Looking back, it seems like my Anne of Green Gables phase came out of nowhere, but no, there was some context. I had recently seen a re-run of the Kevin Sullivan productions of the TV series of the first novel and the sequel, starring Megan Follows as Anne, and loved them. It just so happened that my local newsagents had nice hardcover copies of the first four novels, so I bought them and hunkered down to read the first one. I had no idea it would bowl me over the way it did! Set on Prince Edward Island, in Eastern Canada, it’s the story of an orphan girl who is adopted by elderly siblings who own the titled Green Gables farm, Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert. The only problem is, they had wanted a boy to help run the farm and were given Anne (always with ‘e’) by mistake. The first half of the book takes us through how Anne earns her place with the Cuthberts to avoid being sent back to the orphanage. It’s a fairly rocky road for her, including insulting nosey neighbour Rachel Lynde and getting her new friend Diana drunk. But in the second half she establishes her position with the help of her winning, talkative, highly imaginative personality and ability to find ‘kindred spirits’ wherever she goes.
I guess one of the things I really responded to in the novel was Anne’s orphan’s desire to find and keep a place called home, having so obviously found such a place in Green Gables. And what a place it is! Author LM Montgomery’s descriptions of Prince Edward Island through Anne’s eyes are delicious and alluring in every season. Then there’s Anne herself. She is one of literature’s most endearing creatures. Even Mark Twain, when he read the book, declared himself a fan. It’s tempting to describe her as a female version of Tom Sawyer, but no, Anne has her own thing going on. Besides the talkative-ness (she’s a yapper – but it’s good yap), she’s so intuitive with a vast feeling for the beauty of nature and the possibilities of people. When she started talking about people being ‘kindred spirits’ (or not), I knew exactly what she meant and immediately identified her as a kindred spirit to me. In fact, I’m pretty sure she’s close to the same MBTI as me: INFJ – though, appropriately, there’s probably more E in her than I (Anne with an ‘e’, remember). True, she can come off as a bit of a know-it-all, at least very opinionated and sometimes fiery, but Montgomery makes sure to cut her down to size every now and then with some such calamity, often caused by Anne’s over-confidence or hot-headedness.
Another aspect of the book I responded well to was Anne’s love/hate relationship with the boy Gilbert Blythe. From the moment she hits him over the head with her slate at school when he pulls her pigtails it’s so obvious they are both meant to be together. You only pull the pigtails of the girl you like, and you only hit the boy you like, don’t you? It’s virtually a declaration of intent, a proposal of future marriage. Gilbert’s a winning lad, who’s definitely keener on Anne than she is on him (or so she tells herself). But, as Shakespeare once said, the course of true love never runs smooth, and Montgomery teases out their on again/off again relationship through two more novels before they finally admit and act on their attraction at the end of Anne of the Island. It’s a pretty delicious wait.
After reading the first book, I immediately read the others, which consisted of Anne of Avonlea, Anne of the Island, and Anne of Windy Willows. I will admit right now that none of them reached the heights of the first novel in terms of consistency or quality, but there was still a lot in them to enjoy. Montgomery expands Anne’s world, bringing in new characters and new adventures, especially Anne’s growing academic prowess and ambitions to be a writer. At the end of the third book, Anne of the Island, when Anne and Gilbert have finally got together, she makes the genius move of separating them for the fourth novel, Anne of Windy Willows. This is mostly a series of letters Anne writes to Gilbert while she is off pursuing her academic career, and Gilbert is himself in medical school. For me it makes for a satisfying conclusion to the Anne story; though Montgomery went on to write more novels of Anne as she and Gilbert get married, establish their ‘dream house’ and become parents. Apart from the first one, Anne’s House of Dreams (a disappointing read), I couldn’t read any of the others. I wanted to fix my image of Anne as the girl or young woman she was in those early novels, and couldn’t bare the thought of her getting old and becoming the matron she became. I wanted her to stay in that world, in that golden time, forever. In fact, I wanted to stay there too.
Of all of the book covers I’ve seen for the Anne books, the design for this series I bought at that newsagents is my favourite. The Anne on these covers is my Anne. But I also liked the actress Megan Follows as Anne in the TV series, even though she’s shorter than she should be. I developed a little obsession with her during this phase and sought out some of her other performances in other films and TV series. Then, of course, I wrote a series of songs about Anne (and Gilbert), one of which can be found here. Later, I watched the 1936 film version, featuring the actress Anne Shirley (she actually took her name from the character!). Then, even later, I saw the anime version directed by Isao Takahata.
It turns out the Japanese are big fans of the books, and there is apparently a booming tourism industry of Japanese tourists visiting Prince Edward Island, where the books are set. It makes sense to me: when I think about it, the Anne stories have a healing Iyashikei quality to them that emphasises resolution of conflicts. The books are very wholesome – although some might say ‘goody goody’, or ‘girly’, and the writing a little bit ‘flowery’; but I don’t care, I love them exactly for that.
But I have to admit, one thing I didn’t love, and that was the recent remake of the books, a TV series called Anne With An E. To say it takes liberties with the novel would be an understatement. It completely rewrites whole sections of that first novel, adding long side-stories and new characters that had nothing to do with it. The main problem is it recasts Anne as the ultimate do-gooder, fighting the good fight for all minorities anywhere and everywhere. She helps the black couple in their fight against the racism of Avonlea, she helps a gay guy feel accepted, she helps a poor French Canadian family, then she shows concern and understanding for the local native Americans. It, no doubt, goes on into the next two series, but I couldn’t follow it: I stopped after the first series.
I’m all for political-correctness (or Wokeness) when it’s defined as opposition to bigotry and other forms of intolerance. They were terms probably dreamed up by conservatives to make Liberal or Leftist values seem weak or even uncool. But I’m not a fan of cancel culture and historical revisionism, and believe original works should remain as they were written, warts and all, as a reflection of what life was like back then. Yes, there was always an admirable streak of compassion in Anne. But this is overdoing it. In fact, I think it makes a mockery of it.
It’s a pity this most recent incarnation of the books has been such a negative one for me. But it will never detract from my memories of reading the original books. When Anne is first brought to Green Gables by Matthew driving the horse-drawn buggy along the track from Bright River Station, she looks up in wonder at an avenue of beautiful white trees. She immediately proclaims it the Great White Way. The road I lived on at the time had a similar avenue of trees, but they were green. I of course called it the Great Green Way. As I was getting to the end of Anne of Avonlea, the second book, I lamented the fact it wasn’t quite as good as the first. But that was softened by the beauty of this final passage, which I’ll include here as a final image of this reverie.
‘…in the garden the little stone house brooded among the shadows. It was lonely but not forsaken. It had not yet done with dreams and laughter and the joy of life; there were to be future summers for the little stone house; meanwhile it could wait. And over the river in purple durance the echoes bided their time.’
Anne by Messypaint