Blog
108. Against the Odds
"'You might as well move the rock of Gibraltar as attempt to change Uncle Abimelech's mind when it is once made up,' said Murray gloomily." ~ First lines of "A Patent Medicine Testimonial"
Against the Odds, L.M. Montgomery
This collection is a collection about pluck. Oh, sure it's techinically about people overcoming obstacles of one sort or another, but in the Montgomery context that means pluck. As Lou Grant might hate pluck, but I kind of love it. I think that spunky people who overcome odds in creative ways is pretty much Maud's wheelhouse, and thus, this collection is pretty fun. Plus "overcoming obstacles" is a lot more varied a subject matter than "being an orphan" so you get a lot more variety here. From "A Patent Medicine Testimonial" where a young lady gets her and a her brother an education by shaming her uncle (he's so afraid that the family name will be smeared by her testimonial that he decides to fund them as a sort of hush money) to "How We Went to the Wedding", where two girls ride a buckboard across the Canadian praries, there is a lot of fun stuff going on here.
Categories: Fiction, Re-Read, L.M. Montgomery
107. The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb
"I suppose it would be fashionable to admit to some reservations as I undertake to write the History of My Life."
The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb, by Melanie Benjamin
This is a fictionalized version of the life story of Mercy Lavinia Warren, "Mrs. Tom Thumb." It was interesting, because she had an interesting life - imagine being born as a dwarf (midget? little person? Please know that I don't mean to intend - I'm not sure what the proper term is), in the 1800's, and having to deal with that. That alone is interesting enough to be the subject of a book. And on top of that, she lived a fascinating life - becoming part of Phineas Barnum's side show, marrying his other famous dwarf, "General Tom Thumb" and seeing the world in that capacity.
Benjamin imagines Minnie as smart, capable, and wanting more - that her desire to see the world drives her into everything she does - leaving her family, her marriage with "Tom," who she sees as basically a child (and an opportunity), her drive to keep touring - even her betrayel of her simple sister (also a dwarf) who she drags into the spotlight, despite her sister's simple desires to stay home, and fear of the outside book.
It's a reasonably interesting book. I do have a hard time with these fictionalized versions of real people's lives - it seems somewhat intrusive and presumptuous to create a whole inner life for a real person who actually existed. I mean, who knows what Mercy Warren was really like, and who is Benjamin to rewrite her life according to her own whims. Why not do a "based upon" type story, rather than appropriating someone else's life? It seems, well, disrespectful. But if that doesn't bother you, it's not a bad book. And it is interesting. Who doesn't want to hear about the life of famous circus little people?
Categories: Fiction, Library Book.
106. Further Chronicles of Avonlea
"Max always blesses the animal when it is referred to; and I don't deny that things have worked together for good after all. But when I think of the anguish of mind which Ismay and I underwent on account of that abominable cat, it is not a blessing which arises uppermost in my mind." ~ First lines of "Aunt Cynthia's Persian Cat"
Further Chronicles of Avonlea, L.M. Montgomery
I do like this collection, even though its just another short story book with Avonlea and Anne sandwiched in. There are a lot of stories that you see in other forms in other collections - "The Return of Hester" is just like another ghost story in Among the Shadows, "The Education of Betty" is redone in Across the Miles, etc., but since this collection was published first (and in her lifetime, if over her objections), these are the better versions. I'm obviously running out of things to say about L.M. Montgomery short story collections, but this was a fun one to re-read.
Categories: Fiction, Re-Read, L.M. Montgomery Project
105. Christmas With Anne
]
"Matthew was having a bad time of it." ~ First line of "Matthew Insists on Puffed Sleeves"
Christmas with Anne, and other Holiday Stories, L.M. Montgomery
Another posthumous collections, this one, of course, a collection of Christmas stories, including Christmas related excerpts from the Anne books (Green Gables - puffed sleeves, sob, and Windy Poplars - Katharine Brooks blooms). The stuff from the Anne books is great - Anne's first beautiful dress and Katharine Brooks's reawakening are two of the best stories from the series, and it makes me wonder why she didn't write more Christmas stuff into her various books. The rest of the stories are along the lines of the other stories that Wilmshurst has dug up for her subject matter collections. A little preachy (particularly with this collection, unsurprising given the Christmas aspect), but sweet.
