Previously: Anne of Green Gables. She’s a little older now, and responsible for teaching a classroom of small children, but it hasn’t helped much.
*
“It was full of little children and laughter and songs; and now it is empty, and nothing ever wanders through it but the wind. How lonely and sorrowful it must feel! Perhaps they all come back on moonlit nights…the ghosts of the little children of long ago and the roses and the songs…and for a little while the old house can dream it is young and joyous again.”
*
“I know now just how people feel who are being led to execution.”
*
“I imagined out a most interesting dialogue between the asters and the sweet peas and the wild canaries in the lilac bush and the guardian spirit of the garden.”
*
“Oh, this is a day left over from Eden, isn’t it, Diana? The air has magic in it. Look at the purple in the cup of that harvest valley, Diana. And oh, do smell the dying fir! It’s coming up from that little sunny hollow where Mr Eben Wright has been cutting fence poles. Bliss is it on such a day to be alive; but to smell dying fir is very heaven. That’s two thirds Wordsworth and one third Anne Shirley. It doesn’t seem possible that there should be dying fir in heaven, does it? And yet it doesn’t seem to me that heaven would be quite perfect if you couldn’t get a whiff of dead fir as you went through its woods. Perhaps we’ll have the odor there without the death. Yes, I think that will be the way. That delicious aroma must be the souls of the firs…and of course it will be just souls in heaven.”
*
“November is usually such a disagreeable month…as if the year had suddenly found out she was growing old and could do nothing but weep and fret over it. This year is growing old gracefully…just like a stately old lady who knows she can be charming even with gray hair and wrinkles.”
*
“We’ll all four start off to the woods and spend a golden day making the acquaintance of the spring. We none of us really know her yet, but we’ll meet her back there as we never can anywhere else. I want to explore all those fields and lonely places anyhow. I have a conviction that there are scores of beautiful nooks there that have never really been seen although they might have been looked at. We’ll make friends with wind and sky and sun, and bring home the spring in our hearts.”
*
“This is where the bad wood elves dwell. They are impish and malicious but they can’t harm us, because they are not allowed to do evil in the spring. There was one peeping at us around that old twisted fir; and didn’t you see a group of them on that big freckly toadstool we just passed? The good fairies always swell in the sunshiny places.”
*
“I like to fancy souls as being made of light. And some are all shot through with rosy stains and quivers…and some have a soft glitter like moonlight on the sea…and some are pale and transparent like mist at dawn.”
*
“How quiet the woods are today…not a murmur except that soft wind purring in the treetops! It sounds like surf on a faraway shore. How dear the woods are! You beautiful trees! I love every one of you as a friend.”
(Anne paused to throw her arm about a slim young birch and kiss its cream-white trunk.)
*
“You don’t know what splendid adventures I have for a little while after I go to bed in the east gable every night.”
*
“That white birch you caught me kissing is a sister of mine. The only difference is, she’s a tree and I’m a girl, but that’s no real difference. Where are you going, Diana?”
*
“I had had such a lonely, starved heart all through my childhood. I’m just beginning to realize how starved and lonely it really was. Nobody cared anything for me or wanted to be bothered with me. I should have been miserable if it hadn’t been for that strange little dream-life of mine, wherein I imagined all the friends and love I craved. But when I came to Green Gables everything was changed. And then I met you. You don’t know what your friendship meant to me. I want to thank you here and now, dear, for the warm and true affection you’ve always given me.”
Tags: anne and these birch trees need to get a room already, anne of avonlea, anne of green gables, books, buzzfeed, happy birthday nozlee, i love her don’t worry, lucy maud montgomery, oh this is fun
Perfection. Will you do all the Anne books? And then Emily of New Moon? Aaahhhhh, no wonder I was such a weird little kid 😀
Oh god yes, Emily. Please, do Emily!
I desperately want Texts from Emily of New Moon.
THIS FOREVER
OMG YES. Ilse, too.
Can’t do any more new Texts Froms til the book comes out!
