Anne of Green Gables Series, books 3 and 4, by L.M. Montgomery

  Lucy Maud Montgomery

Montgomery, L. M., Anne of the Island

Anne continues to grow up, getting into and out of scrapes and troubles. The death of friend Ruby is sweetly portrayed. Diana gets married. Anne sees people moving on with their lives. Where is hers going? The book covers Anne’s college years, during which she gets a B.A. She and Gilbert are estranged, she having rejected his marriage proposal. Royal Gardner shows up—Anne’s perfect romantic hero made flesh, wealthy, poetic, devoted. Her struggles with love are sweet and refreshing. She really has to process all the romantic imagery she has structured around love. Many new characters. Many new adventures. The relationship between Anne and Gilbert is finally settled.

A touching passage occurs when Anne returns to the house in which she was born and meets people who knew her parents. Letting Anne settle into her identity and heritage is important psychological business handled in this book.

One thing charmingly rendered is the “you can’t go home again” cliché. Anne returns for the summer every year and every year feels a little less like Avonlea is “her” place. She learns to cope with changes—good and bad. She is conscious of having gained much, but also having to give things up in the bargain.

Overall, I am liking this series. I get impatient waiting for something to happen, for a story arc that isn’t there. The plot across books is chronologically episodic. And that is the theme: what happens as a girl grows up. I’m at least engaged enough to be eager to read the next book. Will a story arc emerge? Will anything really awful happen to Anne—something that her natural optimism and the power of love cannot handle? So far, there always seems to be a cushion under Anne’s disasters and troubles. I’ll let you know.

WEB LINKS
A good source for PEI travel and tourism, which incorporates many Anne of Green Gables sites, is www.krolltravel.com. Also, see www.gov.pe.ca.

Montgomery, L. M., Anne of Windy Poplars

Fourth book. The franchise is wearing a bit thin. Windy Poplars is an episodic account of various irascible characters Anne meets when she teaches for three years at Summerside High School. It is narrated about 50% by letters and 50% third person. Rapturous descriptions of landscape abound. I’m getting a little tired of it. Anne is getting to be JUST TOO CUTE. She brings sunshine and solutions wherever she goes and match-makes like crazy. Marriage is certainly the key to happiness for women. She reunites the ununited, weds the unwed, de-crankifies the cranky, unsaddens the sad. But Anne herself is static in this book. She starts out wonderful and stays wonderful. And, I do like her, thank goodness. But the book is more a series of vignettes than a coherent plot.

Anne corresponds with fiancé Gilbert, gushing occasionally. But Gilbert doesn’t really show up—I don’t think he has a single line of dialogue. And Green Gables is mostly absent. And it’s Green Gables that glues it together for me.

This book was a struggle to get through. My eyes glazed over many times. At least in the next book, Anne’s wedding and marriage should provide good meat for my palate.

WEB LINK
For information about the musical "Anne and Gilbert," which is based on these two books, please see www.anneandgilbert.com.