Comments | reading_lmm: Discussion Post: Anne's House of Dreams

myr_soleil in reading_lmm

Discussion Post: Anne's House of Dreams

May 15, 2011 09:21

Hi everyone! Welcome to our discussion post for one of my favorite books, Anne's House of Dreams. I hope you liked it as much as I did, and I can't wait to hear what you think!

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discussion post, book: anne's house of dreams

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mardia May 15 2011, 15:34:47 UTC

1. Did you like the book? Do you like the setting of Anne married, or did you miss having her in school?

I LOVE this book. It's easily one of my favorites, if only because it's so great actually seeing Anne and Gilbert together as a couple. I don't particularly miss her in a school setting.

2. How about those new characters? Leslie, Captain Jim, Cornelia, Susan, Jem, Owen - did you like their addition?

Love them. Leslie's my favorite, but I also really like Captain Jim, Miss Cornelia, Susan's pretty awesome, etc etc.

I say Leslie's my favorite because although she's the character who could most easily be considered a "Mary Sue" (God I hate that label) I think LMM does a good job considering what that amount of tragedy and suffering would actually DO to someone. Leslie's beautiful and intelligent, yeah, but she's also (understandably) bitter and suspicious and brooding at times, and I like that her issues DO impact her friendship with Anne, that there's resentment there that she has to overcome. (I also like that Anne shows WHY she's such a good friend, by understanding Leslie's problems and not getting hurt by it.) I just think the entire storyline there is very well-done, and I'm glad she gets a happy ending with Owen.

(It's weird, I want to add, reading this book, when it's clear that Leslie's marriage with Dick Moore was CLEARLY abusive, so the idea that had it really been Dick having that operation, Leslie would have stayed with him regardless...um, what? I get that divorce isn't exactly okay in this time period, but of ALL THE TIMES for it to be justified!)

3. What do you think of Gilbert in this book? Is there finally enough Gilbert for you? Do you like seeing what happens after the main couple gets married?

GILBERT IS AWESOME YO. Hee, I love him in this, I love seeing him and Anne TOGETHER as a couple.

4. Which love story did you prefer - Captain Jim and lost Margaret? Leslie and Owen? Cornelia and Marshall Elliott? Anne and Gilbert?

It's probably a tie between Leslie and Owen and Anne and Gilbert for me, although Cornelia and Marshall Elliott is pretty hilarious later on.

5. Is Cornelia a feminist ("Now you know, Anne, I always take the ground that us women ought to stand by each other.") or just sexist ("We've got enough to endure at the hands of the men, the Lord knows")?

I think Cornelia is...complicated, heh. I don't know if I'd call her an actual FEMINIST, because she's being played for laughs, but I do like her poking and grumbling about the power difference between men and women in society.

6. "Some people might think that a Redmond B.A., whom editors were beginning to honor, was 'wasted' as the wife of a struggling country doctor in the rural community of Four Winds." Do you think Anne is wasted as a housewife?

Not at all. I think it's clear that Anne is HAPPY in her life, that it's the one she chose--as her response to Gilbert shows us--and just because married women often didn't have the same opportunities as married men, that doesn't invalidate her choice to have a family with Gilbert at all.

7. Imagine you don't know how "Dick's" operation turns out. Do you think Gilbert should have told Leslie about the operation?

Honestly? I don't know. I get the ethics of the situation that Gilbert and Captain Jim are talking about, but the concept of the real Dick returning only to abuse Leslie again...yeah. No. I'd feel better about it if we were assured that should that happen, Leslie would leave.

8. "But there was something in the smile that had never been in Anne's smile before and would never be absent from it again." How terrible is that? How much did you cry at Joyce's story? Be honest.

Aw man, that broke my heart reading it the first time. For Gilbert to be the first to realize...OW.

9. Canadian readers: how annoyed are you that the Blythes are intensely Conservative? (By the way, even if it later messes with the Rilla of Ingleside timeline, it seems the election depicted in this book is Sir Wilfrid Laurier's, after 18 years of Conservative governments.)