Only if we then get a lovely femmeslash Friday ALL ABOUT how Pat Montgomery was clearly in love with Bets and SO WAS SPORT or whatever his name was and it was a shame that she died and they couldn’t have a nice poly family, though frankly it’s unlikely that Pat ever thought of Sport that way, as she never had any romance-leanings except out of social pressure (it’s so obvious in Mistress Pat, i mean really).
But mostly Judy is the greatest of the weird fairy women, she’s like Anne but so much better with her Scottish tales and also the cats.
My vegetable passion for birch trees was definitely 75% inspired by Anne Shirley. My reincarnated dryad soul and hers are linked in eternity- it’s just that nobody else UNDERSTANDS.
I do! I understand, elven sister! We are KINDRED SPIRITS.
When I was a kid, my extended family summered at a cabin on Lake Michigan, and one year there was a kind of war/standoff between me & one cousin vs. my brother & the other cousin, and we had competing tree forts. Theirs was named something like “Strikeforce” or “Deathtree” and I made my (male) cousin name ours “Dryad’s Dwelling”. COWER YE AT THE MIGHT OF DRYAD’S DWELLING.
Delightful GIF selection!!
So I never actually read these books, but reading this I was reflecting on how similar I am to her. Lots of terrible idealistic rambling that makes people roll their eyes at me going on in my life. I googled it and HuffPo says Anne’s MBTI is INFP. Which is kind of interesting! I’m an ENFP. And I’m really into fictional characters and MBTI, so I do this kind of pointless activity a lot.
Idk I’m bored at work you guys.
I especially like the Lucy gif because Diana had black hair and I’d like to imagine that, even though LMM never mentioned it, occasionally she got to look like that while Anne was going on.
I’m 99% sure she did. But not as much as Jane Andrews.
“Yes Anne the trees and the sunset and all, it’s beautiful, but your sandwiches are getting smushed–” “SANDWICHES WILL NOT FEED MY SOUL LIKE THE STARS COMING OUT WILL” “Okay, yes, but WE want to eat them, so sit down and shut up. Please.”
I…I know this was 69 weeks ago, but I only just saw it! And recalled that along with the smushed sandwiches, this picnic featured lady-fingers. I am Indian, and this book was my first exposure to the term “lady-fingers” in this context, and I was very puzzled at the time as to why Anne et al would be so excited about okra. It seemed about on par with naming the pond surrounded by birches, “Birch Pond”.
Who is the “yeah, great” gif guy? Because I’m totally practicing that delivery until I’ve got it down (it would have really come in handy earlier this morning during our company meeting).
That would be Rob Lowe. And now I feel positively ANCIENT. Good lord.
Thank you!
Don’t feel ancient; my mental image of him is firmly stuck in the 1980s, which is why I didn’t recognize him.
ROB LOWE. ImissyouinTheWestWing, Rob.
I don’t care what Huffpo says. Anne is a complete extrovert, with an “E”!
Awwwwwww and it ends with a hug as every Anne thing should.
Hopefully this series will be continued because I totally want to party with college Anne. And by party I mean discuss unrealistic expectations about men and live in housing that gives us unrealistic expectations for future life. And cut down all those bitches who try to take her medal.
My best friend, at 28 is still like this and it is more endearing than it sounds: “How dear the woods are! You beautiful trees! I love every one of you as a friend.”
I read this as “cut down those birches that tried to take her medal” and was concerned for the trees.
Just as a friend, though
The window where I can read these books and feel real affection for them has long passed, I think.
I have a deep and abiding love for all these books, but Anne of Avonlea was the one where Anne was most deeply into her flowers-and-moonshine phase. I attribute this to teenagerhood. By Anne of the Island she had some friends who would give her serious side-eye for that shit.
Yeah, Phil would be all “Yes Anne, the trees are all well and good but it’s time to talk about boys now.”
Show of hands, who else around here has literally hugged trees?
Very carefully, after the first time I got pine sap all over my shirt.
No really, I have.