Categories: Fiction, Re-Read, L.M. Montgomery Project
104. Dear Enemy
"Dear Judy - Your letter is here. I have read it twice, and with amazement."
Dear Enemy, Jean Webster
Dear Enemy is the sequel to Daddy Long Legs, and it is even better. Daddy Long Legs is about an orphan girl who goes to college, but Dear Enemy is about a college girl who goes to an orphanage. Or rather, it's about Judy's college roomate, Sallie McBride, who is living a post-graduate life as a debutante (in Worcester, Ma, which make me smile, having briefly lived in Worcester, a most un-deb place), when Judy (and her rich husband) convince her to put her brain to work and go run the John Grier Home, the orphanage that Judy grew up in. It's a daunting task - the Home is a grim and foreboding place, and the orphans need a lot of love and care. Sallie promises to do it until they find someone else, and she can go back to a life of frivolity, but she finds herself being drawn in by the problems of the place, and a life of value, and, oh, yes, a BOY. Well, a man, but you get the picture.
I lurve this book. It's also epistolary, and I love how, because of that, we figure out things as Sallie does. And, since there is no (GLARINGLY OBVIOUS) secret in this book, we can just enjoy watching her growth. I like these books so much, I have decided that I need to find more Webster. Probably not in print - but maybe on Project Gutenberg?? According to the author bio on my Dell Yearling Copy (and we do need to talk about Dell Yearling books sometime soon), Webster 1) was Mark Twain's cousin, and 2) wrote a book called When Patty Went to College, based on her Vasser classmate, the poet Adelaide Crapsey - how could we not want to read something about a woman named Crapsey?
Categories: Fiction, Re-Read, YA.
103. At the Altar
"I knew quite well why Father sent me to Prince Edward Island to visit Aunt Philippa that summer." ~ First line of "Aunt Phillipa and the Men"
At the Altar, L.M. Montgomery
Well, this too is a subject matter collection of stories, but whether its because I'm an old romantic and thus a a softy, or whether she was an old romantic so the stories are better, I love this one. The theme, obviously is marriage, and weddings, and we have stories ranging from elopements, to estranged couples reuniting. We even have a romance on the Western plains! Of course, it's all typical Montgomery, and you can pluck elements from the stories and plug them back into the novels (First and Second Peter, for one, which seem to be the only cat names she can ever think of!), but my goodness what fun.
Categories: Fiction, Re-Read, L.M. Montgomery Project
102. Daddy-Long-Legs
"The first Wednesday in every month was a Perfectly Awful Day - a day to be awaited with dread, endured with courage, and forgotten with haste."
Daddy-Long-Legs, Jean Webster
If you are, like me, the kind of girl who grew up with Anne, and Laura, and Besty (and Tacy and Tib!), and Jo (and let's face it, you probably are - if you have put up with this blog in the past few weeks, where it has basically been all-Montgomery, all the time), and there is a chance you have not met Judy Abbott (born Jerusha Abbott, the poor dear), please do yourself a favor, shut down your computer, open up your kindle (or go to the library!) and get yourself a copy of Daddy-Long-Legs. Judy belongs in the pantheon.
So, the story is about Judy - an orphan at the dire John Grier home, who is given the chance to go to college by a mysterious benefactor. He doesn't want to be known, going only as "Mr. Smith", but Judy (who is supposed write him a letter once a term, but ends up writing him much, much more often - and the letters form the book), re-christens him Daddy-Long-Legs. And the book is a charming story of what it was like for a girl to go college at the turn of the century (ish), and what it's like for an orphan to enter the world of "normal" girls, and what it's like for a girl to become a writer, and, of course a love story. And, yes, the denoument is a little obvious, but I don't think we are supposed to be surprise at who Daddy Long Legs turns out to be - only Judy is. I love this book - I've read it so much that my copy is all wrinkled and weird (I think it might also have been dropped in the tub), and seriously, do read it. It's just great.
