far too much later in order to provide cash or completeness, and as a slot-in there is no room for significant things to really happen. I suppose I ought to get round to reading Rilla of Ingleside one day.

Anne’s House of Dreams, on the other hand, I do like, though I had not noticed** before how long they spend having dinner with other people, including one they’ve only just met, the evening of the day they get married and arrive at the house. And it’s not even Anne or Gilbert who invites Captain Jim to stay for supper! I have visions of Gilbert sitting there by the fire after dinner grinding his teeth and wishing everyone would just go.

The Guardian is not entirely positive about Peaky Blinders, post-WWI Birmingham set drama on BBC2 tonight. They are sceptical about the accent, which was my first worry. Still, I shall give it a go. You don’t get many TV dramas set in Small Heath.

*Now I want a Blue Castle/Brian Cox crossover. Also, anyone who wasn’t seen Horrible Histories’ Wonders of the Ancient Egyptian/Greek/Anglo-Saxon Universe has a treat in store on YouTube.

**I suspect I skipped the relevant chapters. I do tend to skip Montgomery's Person X Reminisces sections.

Comments

[tree_and_leaf]

I can never remember anything about "Anne of Ingleside", possibly for those reasons. On the other hand, I find "Rainbow Valley" entertaining, and "Rilla of Ingleside" is fascinating as a portrait of Canada in WWI (also, while I find Rilla very annoying as a child, she improves a lot as she grows up).

[antisoppist]

I think of Rilla every time I have to walk down the road carrying a cake (which happens surprisingly often) but it's the lisping that puts me off.

The one I hated as a child but found much improved as an adult was Windy Willows. I still have to skip all the whimsical faery stuff but all the appalling manipulative family relationships and old ladies being absolute bitches is fascinating. And I love Katherine Brooke determinedly refusing to be won over by Anne's bloody charm. I like Anne of the Island too, where they are all being students in a little house and wandering about in the graveyard.

[tree_and_leaf]

I think it may have mostly been the lisping, come to think of it.

Anne of the Island is virtually my favourite. I must reread "Windy Willows", though. I think I might find certain resonances with my current line of work.

[nineveh_uk]

I've definitely read the Cake Scene - that must be Rainbow Valley.

I like Anne of the Island a lot. I find the Pringles plot in Windy Willows irritating, but am completely with you on Katherine Brooke. I have just found a fic on AO3 in which she doesn’t become a secretary, but that’s her cover story for being a male impersonator in a travelling show.

[nineveh_uk]

I cannot stand cute lithping in books. Whoever first came up with it has a lot to answer for.

Ed. Also, I hope you are not disliked by an influential local family who wanted your job for one of their own.

[tree_and_leaf]

No. But there's a certain amount of coming into a somewhat inward-looking community and sensing that there's a lot going on that you're not quite getting because you don't know the backstory to the various feuds...

[wendylove]

*blink* Well, I just learned from Wikipedia that the book I read as _Anne of Windy Poplars_ was published under a different title in the UK. But, yes, that one has a lot of standalone charm and intertwining plotlines which are unique to it -- rather like _Rainbow Valley_, which I also enjoy. If I actually want Anne as a character, though, I'd read _Anne of Green Gables_ followed by _Anne of the Island_ (and then, I don't know, fanfic happens?), plus maybe _Rilla of Ingleside_, which is actually a proper sequel to Anne's story.

[antisoppist]

I have just found a fic on AO3
Ah. Mmm. Yes. Indeed. Quite.

[nineveh_uk]

At the point I read that I had not read the COMPLETELY INCORRECT author's note at the bottom of it...

[nineveh_uk]

I don't know why they changed the title, but Windy Willows sounds more euphonious to me! As a back-fill it has the same element as Ingleside of not really moving things forward, but it manages to do it with charm rather than irritation.

[antisoppist]

That is spectacularly incorrect. I've read other stuff by the same author and now assume author's notes can be ignored as they will mostly be explaining in detail aspects of Britain in the 20th century that I do not need explaining.

[nineveh_uk]

Oh good Lord, 17 footnotes!

[antisoppist]

There are contexts in which it is not that essential to cite your sources. And there is not enough Dora Carrington in her Lytton Strachey (not a role model to emulate, younger me decided).

[nineveh_uk]

It may not be intended as such, but that kind of detail reads to me as showing off. The reader who cares deeply will either already know, or ask. It strikes me as footnoting every quote in a Wimseyfic in order to show how many you got in.

I keep meaning to watch that Carrington film and forgetting.

[antisoppist]

I think sometimes it is showing off and sometimes it is wild enthusiasm to share all the exciting new things they have discovered (without realising that they may not be as earth-shattering discoveries to everyone else) and sometimes it is someone who has been at university too long. But it often strikes me as insulting your readers' intelligence, like the footnoting quotes thing.