I will always ramble about how much I love trees when I’m around trees or see stuff with trees on it. I think it might go back to this hollowed out tree in the park I used to play in as a child, I would literally sit inside of it for what seemed like hours. And we had a giant tree stump almost as tall as our house in our backyard with berry bushes growing out of it and I used to climb it like a mountain.
TREES.
I high-five the branches of the sidewalk trees when I’m walking to work. I refuse to be ashamed.
Janie_S, you’re my hero. <3
There may be copies of a couple of my poems about my favorite trees somewhere in the stack of my juvenalia writing.
I may be able to recite a couple of lines still.
No one will ever know.
I kissed a tree at church camp.
(After completing one of the high ropes challenges people usually hugged the tree. I kissed it because I am a rebel.)
LYLAS TREES
Oh Anne, such a manic pixie dream girl. This list explains why I am still the most socially awkward ever.
When I see all the purple prose collected together I ask myself, whyyyy am I writing a thesis about LMM’s nature description, again? Right. Student loans.
ooooh interesting, what’s your main argument?
Thanks for your interest! I’m actually in landscape architecture, so I am suggesting that there is an approach that land archs can take when they are designing for literary landscapes, and I’m using L.M. Montgomery as a test subject, and talking about how influential her nature description can be to her readers, and how we can design landscapes that will fulfill their expectations but also be historically accurate! I’ve been working on it FOREVER, but hopefully I can finish it before they make me flunk out.
Anne would totally be that “Free Spirit” girl on the new Bachelor AMIRITE
……except I am the only person here who watches The Bachelor, probably, ok I’ll go.
I saw a thing about The Bachelor, and how the next one is a very big deal because he’s Latino, but he looks EXACTLY LIKE EVERY OTHER BACHELOR THAT I HAVE SEEN ON THAT SHOW.
Here ends everything I know about The Bachelor.
They’re all generally Very Handsome and Very Forgettable. This is true. I’m so embarrassed that I watch the show but whatever, it goes great with merlot
I have a vague image of a chiseled jawline and some scruff. Probably Piercing Blue Eyes. Ballpark?
Bingo. This one has brown hair because he’s LATINO OMG, but a lot of the others have been, like, Midwestern golden-brown colored all over. They all tend to also be Mildly to Rather Dumb.
This is why The Bachelorette is nearly impossible for me to watch. I cannot tell any of the suitors apart.
I don’t watch The Bachelor… BUT MY BOYFRIEND DOES, so I know all about “The Free Spirit.” and “The Dog Lover,” and “The Mineral Coordinator” (who got sent home probably for crying too much about her recently terminated engagement.) I am personally rooting for “The Opera Singer Who’s Just Not That Into Juan Pablo.”
Seriously though, how eye-roll inducing was it to have all of those girls walking up and saying, “Hola, Juan Pablo,” like, “wink, wink, nudge, nudge, I ~speak your native tongue~.” I loved when one girl said, “I’m sorry, I don’t speak any Spanish,” and he said, “it’s ok, I SPEAK ENGLISH.”
Your boyfriend is AWESOME. You both are invited over for my next viewing party if you bring wine.
And yeah, I’m so excited for the blatant xenophobia/clumsy handling of Juan Pablo’s language skills this season, it’ll be WONDERFUL.
i found anne so insufferable at first but gradually warmed up to her (& that’s why the last gif is so perfect). green gables eventually became one of my childhood favorites but only after much eye-rolling at anne
Is anyone else still mildly obsessed with Echo Lodge? It’s one of my favorite places in all of literature. I want to retire there.
I want to retire to Lantern Hill, or possibly Barney’s island in Muskoka, depending on how crotchety I feel by then.
But while I am a young person I want to live in the King family house with the orchard. Or possibly Ingleside. /nerd
BARNEY’S ISLAND IN MUSKOKA OR GTFO
YES YES YES EVERYTHING ABOUT THAT BOOK
OMG YES with a rakish husband and a green dress and two cats
Lantern Hill is definitely the place I want to go, though Ingleside always sounds nice and cozy. But Lantern Hill just sounds delightful!
That book is my favourite. Jane is the best.
