Where Everyone Deserves a Do-Over

Chronicles of Avonlea by L.M. Montgomery
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This wasn't quite what I thought it was, but I still enjoyed it.

I thought this was the third book in the series about Anne of Green Gables, and it may have been the third published, but it's not quite in the regular order. Anne barely figures here, showing up briefly in a a couple places, and these are short stories, not a novel. They take place in and around and near where the previous novels happened, but they're all new characters.

Most of them concern older people who've missed their chance at love and maybe they'll get one more shot at it. A couple deal with adopted kids, people taking in a child (rather like Anne) who changes their lives. All of the stories are about families, about people who are lonely, about people who push others away, and about making new families that bring us joy or peace or happiness. Like the first novels, these stories are a mix of regret and despair and sadness on one hand and the possibility of joy and hope and happiness on the other.

What surprises me most about the stories is that they could, any or all of them, become cloying, too saccharine, and maybe some have leveled that claim, and while I find them decidedly sweet, they are not over-sweet. They're touching, but they keep the people real. Complex characters--flawed, normal people who are sometimes grumpy, foolish, intimidated, proud, or rude--are reaching for a little happiness, and it doesn't feel (to me) like it's unreasonable or unbelievable. Melodramatic, maybe, yes. But real for all of that.

So I still liked it. I would rather see Anne in the stories, because she is the incredible creation of the author that is so easy to cheer for and follow around, almost a patron saint of seeing the beauty in the world, but these quick stories are still very much in the same vein.

Four stars. Recommended.

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Where Anne Wins Over Another Generation

Anne of Avonlea by L.M. Montgomery
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Almost as affecting and entertaining as the first book, Anne of Avonlea is a solid sequel to a genuine classic. It isn't possible to be quite the same thing; in the first book, Anne was an orphan, and misunderstood, and an outsider, and she does most of her growing up in that book. The original story carries her through some awkward times, from struggling to succeeding, from unreliable to reliable, from putting people off to winning them over, and from beaten down to joyful. In this second book, she's older and more established, and though she's still growing up a bit here and is facing real challenges, her triumphs have to come in a slightly different form.

I thought this book would be a lot about her success teaching, and there's some of that in there, but I'm relieved the book didn't spend too much time on that. Instead, it focuses more on new neighbors and friends, including a crotchety guy next door, a couple orphans who need a home, some tough students, and an old unmarried woman that Anne meets when she takes a wrong turn. It's their stories, and Anne's impact on them, naturally, that give this book its charm. The old guy next door makes up with his wife; the orphans find a home with Anne and Marilla, including a rowdy boy who needs a lot of training; difficult students warm up to her; and disappointed lovers, long separated by foolishness, make up and start over.

There is a fair amount of loss and heartbreak and disappointment in the book, and it seems that the author's personal experience of losing parents and being moved around emerges in many different forms in the story. Both the first book and this one are filled with found families, people making unique households by choice, taking in those who need a home. The whole ethos of these novels is to lament loss and then make the best choices left, finding as much joy in the new arrangement as possible. Death can't be defeated, but sometimes separation can, and loneliness. There's always hope.

I guess that's what these books are selling, the hope for happiness, and it makes sense that so many of us are buying. Anne is kind of the guide who shows us how to navigate disappointments, by being open to change, seeing beauty in nature and friendship and art, seeking forgiveness and reconciliation and connection, and doing it all while being a bit silly and kind of fearless.

I think it's a beautiful vision. Recommended.

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