|
As I know I said when this first came up, this was a childhood favorite of mine; I read it over and over and had it virtually memorized. I still retain huge chunks of the text.
I’ve found with some childhood favorites, the love remains for always. Even though as an adult reader I see the flaws, I can reread it with dual eyes, both critical eyes and the eyes of love, and it’s fun. Love does not alter. However, what I feared with Anne turned out to be true; a good memory collapsed under the weight of the reread.
I agree with those who found Anne flatly unbelievable. She’s appealing when we meet her, weird, fearful and defiant, but once we know her backstory, she’s not credible. It is tempting to like her because despite all her hardships, she has remained strong and true to her inherent sweetness, but it’s too much to swallow. Worse, it seems bolstered by turn of the last century notions of class, ethnicity and eugenics. Anne is what she is because her parents were nice people, Manila thinks. None of those nasty scrubwoman genes; nature conquers nurture.
I also don’t think the book is well-written. As noted by victoria, it’s a series of vignettes with no plot at all. There’s a lot of unrelated funny business and then hey, presto! Anne’s grown up! In fact, Manila has more of a character arc than Anne. It’s also overwritten; Montgomery has a flare for description, but I got tired of the purple prose and purple sunsets and I found myself skimming the nature bits. To an extent I know that was the taste of the time, but it’s a reason I think the book is dated and not great.
I found the book more interesting as a text than as a story, but that way love no longer remains and I’ve been thinking about it as an example of a genre; more later. I’ll add that I think my distaste is enhanced in that having read all the books (over and over) and knowing how Montgomery chooses to continue Anne’s story is deeply unsatisfying; there’s no way to make Anne an early feminist icon. That defiant child is beaten down into a very typical idealized self-sacrificing woman.
|