I'm NOT Canadian, but I'd actually be really interested in the answer here?

empressearwig May 15 2011, 16:27:40 UTC

That they're together and happy and just, live, is my favorite thing of all about this series, I think. Interesting stuff happens after people get together! I'm so glad that we get to see it, too.

myr_soleil May 16 2011, 00:55:34 UTC

Although in a way after this book the interesting stuff doesn't really happen to them. I always felt like their relationship could have been explored even more. Sometimes I wonder if it isn't like that just because LMM was so unhappy in her marriage she wasn't really sure what kind of exciting married-life things there could be.

empressearwig May 16 2011, 01:27:43 UTC

True, the focus does shift pretty heavily to the kids after this book. And I don't necessarily mind, because I love the kids, but yeah, I could have used more about them. (Also, fic about their second honeymoon in Europe? Why doesn't that exist?)

katayla May 15 2011, 17:35:13 UTC

h_loquacious May 15 2011, 19:44:54 UTC

(It's weird, I want to add, reading this book, when it's clear that Leslie's marriage with Dick Moore was CLEARLY abusive, so the idea that had it really been Dick having that operation, Leslie would have stayed with him regardless...um, what? I get that divorce isn't exactly okay in this time period, but of ALL THE TIMES for it to be justified!)

My suspicion is that it's not even about being justified, because I'm not even sure how possible it would have been. I'm going off what I know from other books. Not sure if you've read a Tangled Web, but in it there's a similar-ish situation (not in the abusiveness, but in the sense that there is a marriage that doesn't appear to be working or valid on any level) and they always talk about how there's never been a divorce on PEI. But there have been cases of people going to the States and getting them and so they're kind of winked at. Which makes me wonder if it was even possible to get divorced on PEI at that point. If it was it was obviously ridiculously difficult. And I doubt Leslie would have even considered the whole going to States route. I'm sure you had to pay for it as well and she had no money.

So I don't know that it was really even possible. Not that she would have considered sneaking off to the States with her sense of duty.

mardia May 15 2011, 20:00:56 UTC

Oh man, I hadn't even thought about that. I've read a Tangled Web, so I know exactly what you're talking about--and that book was set, what, 30/40 years before this one? But yeah, that would be a valid reason for Leslie not to get a divorce. Even if it does suck.

h_loquacious May 15 2011, 20:09:37 UTC

I'm not sure what the time difference was, but yeah, Tangled Web was probably earlier. Though I wouldn't have thought it was that much earlier, but I really haven't thought about it and genuinely have no idea.

Either way, I still think a divorce would have been extraordinarily tricky, under any situation.

mardia May 15 2011, 20:14:09 UTC

A Tangled Web is definitely set after WWI, because Roger's a war veteran--he apparently flew planes during the war. So if divorces are that difficult then, it has to be even more so at the point of House of Dreams.

h_loquacious May 15 2011, 20:16:42 UTC

Right. I totally misread your comment. That makes far more sense. I completely forgot about Roger. It's definitely way after House of Dreams (I'm really terrible and historically placing these series in relation to each other). Making me think divorce wasn't an option. Best Leslie could have done probably was abandon her husbnad. In which case she almost certainly would have also had to move away or become a social outcast. I'm guessing.

myr_soleil May 16 2011, 01:00:28 UTC

Haha, I just added question 9 because we just had elections and the Conservatives won and people I know are pretty depressed about it. But actually like someone else mentioned I'm pretty sure the current Conservative party is very different from the one in Anne's time, so it's not like it's the same... which is what I try to tell myself, but I'm still sort of peeved! ;) Luckily Captain Jim is a liberal, and Anne decides she cares more about Jem's exploits of the day than about the Conservatives being in power, so she can't be that involved ;)

kindness_says May 27 2011, 23:13:13 UTC

Hello, it is I, your silly first-time-reading friend, come to respond late to everyone's threads (and I made my own at the bottom, of course!)!

2. I thought that women/Leslie didn't have, like, the money/status/whatever to leave their husbands? Although this wasn't quite as long ago as I always think (because I associate it with Louisa May Alcott and Laura Ingalls Wilder), I think? I want to say it must be like the 30's by now? But then I don't really know about Canada. But also idk, maybe religion plays a part, not to mention Leslie's sense of duty? / I agree that Leslie's really well done considering how she could have gone wrong. I also like when she says, she finally likes being beautiful because previously she thought it was kind of a curse and why she got stuck with Dick and stuff but now she feels like she has something to provide artistic-souled Owen? and that obviously Owen and Anne would disagree she has nothing else to provide, and I obviously disagree as well, but like...I just think that's so real.

4. Cornelia/Marshall?! Do they come back in Ingleside?! I can imagine the hilarity!!!!!!!!!!! (How old is Cornelia? How old is Marshall? I got so confused because I thought Cornelia was more like Rachel Lynde's and Marilla's age but I guess maybe she's younger than I thought? because I thought Marshall was only in his forties...)

6. I love that she does answer that question. I think I'd kind of forgotten because stupid real life, it took me ages to get through this book? but I love that that is asked and answered right inside.

8. UGH UGH UGH. Gilbertttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt =(((((((((((((

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