This is a retooled rendition of the review I originally wrote for my other book blog, Pseudo-Intellectual Reviews, which I have currently discontinued to focus on this more pleasant project. I purchased a complete set of the Anne books on Ebay and intend to work through them in a timely manner. Seven books in twelve months should be feasible. I’m looking forward to it.

Title: Anne of Green Gables (Anne Novels #1)
Author: L.M. Montgomery (1874-1942)
Original Publication Date: 1908
Edition: Modern Library Classics (2008), 287 pages
Genre: Coming-of-Age.
Ages: 9-16
First Sentence: Mrs. Rachel Lynde lived just where the Avonlea main road dipped down into a little hollow, fringed with alders and ladies’ eardrops and traversed by a brook that had its source away back in the woods of the old Cuthbert place; it was reputed to be an intricate, headlong brook in its earlier course through those woods, with dark secrets of pool and cascade; but by the time it reached Lynde’s Hollow it was a quiet, well-conducted little stream, for not even a brook could run past Mrs. Rachel Lynde’s door without due regard for decency and decorum; it probably was conscious that Mrs. Rachel was sitting at her window, keeping a sharp eye on everything that passed, from brooks and children up, and that if she noticed anything odd or out of place she would never rest until she had ferreted out the whys and wherefores thereof.

The Cuthberts of Green Gables, an unmarried brother and sister, send away for an orphan boy to help them on the farm and receive an eleven year old girl by mistake. Unable to bring themselves to send Anne Shirley back to the orphanage they set themselves the task of bringing her up properly. In return the lovable orphan warms their hearts and charms the whole town. However, the plot soon ceases and is replaced by life in all its vagaries as the chapters follow the incidents of Anne’s youth: from being afraid of a haunted wood to getting her best friend drunk (quite by accident) to discovering a passion for schooling and finally to death and grieving. And Anne grows up.

I never read Anne of Green Gables when I was little (my orphan of choice was Sara Crewe) but reading it as an adult its appeal is obvious. Imaginative children would find it easy to identify with Anne, as she has enough flaws to balance out as a relatable character: a girl whose imagination preserves her soul in dreadful circumstances and also gets her into ridiculous scrapes; who only gets out of said scrapes by her good character (apologising when she’s wrong and standing up for herself when maligned). She’s charming, funny, hard-working, honest and clever – a role model, in other words, but never a goody-two-shoes.

She nearly drowns reinacting the Lady of Shalott, she appalls surrounding adults with her temper and she has a disastrous tendency to drift off at critical household moments leaving ruined dinners in her wake (oh, how ruefully I sympathized). Marilla waits patiently for each new disaster to unfold and after a while can even sense when Anne’s getting overdue for one. Anne is not an easy child to raise and that keeps the novel grounded.

A strong secondary appeal is L.M. Montgomery’s romantic depiction of Avonlea, a rural paradise in a corner of Prince Edward Island where everyone knows everybody else, the four seasons march in beautiful parade and the hard shells of the stuffiest individuals can be melted away by an open-hearted little girl. The novel is almost extravagantly European in its culture and it was an absolute dream for me to find the children of Avonlea welcoming spring by gathering mayflowers and singing as they march down the country lanes. Everyone is Christian (the arrival of a new minister is a great local event) and yet the children, especially Anne, have something pagan about their outdoor roving and wreathing:

 All the boys and some of the girls went to Mr. Bell’s spruce grove as usual, fully intending to stay only long enough to “pick a chew.” But spruce groves are seductive and yellow nuts of gum beguiling; they picked and loitered and strayed; and as usual the first thing that recalled them to a sense of the flight of time was Jimmy Glover shouting from the top of a patriarchal old spruce, “Master’s coming.”
 The girls, who were on the ground, started first and managed to reach the schoolhouse in time but without a second to spare. The boys, who had to wriggle hastily down from the trees, were later; and Anne, who had not been picking gum at all but was wandering happily in the far end of the grove, waist deep among the bracken, singing softly to herself, with a wreath of rice lilies on her hair as if she were some wild divinity of the shadowy places, was latest of all. Anne could run like a deer, however; run she did with the impish result that she overtook the boys at the door and was swept into the schoolhouse among them just as Mr. Phillips was in the act of hanging up his hat.

It is a beautifully written scene. The pastoral joys of Avonlea are pure and unspoiled but Montgomery tempers the considerable sweetness with strong doses of narrative sarcasm and realism – there are natural results to letting the children run wild, as they play ‘dare’ so vociferously that someone finally lands on a broken ankle (no surprise who). While the inevitability of death is depicted in the final chapters of the novel, most other misfortunes are comical or else relegated to Anne’s mostly unspoken past – this is above all a cheerful book, something which the current Anne with an E Netflix series has stridently corrected for. Early viewers were dismayed by the darkness of the end product but I don’t think the creators of the show had much choice – after all, a faithful adaptation would have meant an idyllic portrayal of a white Christian community being shown to kids, so a violent purge of the original content was really their only option.

Then there are the morals. Most of Anne’s choices and Marilla’s teachings are at odds with the advice given to droves of modern girls. Case in point: Anne’s own identity. Anne, like many girls her age, is terribly self-conscious. She hates her red hair and wishes she had raven tresses and a dramatic, elegant name like Cordelia to go along with them. However, Anne’s reinvention of herself is to learn to love being Anne of Green Gables, leaving Cordelia to the realm of make-believe. She does purchase hair dye from a passing peddler – hoping for black hair, it instead turns a hideous bronzy green that won’t wash out. Marilla has to hack it all off while chiding Anne over her vanity and the lesson is learned: “I never thought I was vain about my hair, of all things, but now I know I was, in spite of its being red, because it was so long and thick and curly.” Anne learns to appreciate her features in the future – it’s a genuinely good example of much-heralded “body positivity” for a culture that can now peddle its green hair dye openly.

