Dear Yuletide Writer
Dear Yuletide writer,
Edited on 21st October to fix HTML, apparently I can't use LJ-cut rights after more than 10 years on LJ. Now all my fandoms show. Last ight I had all these great ideas about what edits I should make to this letter, but now I can't remember any of them... Could be they werne't so great, of course. I did add a little bit to the ( Read more... )
Edited on 21st October to fix HTML, apparently I can't use LJ-cut rights after more than 10 years on LJ. Now all my fandoms show. Last ight I had all these great ideas about what edits I should make to this letter, but now I can't remember any of them... Could be they werne't so great, of course. I did add a little bit to the ( Read more... )
It's always so nice to find someone else who agrees with me on this. It always bothered me how she treated Dora especially, because she's just a child and doesn't get a chance to show anything of herself - she hardly has any spoken lines most of the time, we're only supposed to trust the narrator that she's so incredibly boring, and Davy's harsh treatment of her really gets downplayed because he's oh-so-mischievously-lovable. I adore L.M. Montgomery, but this has always bothered me especially because with other characters she can be so good at showing how there's a lot more to them than how it seems at first, and how incredibly complex people can be. Maybe you can kind of tell Anne of Avonlea is only her second novel and she wasn't particularly inspired to write a sequel at that point... But she didn't try to fix it in the later books either. And yeah, she can be kind of unforgiving towards anyone she has decided is not an interesting character. At least with adult/teenage characters I understand it more because they're probably inspired by someone she couldn't stand in real life and she wants to get her revenge or something. ;-)
And I read your letter and your Emily prompts are super-intriguing! Also, I'm glad to find someone else who finds Dean an interesting character without shipping him with Emily and who thinks he really does have a few lessons to learn but would still be worth writing a story about.
And yeah, Valancy's been my heroine since I read The Blue Castle some 8 years ago (for some reason I never stumbled upon it when I was younger). And I love how with her, Montgomery does show that there can be a lot to someone who first seems to be a boring quiet spinster who never breaks a rule. ;-)
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Valancy and Dora are really two sides of the same coin, aren't they? Only Dora planned her escape so neatly that none of the Cuthbert-Blythe connection ever knew there was anything to be shocked about. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
Seriously, The Blue Castle is so good, even the ridiculous ending where everything turns out to be true at once. I want to make 100 movies out of it and watch them all back to back. And it's one of the few LMM books where modernity is liberating and fun and can be negotiated on the heroine's own terms instead of being represented by unreliable ocean liners and Cousin Andrew ruining your farm. And Valancy is just the best. :D
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And ooh, I like your idea for Dora! If nobody writes me that scenario for Yuletide, maybe I'll explore the idea myself. ;-)
I think The Blue Castle gets away with the perfection of its ending more easily than many other stories would get away with such an ending, because it still has humour and Personal Growth and such in it. I kind of want to know what happens to Olive at the end of it, though - she's starting to seem decidedly peevish at the fiancé who makes her wait for so long. :-P And that's an interesting point about modernity, I hadn't even though of that in particular, but you're right that it's the only book where modernity is liberating rather than an enemy! I totally understand why LMM had an issue with the changes brought into the world (hers and the world in general) by the early 20th century and especially by the World War, but it's nice to also see the other side of the coin explored.
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