Categories: Fiction, Re-Read
101 & 101. Pat of Silver Bush & Mistress Pat
"Oh, oh, and I think I'll soon have to be doing some rooting in the parsley bed," said Judy Plum, as she began to cut Winnie's red crepe dress into strips suitable for "hooking." ~ First line of Pat of Silver Bush
Pat of Silver Bush & Mistress Pat, by L.M. Montgomery
Well, I am always torn about the Pat books. Because there is some great stuff her. Judy Plum, the Gardiner's maid (but really, a member of her family) is one of the great characters Montgomery ever created. Came over from Ireland as a young girl (where she worked in a castle!) speaks in a brogue (without having the dialect drive me crazy - itself a feat), full of stories of the oulde country, and set in her ways, and just a delight. And Jingle! Oh, Jingle (aka Hilary Gordon) is one of the great Montgomery hero. He's no blank slate a la Teddy Kent - but rather, from his first appearance, with his dog, McGinty, you adore him (and you loathe the mother who deserted him - Jesus, Maud, break our hearts, why don't you). And there are great stories in the books - happy and sad, and it has that old Montgomery charm.
The problem, of course, is PAT. My god, Pat is such a drip. She is so obsessed with her home, Silver Bush, and with things staying just as they always have been, that she almost ruins her life. I understand that Silver Bush was a beautiful farm, and that she loved every sprig of grass, but the girl almost had a heart attack if someone cut down a tree - or her uncle shaved his beard. That seems unhinged. I mean, (SPOILER) Montgomery had to burn the damn house down to get her to finally move on with Jingle. I guess, maybe there really are people like that, but it's very, very hard to relate to. In fact, my instinctual annoyance with Pat is such that, in the end, I actually found myself thinking the books were better than I remembered - because in my aggravation with Pat I'd forgetten the other good stuff. And there is good stuff, but my lord, Pat needed to get a grip.
Categories: Fiction, Re-Read, L.M. Montgomery Project
99. Summer Switch
Summer Switch, Mary Rodgers
This is the sequel to Freaky Friday, and while it isn't as famous, it is just as good in the same very funny/cool 1970's way (though this was actually published in 1982, so shows what I know!). In this one, Annabel's brother Ben (aka Ape Face) switches places with their dad, Bill. Unlike Freaky Friday, which was the Annabel show, here the chapters alternate between Ben and Bill's point of view, so we see the 13 year old trying to make it as a Hollywood exec, and the 40 year old reliving his past at Camp Soonawissakit. It's just a gem of a book, as the two learn to understand themselves and each other better, while still being very, very funny. It's worth seeking out alone for the scene when Bill (in Ben's body) and his friend Duck Levine try to escape camp and pretend to be CB truckers.
Categories: Fiction, YA, Re-Read
98. The Doctor's Sweetheart
"Emily Fair got out of Hiriam Jameson's wagon at the gate." ~ First line of "Emily's Husband"
The Doctor's Sweetheart and Other Stories, L.M. Montgomery
Another collection of short stories. This one was collected in the 1970's, though, and unlike our subject matter ones, it's more of a "best-of" collection. All the stories are pretty good, is what I'm saying (my only quibble is with the title story, and that only because is so, so similar to a story in either Chronicles of Avonlea or Further Chronicles that I'm surprised the editor couldn't come up with something else.). I particularly liked the story I quote above,* in which Emily and Stephen Fair's marriage is torn apart by her jealous sister and his poisonous mother. Obviously this is a theme she played with again in Jane of Lantern Hill, but she's so good at it. Montgomery, probably because of her sad upbringing, was obviously very familiar with the ways that family members can cut each other down. I hope that in her own life she was able to triumph over petty ugliness the way her characters were able to (though from reading her journals I suspect she was not). Anyway, if you are causally interested in Montgomery, this is a pretty good collection, to get a feel for her stories, but not have to read, oh 15 stories in a row about the sea.
Categories: Fiction, Re-Read, L.M. Montgomery Project
* In fact, I liked enough that I re-read it while I was blogging about this book!