Consider also the layers of meaning to Marilla and Matthew deciding to keep Anne. Anne does not ever attempt to be the farm boy they sent for and needed, because she isn’t a boy. Marilla doesn’t require any help around the house either, so the girl is given no outlet to “earn” her keep. On the other hand, the Cuthberts never officially adopt Anne – though they grow to love her, neither of them wants to become a parent at the outset. Marilla expects a certain standard of behaviour from Anne but that’s as far as her wants go. Anne is therefore established as superfluous to the Cuthbert’s well-ordered needs and yet they might be good for her and so she stays. They sacrifice for her sake.

And then comes the end of the novel. Spoilers ahead.

Anne has won a coveted scholarship and is going away to college, “living the dream,” when Matthew tragically passes away. Marilla, whose eyesight is failing, cannot afford to maintain Green Gables and so Anne resolves to postpone higher education and become a local schoolteacher instead. “I’m just as ambitious as ever. Only, I’ve changed the object of my ambitions.” She chooses home and family over career, directly foreshadowing her future (depicted in the later sequels) as a married mother of six and dismaying some modern readers in the process. “Anne should never have grown up to become a conformist” says Jack Zipes in his introduction to the Modern Library edition, strongly implying she shouldn’t have grown up at all. What was she expected to do in this situation? Peck Marilla on the cheek as she dropped her off at a nursing home? “Bye, you’ll literally never see me again!” Would that have made her a greater heroine?

Zipes also quotes another children’s scholar, Perry Nodelman, who says that in the wholesome orphan stories of yore “childhood never really ends, the most childlike children never really grow up, and even terminally mature people can become childlike again. It is the secret desire of grownups to be children again that makes these novels so appealing to grown-ups, and it may be the secret desire of children to never grow up that makes these novels appealing to them.” That’s a lot of secret desires right there (are you sure you’re not projecting, Perry?). If children don’t want to grow up why do they consistently prefer their heroes to be older than themselves? You would think that there would be far more stories like Peter Pan if Nodelman’s theory was correct but in fact immortal children are vastly outnumbered by the other kind. And doesn’t becoming an orphan in fact destroy childhood in these stories, a la Sara Crewe in the attic or Harry Potter under the stairs? Why do the Pevensies get shut out of Narnia? Why does Travis shoot Old Yeller? For the same reason that Anne gives up her hard-won scholarship. Good children’s literature is about growing up, about surviving, because childhood is supposed to end. It has to. Anne of Green Gables is a particularly affectionate roadmap to that process, in all its sweetness and melancholy.

And so the Parental Guide.

Violence: Matthew dies of a heart attack at the close of the novel, and although it is lightly foreshadowed it may come as a bit of a shock considering how rosy the rest of the book is. Anne’s dismal past is handled very circumspectly and the dare game culminating in a broken ankle is as “violent” as the story gets.

Values: Aside from those I singled out earlier, Anne of Green Gables is a solidly Christian novel. Anne arrives at Green Gables and is first of all taught to pray and attend Sunday school. Marilla declares “she’s next door to a perfect heathen,” and that is a very good assessment. Although she is irreverent at times her questioning never leads her anywhere near atheism, and as she gains a sense of belonging in her community, she also sheds her early ignorance of Christianity, the symbol of her previous neglect. It’s very nicely done.

There’s a strong sense throughout the book of Canadian identity and local pride in Avonlea. Naturally there is no diversity to be seen in such a time and place (another thing Anne with an E has “fixed,” of course). Prince Edward Island is so thoroughly sequestered from the world that Marilla shudders even at the thought of acquiring a British orphan: “Give me a native born at least. There’ll be a risk, no matter who we get. But I’ll feel easier in my mind and sleep sounder at nights if we get a born Canadian.”

Role Models: Montgomery gives Anne a number of excellent role models as she matures, each with their own gifts. Marilla is my favorite, with her sense of justice and well-bestowed sarcasm. There is also the schoolteacher Miss Stacy, who holds nature studies and inspires her students. Meanwhile, Mrs. Allen the minister’s wife shows Anne that religion can be a “cheerful thing” and even Mrs. Lynde the town gossip has plentiful good advice and a kindly, if somewhat officious heart. Anne is, of course, a wonderful example for all the reasons earlier mentioned.

The men are somewhat more flawed characters. Matthew shuns difficult decision-making and has no financial acumen but he has a good heart and won’t back down from his principles. Many of the most heartwarming moments in the novel stem from his quiet understanding of Anne. Gilbert Blythe starts out as an obnoxious classmate but he grows up to be quite the gentleman and scholar, and is the soul of chivalry when Anne needs it most. I look forward to reading of their future interactions.

Educational Properties: In all honesty, I drew a complete blank on this one. It could expand everything from the child’s vocabulary and reading material to his or her soul but to me, Anne of Green Gables is really a perfect “delight read.” It’s a book to read aloud or independently and to savour. Obviously, there is a great deal of social and historical detail one could mine from this book (and it has been annotated before), but it almost seems contrary to the spirit of the work to make too much of it.

End of Parental Guide.

Anne of Green Gables would make a lovely read-aloud to share with your children. It’s sweet, funny, wise and beautifully written. I enjoyed it thoroughly and am very keen on the sequels, though also a little nervous. How do they hold up? Also, while I’m maxed out on L.M. Montgomery for the upcoming year, which of her non-Anne books should I keep an eye out for in future?

Up Next: A boy’s boating adventure from the 1960s, courtesy of another respected Canadian writer, Farley Mowat.