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Old 02-19-2020, 06:39 PM   #56
gmw
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Quote:
Originally Posted by issybird View Post
Does anyone else think that Anne and her bosom friend, Diana, don’t have a lot in common? When we first meet her, Diana’s reading a book, but I think that’s the last time we see her engaged in an intellectual pursuit. Anne is even privately critical of Diana’s choice of the name Birch Path, which is not very nice of her. While I agree that Birch Path tends toward the unimaginative, in fact I vastly prefer it to “Lake of Shining Waters” and “White Way of Delight.”

One gets the sense that other than Gilbert, Anne doesn’t meet her intellectual equals until she gets to Queen’s.
The names, for me, were yet another aspect of this story that made it seem so obviously an adult trying to be child-like. These names seemed all too literal to be the mark of an imaginative child.

I wondered whether the author changed her mind about Diana, perhaps thinking that at first she would be difficult as the "bosom" friend that Anne sought. And I still think it's a little open to interpretation given Anne's inclination for dramatics: was the friendship really so close, or was it all part of a dramatic pretence by Anne that became a habit?

As for intellectual equals, for much of the book Anne didn't really seem like a studious child except as we are explicitly told, and knuckling down to study seemed at odds with her easily distracted nature in other things - more in line with an adult trying to impart a good moral to young readers than a reflection of the character. Anne's behaviour seemed more to suggest a future as an actress rather than a scholar.
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