I've been reading "The Road to Yesterday," the collection of short stories by L.M. Montgomery that's kind of set around Anne and Gilbert's family. This book has yet another case of identical cousins. There were identical cousins in Anne's House of Dreams, too, and I think there might have been one more case in something else by Montgomery. Does this ever actually happen? Not just cousins who look similar, but cousins who look so similar that someone who hasn't seen them for a few years could easily mistake one for the other. Granted, everybody in these books seems to be related in several different ways, since people keep marrying their cousins, but it still seems very unlikely.
This book is also continuing my puzzlement about what happened to Shirley Blythe. In the last few Anne books, Shirley, the third son, is almost a non-entity. Sure, he's mentioned once or twice, when someone is counting the kids or figuring out where each person is, but I don't think there were any storylines set around him, and he barely said a word. In Rilla of Ingleside, there are huge crying scenes when the older boys join the army, but with him, people just wave goodbye and that's it. And at the end of that book, someone says something about how good it is to have the whole surviving family back home, and Shirley isn't back home yet. He's in Canada, but not actually at home. And in this book, most of the stories are kind of given a time and place by some reference to the Blythe family -- like a story that starts with a little boy saying that there's no one to play with, not even Walter Blythe, because the Blythes live too far away, or someone mentioning that she got a recipe from Nan Blythe, or something like that. Every kid except Shirley gets mentioned at least once, and with most of them, there's some point where someone tells a longer story involving one of them. Shirley's name is mentioned only once in the entire book, and it's a reference to when he was a baby. (Well, I've got one story left to read, so maybe he's in there. Still, it's very weird. Di Blythe isn't mentioned much by name, but there are enough reference to "the Blythe twins" that at least you remember that she's there.)
I've been reading "The Road to Yesterday," the collection of short stories by L.M. Montgomery that's kind of set around Anne and Gilbert's family.
I don't think I've ever seen that collection. I've been bingeing on LMM on my Kindle, since so many of the books are free, except I was really annoyed to discover that I couldn't get "Anne of Windy Poplars" on Kindle, because it was written out of order with the rest, and is still in copyright. Bah!
I am a product of my time--I find it hard to fathom how Anne goes from being this driven student, ambitious for success and fame, to being a housewife and mother, with no cognitive dissonance at all. Like, she just... stops writing, period. I'm happy that she's happy, but...
I don't think I've ever seen that collection.
It's also published in a slightly different version as "The Blythes Are Quoted." It's probably still in copyright, since it was first published in the seventies. The introduction to the edition that I got from the library says that the manuscript was found by Montgomery's son among her papers, and
The original manuscript was divided into two parts, each part composed of a narrative introduction describing an evening in the Blythe household when the family would sit around the fireside and listen to poems and stories. For the purposes of this book, which we have titled The Road to Yesterday, all but one of the poems have been deleted, and the sequence of the stories has been reorganized.
In the edition published as "The Blythes Are Quoted," they left in the poems, I think.
I am a product of my time--I find it hard to fathom how Anne goes from being this driven student, ambitious for success and fame, to being a housewife and mother, with no cognitive dissonance at all. Like, she just... stops writing, period. I'm happy that she's happy, but...
Me too. It seems like she's still more involved in academic stuff than a lot of the other women -- I remember some mentions of other women telling people to go to Mrs. Dr. Blythe with questions about anything, since she's a B.A. and reads and goes to lectures all the time, but I did want her to keep on writing.
I've been bingeing on LMM on my Kindle, since so many of the books are free, except I was really annoyed to discover that I couldn't get "Anne of Windy Poplars" on Kindle, because it was written out of order with the rest, and is still in copyright. Bah!
Not too much happens in that one, anyway. Anne of Windy Poplars and Anne of Ingleside both seem like they were written more just to have something written than because there was any story to tell.
Also -- this happened much more in the Emily books, but I've noticed it at least once in this collection -- I'm noticing how, in the stories set in the twenties, young people say "It's so Victorian" to mean "It's so old-fashioned." Which does make sense for the time period, but it seems like there are more layers of meaning to "Victorian" there than just old-fashioned. Something like sentimental, maybe. In the Emily books, Emily's teacher tells her that she uses far too many italics in her writing, and it's a Victorian affectation that she must avoid, and Emily, age 14 or so at the time, just doesn't know how she can convey just how deeply she feels about something if she can't do with italics. And later on, when Emily is getting married, and her elderly aunt kisses her on the cheek and says something like, "May happiness follow you," Emily comments, "It was very mid-Victorian, but I liked it." (Emily and her friends don't just call things Victorian, but early-Victorian and mid-Victorian and late-Victorian. I'm not certain exactly when the Emily books are set, but given the fashions and technology described, and the lack of any mention of anyone going off to war, I'm going to guess the twenties.)
I really wish there were a Montgomery wiki somewhere. These stories keep using characters or references from others of her books or stories, and I can never keep them straight.
Emily, age 14 or so at the time, just doesn't know how she can convey just how deeply she feels about something if she can't do with italics
Ah ... life before emoticons.
I really wish there were a Montgomery wiki somewhere.
Oh, yeah, that would be useful.
Just saw on Twitter that L.A. Banks (Leslie Esdaile) passed away this morning. I wrote copy for a bunch of her Sasha Trudeau books. Sad.
Hey Amy, I was just coming in to post that. There's a fund for her daughter, and to help pay the medical bills. I have the information, if anyone wants, I can pass it or post it.