I LOVE Lantern Hill, but sometimes Jane crosses over a little too far into wish-fulfillment territory for me. (A lion?) Other than that….perfect.
It was a tame lion, though. Unlike other lions of note.
I think the wish-fulfillment is why I liked her, though. I always wanted to be that sort of practical, capable person, but I never quite managed.
Barney’s island was lovely. Somehow I never got around to reading Jane of Lantern Hill. I must rectify that at once.
But still, Echo Lodge is where it’s at for me. With visits to Ingleside for some sea air.
I just re-read The Road to Yesterday a couple of weeks ago, so it’s either Sometyme Farm or Rilla and Ken’s house on Joe’s Island for me.
(Ah, who am I kidding, it’s the House of Dreams and ever shall be thus.)
Silver Bush is pretty awesome, though, with the kitchen garden RIGHT NEXT TO THE GRAVEYARD and giant slabs of headstones for napping in the sun, and then a little farther on behind a set of trees (birch trees, probably) is a hidden pond and also the house itself is pretty sweet, according to the description given for Pat’s older sister’s wedding there.
I am totally obsessed with Echo Lodge. I think I may also want to be Miss Lavendar? (Handsome Suitor from the blue completely optional)
I’m pretty sure this is why I could never get into those books. She sounds exhausting.
As a devoted lover of reaction gifs, I’m *right-click-saving* like nuts here.
These are all perfect. I refuse to brook any contrary opinions here. These are all exactly how Anne was through those 1st two books and my exact reaction once I got past the “I must be like Anne la dee dah here I sit in my skirt, on a shawl, in the grass, with a hardcover book” stage of my life. Which took longer than I think it probably should, and may be why I had and have so few friends.
Well one of the things that the lit crits often bring up wrt LMM is that she encouraged her readers not just to see nature but to feel it, like an ecstatic sort of body-soul connection that skips right over eyes and minds. I don’t think there should be any embarrassment in being at just that age when kids are looking for ecstatic experience, and instead of turning to religion or drugs or music or whatever, turn to books and capital-n Nature instead… So, yes, it can be a passing phase, “I’m acting at being sensitive and romantic etc.”, but I think there’s real lasting value in going through that, that is out-of-the-ordinary for the vast majority of the population today, and like learning how to meditate or deep breath, you will always have that skill. /end rant 🙂
For a little while I think I was very sincere in my efforts to experience nature with my whole being, and I totally think that some of that has carried through to my adult years and I’m grateful for it, you’re right.
However, I also freely admit now (I’d have denied it to the death then) that a fair amount of what I was doing was looking like I was experiencing nature with my whole being while not-so-subtly watching for what I hoped would be the reaction of various and sundry boys falling for my winsome loneliness, to quote the truly excellent line by raw_paws above.
Haha, well we can’t all be as unselfconscious as Anne was, and really, I think the very act of reading about carefree spirits actually heightens the reader’s own self-consciousness. And it’s not like having access to the Anne miniseries helped us any!
You know, I’d like to have some splendid adventures with Daniel Craig after I go to bed in the east gable…
I keep meaning to do something with the series of absolutely filthy tweets I made about Daniel Craig while under the influence of substances and watching “Skyfall.”
I believe I said that his face was designed by God to fit into the space between your legs, like Pangea.
I still maintain that he wears trousers the most correctly.
al;sdkfjaklsdfj;aslkdaglkja;sdlkfj…
My husband actually looks quite a lot like Daniel Craig (with a bit of Josh Bell thrown in for good measure). I’ll leave the conjecturing to you.
I mean, we keep it pretty gay around these parts, so sometimes I like to pay attention to the idea that men can still serve many of us sexually.
That is as the Goddess intended.
Now I’m suddenly remembering why this is my least re-read of the Anne books. Still love it desperately. I used to mourn not being able to talk like Anne does, but now I’m kinda glad because I didn’t need to be an even weirder child than I already was.
The language reminds me a lot of Eva Ibbotson’s romance novels, which would explain why I love them so dearly and why my friends think the prose is too purple to even remotely enjoy.
