Reviewed November 24, 2003.
Bantam Books, Toronto, 1985. Originally published in
1921. 277 pages.
A Sonderbooks’ Stand-out of 2003:
#4, Young Adult and Children's Classics
Here is the eighth book in the Anne of Green Gables
series. It’s not the best, but it’s still L. M. Montgomery and
so still, of course, wonderful.
This book focuses on Rilla, Anne’s youngest daughter, who
turns fifteen on the eve of World War I. Mostly, it’s a novel
of World War I, and is fascinating for how different that world was
from the world we live in today, even when we’re at war.
The beginning of the book is my least favorite part.
The author speaks rather condescendingly of fifteen-year-old Rilla.
At the beginning, we don’t really see things from Rilla’s perspective,
but from the perspective of an older and wiser person looking down somewhat
fondly but superiorly on a teenager going to her first dance.
This perspective changes as Rilla grows and becomes more mature
as she lives through the war. She adopts a baby whose mother
dies and whose father is off fighting. All three of her brothers
go and not all of them return. As the book goes on, the author
gets more successfully and completely into Rilla’s point of view, and
it’s full of the short vignettes of which L. M. Montgomery is a master.
There is a thin romance for Rilla woven through the book,
but most of the time the object of her affections is off fighting.
Most of the action comes from the war and the reactions on the home
front. From reading L. M. Montgomery’s published journals, I
know that she used her own journals almost verbatim to come up with Rilla’s
responses, so it’s a very authentic view of how the world looked to Canadians
back home during the war.
If you’ve seen the new DVD called Anne of Green Gables:
The Continuing Story and then read this book, you’ll know why I
was disgusted with the DVD. The movie puts Anne and Gilbert in
the thick of World War I, and makes them practically pacifists.
L. M. Montgomery puts one pacifist in this book and uses him as a buffoon.
When boys break his windows, the characters don’t think they should approve,
but they are secretly glad. Essentially, that character is hated
for his lack of patriotic spirit. Everything on the DVD was invented
by the filmmakers, not L. M. Montgomery, and it even presented attitudes
toward war completely different from hers.
The sad thing about this book is that the characters and the
author clearly believed that they were fighting to make sure that such
wars would never happen again—the war to end all wars. I find it
especially sad that L. M. Montgomery died in 1942—so she lived to see
World War II start, but didn’t live to see it end.
Of course, Canadians were part of World War I as soon as England
was involved. It’s interesting to watch the characters rushing
to join the army at the beginning, and the women bravely seeing them
off. The patriotic characters are disgusted with Woodrow Wilson
and his “letter-writing.” They take you through all the ups and
downs of the conflict. That war wasn’t fought on television, but
they lived by the phone and the newspapers. It was a very different
world, yet some things are all too much the same.
It was interesting to read this book for what I think is the
third time. Now, after the fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq,
it doesn’t seem as far removed from me as it did the other times I’ve
read it. I’ve also now been to Verdun, which made me better understand
some of the horrors and geography of that war.
This is an entertaining and fascinating book. L. M.
Montgomery hasn’t lost her touch for creating interesting and quirky
characters, as well as characters we deeply care for. The story
of Dog Monday waiting for Jem to return will bring tears to your eyes.
Fans of Anne and L. M. Montgomery will be delighted that there’s something
more to read, and we find out how all the young folk we cared about from
Rainbow Valley turn out, despite their coming of age in the
shadow of war time.
Reviews of other L. M. Montgomery books:
L. M. Montgomery Reviews
List in Publication Order
Copyright © 2005 Sondra Eklund. All
rights reserved.
-top of page-
Book Reviews by Sondra Eklund 