Chapter 84: Universally Acknowledged, plus: New Anne of Green Gables TV show!
So all the Kindred Spirits Mailing List is aflutter at the news that a brand new Anne series is in the works, "this time in a more modern-day setting" Much wrath over the thought of Anne in skinny jeans and curmudgeonly wondering aloud what color she could possibly dye her hair that would be unacceptable to Kids These Days and jokes about Gilbert's parents suing the Cuthberts over the slate incident because, ha ha, litigiousness or something.
The funniest part is where people are claiming there has been a "breakdown in family vales" since the days of Home Children and Indian Residential Schools.
I think it's a great idea. Anne of Green Gables is one of LMM's least nostalgic books. It's all about the contrast between the romantic ideals of fiction and the realities of day-to-day life and how Anne has to reintegrate her imaginative gifts into her new life, now that she has a real life that isn't just colicky babies and mean drunks and being ignored all over the place. This story arc is much less likely to be lost on viewers if they aren't being constantly distracted by the fact that all the details of Anne's life are exotic to them. A modern-day adaptation could be awful, of course, but it doesn't have to be. It could be truer to the spirit of the book just by eliminating the temptation to nostalgia.
Anyway, you all know how I feel about nostalgia and here is Chapter 84. It's not much of a chapter, but it will have to do for now.
I wanted for Ev to say that Ilse was like Tinker Bell, and would wither if not fed with applause, but I couldn't quite justify it to myself. The play Peter Pan, Or, The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up debuted in London in December 1904, and it was successful enough for everyone to theoretically have been talking about it in Canada the next February, but I just wasn't confident enough that they would be and I'm supposed to be writing an actual paper for the L.M. Montgomery conference in literal Charlottetown in a week, so that is my excuse for not researching my offhand remarks thoroughly enough.