I am setting a personal challenge for myself, and you are all my witnesses: I will do every single Anne book. And, believe me, Rilla of Ingleside is gonna be a fuckin’ challenge.
I seriously want to write a discussion of Rilla of Ingleside for you, its themes and ideas about the First World War, and how ti is only of the only popular Canadian home-front stories about the war. For real, I used it in my thesis.
Wow! I would read the shit out of that.
This sounds amazing! Do it.
I’m rereading Rilla right now after another Toast article inspired me. Rilla herself says a lot of gif-reaction appropriate things. Anne mostly corrects Susan’s French pronunciation and remains very pale and quiet while the rest of the family bring home babies in soup turrens and build haystacks and “pot Huns.” It’s better than I remembered but Anne is boring as all hell. Susan does everything at Ingleside! Everything!
I read Rilla once and remembered being kind of turned off by it, so I kind of ignored the existence of the book after that. Even the end line, “Yeth.” struck me as creepy as all get out. Why do you want the baby talk, whhhyyyy?
But she…doesn’t want the baby talk? It’s that she’s overwhelmed by stress and shock and the final realization that the war is over. It’s used as an effect to demonstrate how Rilla is so overcome, based on the common phenomenon of people who overcome lisps/stutters/minor speech impediments of that type occasionally dip back into it in times of real emotional stress, both good and bad.
It’s honestly entirely possible that I am misremembering how that all went down, it’s been so long since I read that book. I just remember reading it and thinking something along the lines of, “OMG she’s as spoiled as Amy March was do not want.”
LMM was really tired of Anne by that point in the series, and honestly middle-aged mothers were not really her favourite characters to flesh out. It’s really a story about Rilla coming of age, and Anne necessarily fades to the background in order to spotlight Rilla’s development as a young woman. (Also she is incapacitated for a period and therefore really unavailable for comment, and much changed afterwards.) Susan functions as a blend of comic relief and depiction of the patriotic Canadian spirit made flesh (like at the recruitment meeting) and her role reflects that in the person of an older, less-educated servant, with those limitations. /nerd
I’ve probably said this before, but between your user name and your amazing analysis in this thread, I <3 you so much.
I’ve been reading the Anne-adjacent short stories recently (Chronicles of Avonlea, Further Chronicles, The Road to Yesterday). It’s interesting to see how the “outside” view of Anne changes, from a strange but singular little girl in the Chronicles, to a model mother with a model family in Yesterday.
(That’s no slight to Anne Blythe & Co, either, I’d go live in Ingleside with her and the gang in a minute.)
Aw, thank you!
Whenever I read it (and, er, I’m reading it right now, unrelatedly) all of Rilla’s italics are blocked out by WalterWalterWalterWalter.
Thankfully.
By “every single Anne book” you are going to include The Blythes Are Quoted, yes? Goodness mercy does Anne spout some glurge in that thing. I mean, I love her to pieces, but Anne, honey: You are making it impossible to read this book.
We will read them all! I still love Anne. Daft as she is, I just love her and always will.
I am waiting WITH BREATH DULY BATED for “If you knew Anne’s House of Dreams IRL.” To see what you do with the title alone…!
Oh god, i love Rilla of Ingleside. Not even going to feel shame about it. My least favorite to re-read is the Anne of Ingleside–Rainbow Valley stretch.
In sad news, i teach 6th grade reading and by no power on earth can I get any of the girls to read a single Anne book…. ditto on A Wrinkle in Time and His Dark Materials.
Also, the kids generally make fun of Harry Potter now. “Its like… wizards. Whatever.” (actual quote) I’ll have one or two kids a year who read it obsessively and the others kind of look askance at it.
I bet all those birch trees complained about being friendzoned as soon as she left. Nice Trees.
This sounds amazing! Do it.
I named the birch tree outside my mom's condo "Anna" because I was too shy for my mom to realize it was naming it after Anne of Green Gables, but I'm sure she knew, and she knew enough to warn me last year that the association was cutting it down, and I've never properly mourned her, and I am a terribly, terrible no good very bad dryad.