Writing to keep Afloat

If you have read Anne of Green Gables then you know how the atmosphere of beauty, whimsy, and joy permeates the entire work. Falling into every book in the series feels similar. We see Anne Shirley as a child and then as a young woman as she tackles the silly problems life throws her way. There are a few moments of real tension where someone Anne loves is in peril, but otherwise the ‘scrapes’ she finds herself in tend to be light-hearted.

As we move through Anne’s story, we have a few brief chapters where Anne is faced with something truly devastating, but Montgomery dwells in these moments only long enough to get a taste of the sorrow before allowing Anne to find joy again.

In the seventh book, L.M. Montgomery moves on from Anne’s point of view to that of her children. We see the frolicking and funny lives of her children as they play in their beloved ‘Rainbow Valley.’ They are tenacious and trouble-making in the same way as Anne was as a child making this a nostalgic read after enduring the storylines of Anne’s adulthood.

The eighth and final book of the Anne of Green Gables series, Rilla of Ingleside, is markedly different from everything that preceded it. It must be as markedly different as the world before and after World War 1. The effects of that hideous conflict on L.M. Montgomery is evident in her masterful depiction of the depressive atmosphere in Rilla of Ingleside. The insular storylines of Anne and her children are exploded by the outbreak of a foreign war that inevitably reached into all Canadian communities and took over 600,000 of their boys overseas.

The horror and tension of that period in time weighs heavily on Rilla throughout the novel. She waits for her 3 brothers and her sweetheart to return home to her while news of others’ deaths and disfigurements reach her every day. She grows quickly from an unconcerned, frivolous girl to an industrious and pragmatic young woman under the strain of the Great War’s peril.

Anne of Green Gables is a novel that speaks right to my heart in the same way Jane Austen’s novels do. I enjoyed every moment of silly adventure that the first seven novels provided to me, but, oddly, I find myself wishing L.M. Montgomery had based more of her novels during troubled times. She so expertly weaved the historical events that effected Prince Edward Island in with the lives of Rilla and her family. This more serious backdrop provided–in my opinion–a more compelling vehicle for Rilla’s ascension into womanhood than we saw in Anne’s.

In any case, if you have not already read the Anne of Green Gables series, I implore you to do so. You will learn so much about how to craft interesting and individual characters and how to endear a reader to every kind of unlikeable person. Montgomery also writes masterfully in vignettes, so if that is a style you would like to pursue, try studying this series.