(no subject)

[phosfate]

I've been reading Anne of Green Gables this weekend. I always thought it was a fairly standard Children's Classic[TM]. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that L.M. Montgomery was one of the early-20th-Century reformist authors, like Upton Sinclair. As Mr. Sinclair's The Jungle depicted the horrors of the contemporary meatpacking industry, so too is Ms. Montgomery's work a plea for the improved distribution of Ritalin to the isolated, agrarian areas of Canada. You go, Lucy!

Comments

[nitasee.livejournal.com]

My mother forced foisted those books on me as a kid. (She like them so she insisted I would. I didn't.) I never so much wanted to smack a fictional character as I did that Anne.

[annlarimer.livejournal.com]

L.M. Montgomery makes Enid Blyton look like a renegade cop who doesn't play by the rules.

[smuu.livejournal.com]

My mother tried to force me to read those books when I was a kid. It wasn't that I didn't read, I read pretty much everything (from Lloyd Alexander to The Saddle Club), and I think that was her worry: "My goodness, if I don't get some 'good liturature' into this kid, she'll grow up to be some sort of social malcontent!"

Ah, I hated them so much. Anne was such a twit. I would skip large chunks of the books, then lie to Mom that I'd read them, while sneaking pages of The Philadelphia Adventure under my desk...
Good times!

omg

[ahli.livejournal.com]

I am teh only one who loves Anne, Ann. :(

Re: omg

[aldenmacrae.livejournal.com]

I like Anne too. ~nods~ And the Emily books. Shall we feel solidarity towards each other, dear?

Re: omg

[ahli.livejournal.com]

YAY! *cling*

Re: omg

[aldenmacrae.livejournal.com]

Double yay! ~clings and makes faces at Ann-without-an-"e"~

[thistlethorn.livejournal.com]

No, you're not. I adore nearly all of the Anne books, and the two Chronicles of Avonlea books. I also loved Laura Ingalls Wilder's books and all the biographical non-Little-House books about her and her life. While I don't agree with everything in the Anne books, I still find them charming and very dear. Never could quite warm to the Emily books.

[mon-starling.livejournal.com]

Awww! Anne! I like the Emily books better though, mostly because I like Emily better than Anne, who was too annoyingly nice sometimes. Although I do like Anne´s boy better than Teddy... his surname was Blithe, wasn´t it? I am trying to remember his first name...

[kannaophelia.livejournal.com]

Gilbert Blythe. He was a sweetie. Teddy - oh dear. Emily had Dean. Why ditch the sexy possibly-evil possibly pedophiliac hunchback who worshipped her for a wishy-washy little brat who does things like "If you don't answer this note, I shall go away forever"?

I love the Emily books, but Emily herself bothers me. She's so very blatantly a geek wish-fulfilment Mary Sue. "Look, the real reason everyone doesn't like you much is that you are really, really Special. They just don't understand that you're better than them. And one day you'll show them."

[mon-starling.livejournal.com]

*dies laughing* Too true. I still don´t get what she saw in Teddy. Besides, that boy came with the Mother-In-Law From Hell! *shudders* But Emily´s friend... Ilse was it? Well, she was amusing, even if half the time I wanted to kill her. I really really need to read those books again...

[kannaophelia.livejournal.com]

Ilse was a darling. If I can't have Emily/Dean, I'd settle very happily for Emily/Ilse. The way Ilse's father's neglect and abuse of her is justified by the text really bothers me, though, and it's a recurring theme in Montgomery.

Perry was about my favourite character... and Aunt Elizabeth and whatshername, the Priest aunt. Montgomery had a real way with elderly and middle-aged female characters.

The Montgomery I really passionate rec if you haven't read it, and should reread if you have, is "A Tangled Web".

[kannaophelia.livejournal.com]

You go, Maud, if you please.

~sobs~ I love that book with mad passion. I move that you be banned from all classic children's novels. If you start in on Pollyanna, I shall weep.

[annlarimer.livejournal.com]

Can I read The Boxcar Children? 'Cause it's in my pile.

[kannaophelia.livejournal.com]

Sure - permission granted. I hate the Boxcar Children. ~smiles sweetly~

[neonnurse.livejournal.com]

Hey! Happy Birthday! (as seen on the journal of neonnurse!)