Lucy M Montgomery (Does anyone still read her?)
Anne of Green Gables and the six sequels are books I always come back to every couple of years (I don't count the short story collections as part of the sequence). I think that for the most part, though Lucy's descriptions got laid on rather thick (in a rather ironic parallel to Emily in Emily of New Moon) and she would have benefited from a stronger editor, the minutae of her characters day to day lives and the gentle satire of gentile society render them still interesting today.
Ironically, aside from the classic Anne of Green Gables and the Emily trilogy which saw Lucy look at her society in a much more frank and dark fashion, I have a sneaking suspicion that it is Anne's youngest daughter's story in Rilla of Ingleside, as a devestating look at life on the Canadian Home Front, that holds the most relevence today and perhaps is the one that aside from AOG has truly stood the test of time. It is possibly the one with the most historic value and also the one that most demonstates the shifting place of women in society in this time period.
Imagine my shock upon finding out there is a ninth Anne related book! Entitled The Blythe's are Quoted, the book is a collection of short stories (previously published but edited out extensively), poems attributed to both Anne and her dreamy son Walter who was killed at the Western Front, and vignettes which offer commentary on the poems themselves and the events of the Blythe extended family. The book is divided between the events prior to 1914 and the war itself and it's aftermath, ending in 1936 with the declaration of the Second World War.
I have to say that I always feel a bit depressed upon finishing Rilla of Ingleside. Written only a few years after WW1 ended, Lucy had optimism for a war free future. Little did she know that within her generation, a new war, even worse in many ways than the first one, was about to be declared. Rilla and her family would face war again. Some of the characters would have to fight twice. Apparently, TBAQ is a more cynical look at war, written in 1942 just before Lucy died, and shows her own despair at the horrors of two world wars.
The book is incredibly expensive to buy at the moment so I suppose I will hold off for now, but I think I will enjoy this collection immensely, especially as I have always wondered about Walter's poem The Piper, included in the collection. However, at the same time, Lucy despised free verse and rigidly stuck to rhyming patterning. I wonder if her poetry will suffer because of this? Can one really describe the horrors of war when constrained to rhyming couplets where one is forced to make meaning based on what rhymes rather than what best describes the situation? I hope so.
Has anyone read Lucy M Montgomery and her poetry? What did you think of her?
This entry was originally posted at http://dweomeroflight.dreamwidth.org/64585.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
Ironically, aside from the classic Anne of Green Gables and the Emily trilogy which saw Lucy look at her society in a much more frank and dark fashion, I have a sneaking suspicion that it is Anne's youngest daughter's story in Rilla of Ingleside, as a devestating look at life on the Canadian Home Front, that holds the most relevence today and perhaps is the one that aside from AOG has truly stood the test of time. It is possibly the one with the most historic value and also the one that most demonstates the shifting place of women in society in this time period.
Imagine my shock upon finding out there is a ninth Anne related book! Entitled The Blythe's are Quoted, the book is a collection of short stories (previously published but edited out extensively), poems attributed to both Anne and her dreamy son Walter who was killed at the Western Front, and vignettes which offer commentary on the poems themselves and the events of the Blythe extended family. The book is divided between the events prior to 1914 and the war itself and it's aftermath, ending in 1936 with the declaration of the Second World War.
I have to say that I always feel a bit depressed upon finishing Rilla of Ingleside. Written only a few years after WW1 ended, Lucy had optimism for a war free future. Little did she know that within her generation, a new war, even worse in many ways than the first one, was about to be declared. Rilla and her family would face war again. Some of the characters would have to fight twice. Apparently, TBAQ is a more cynical look at war, written in 1942 just before Lucy died, and shows her own despair at the horrors of two world wars.
The book is incredibly expensive to buy at the moment so I suppose I will hold off for now, but I think I will enjoy this collection immensely, especially as I have always wondered about Walter's poem The Piper, included in the collection. However, at the same time, Lucy despised free verse and rigidly stuck to rhyming patterning. I wonder if her poetry will suffer because of this? Can one really describe the horrors of war when constrained to rhyming couplets where one is forced to make meaning based on what rhymes rather than what best describes the situation? I hope so.
Has anyone read Lucy M Montgomery and her poetry? What did you think of her?
This entry was originally posted at http://dweomeroflight.dreamwidth.org/64585.html. Please comment there using OpenID.