Anne of Green Gables, is a book that I read , when I want to feel good, when I am feeling good, when I feeling elated or down. In short it is a book for all seasons for me. It is impossible not be happy reading about the adventures and mis-adventures of Anne.
I have read all the sequels, but as with many others, I loved the first one. That is where the magic starts. Her non-stop chattering, her use of big words, her insisting of spelling the name with a ‘e’. Everything about the book is pure magic.
When she comes home with Mathew, was when I fell in love with her. The first thing that caught my eye was the way the author compares a tree laden with white flowers to a bride. We can argue as much as we want about feminism, but there is something magical about a bride. Is it our belief in marriage or out faith in the promise of the marriage? I for one, always loved the brides.
How can we not get caught in her vivid imagination? Imagination where everything but the red hair can be beautiful. Her travails with her red hair are next only to her freckles. Like Anne, all of us have that one thing about ourselves, which even imagination cannot wish away. We find peace only when we come to terms with it. And then, when we hear a compliment about that Achilles heel, it makes out day.
Her bonding with the Cutbert family and the life she brings about into Marilla and Mathew’s lives, had been wonderfully captured. I especially loved the bond that grows between Anne and Marilla after Mathew’s death. When Anne cries the night after Mathew’s death and shares this with Marilla
” The tears don’t hurt me like that ache did. Stay here for a little while with me and keep your arm round me—so. I couldn’t have Diana stay, she’s good and kind and sweet—but it’s not her sorrow—she’s outside of it and she couldn’t come close enough to my heart to help me. It’s our sorrow— yours and mine. ”
The expression of sorrow was so right on the feeling. The sorrow is so personal, it cannot be shared sometimes even with close friends. Then her staying back in Avonlea, for Marilla’s sake.
I think, each one of us, who read Anne, make our own personal connect. It is for this reason that the book is still read widely, even after a century. Thanks to LM Montgomery, the author, for having imagined and created this wonderful character in Anne, who gives joy to everyone who knows her. I have not met anyone who has not liked the book.
If a 11 year old orphan girl, could make her world better with imagination, what do I have to complain about?
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