I read the Strachey biography instead.

[nineveh_uk]

Ascribing it to wild enthuasiasm sounds entirely plausible - and is less mean! But it does tend to come across as patronising.

I admit I’m footnoting something in the current WIP, but only because it’s funny.

[tree_and_leaf]

It's Rainbow Valley, which is indeed a separate book to Rilla. I know Rilla handles the war pretty much how you'd imagine, and aspects of it irritate me, but I find the portrait of Canada in WWI interesting nonetheless, since it's not an aspect one often gets in this country.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Smug is the very word! I hadn't noticed the literary vicar, but Wikipedia suggests he might be in Rainbow Valley with hordes of children. Montgomery vicars are rather nonentities - good, but dull.

Thankyou for the irritation warning. Library or secondhand, methinks!

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

The Wikipedia entry suggests that the entirely different atmosphere of the issues around signing up rather than conscription could be interesting, even if a lot promises irritation.

[tree_and_leaf]

Yes, I'm not sure whether or not I actually like it as a whole (though there are bits of it that I definitely do like a lot), but it's definitely worth reading and indeed re-reading, in a way that I don't think A of I really is, except out of completism.

[sam-t.livejournal.com]

I have a feeling that they're on one of the Gutenbergs but I don't know whether they're out of copyright in the UK.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Thanks, I must look. Gutenberg.ca has extra Sayers, but they might be cagey when it coes to Anne Shirley!

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

That is quite hard to believe.

[tree_and_leaf]

They're definitely on there, but I'm not sure on which one or about their UK copyright status.

[littlered2.livejournal.com]

Anne of Ingleside is not the best. I quite like the chapter where Anne is panicked that Gilbert has stopped loving her and then they talk about it and everything is okay again (it's just nice to see relationship anxieties being addressed). But yes, Anne is far too sidelined in it.

Rilla of Ingleside is amazingly propagandist. It's a good read, but hugely anti-German; one character is a pacifist and is completely demonised. And there is very little of Anne.

It feels very bizarre that they spend their wedding night socialising with new neighbours. Who does invite Captain Jim?

[littlered2.livejournal.com]

And decides at one point that he really should get on and be a better parent, but then lapses into his work again a few minutes later. What other examples of similar literary vicars are there?

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Mr March positively pole-vaults to mind!

[littlered2.livejournal.com]

Marmee mentions that he was very helpful with Meg and Jo when they were little! And as the youngest is about 12 when Little Women starts, they seem reasonably self-sufficient. He is certainly very absent, though.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

And there is very little of Anne.
In the circumstances that might be a good thing...

Gilbert's great-aunt(?) "Mrs Doctor Dave Blythe" invite Captain Jim to stay. I can only assume she disapproves of sex.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I do not have a Kindle, but an ebook may be on the cards for Christmas, if only for Gutenberg and cheap editions.

I think I may suppress its existence until Child is fairly grown-up.

You know this will only work if the others in the series don't mention it in the frontpapers...

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

They have to be self-sufficient, he doesn't appear to have a job with a salary!

[littlered2.livejournal.com]

Well, being married to a doctor and seeing lots of women dying in childbirth/getting worn out by countless children will probably do that to you. But it does seem rather presumptuous. (I suppose Anne and Gilbert couldn't politely have asked people to go away.)

[sonetka.livejournal.com]

I remember Rilla as a good read, but I was about nine at the time and knew virtually nothing about WWI (except that my German great-grandparents had filed a restraining order against a neighbour who put a brick through their window and liked to shout about "HUNS!" when they went out in the street). At that age I didn't think very much about its connection to the world I was living in, but in retrospect -- whoah. Whiskers On The Moon is the pacifist, I think, and all-around repellent. The Rev. Meredith was so useless that I couldn't even like the happy ending -- hooray, he can continue abdicating his responsibilities as usual! The Meredith children were a lot of fun, though.

As for Captain Jim, maybe he figured they'd be nervous and that after he left they could relax a little by laughing and wondering who on earth crashes someone else's wedding night :).

[mrs-redboots.livejournal.com]

They're all on Gutenberg (and on manybooks.net, which I find easier to use) except, for some reason, Anne of Windy Willows/Poplars.

I think Rilla is my favourite book after Anne of Green Gables - makes me cry every time I read it! Some of it is irritating, of course, and Anne does not improve with age, but it's almost as good a coming-of-age book as Anne of Green Gables.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Rilla increasingly sounds like something that will be an interesting period read, but not wholly likeable.

Ah, of course noble Captain Jim would have good intentions!

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

There are some really wonderful bits in Rilla (I like the baby a lot), but the romance makes me want to hurl.