Kindred Spirits: The works of LM Montgomery

[prydainprincess]

Ook, I'm not sure I want to see that at all. I always loved the Megan Follows Ann, but only in AGG, not the sequels. I'm still fuming that they cut pretty much all of her college experience, including her roommates, who I LOVED, especially Phil.

[tipsygrrl]

I once ran into Megan Follows in a sandwich shop, and afterwards no one (except my mother) knew what the hell I was talking about when I tried to tell them how incredibly excited I was. I thought she was a great Anne, but I hated the sequels a lot.

[dwanollah]

Ditto all that. By the last monstrous installment, she sounded like she'd spent the last ten years servin' brewskies and suckin' on no-filter cigarettes.

Okay, two eps in, and I'm still not feelin' the cast. They're adequate at best, but... there isn't the magic there was in the (first) Sullivan one... for me, anyway.

[Deleted]

My favorite LMM books will always, always be the Emily books. Wish she would have written more about her life.

[Deleted]

Agreed, mizj, I always wished there was more about Emily and couldn't figure out why Anne got seven (?) books and Emily only got three. She skips huge chunks of Emily's life in Emily's Quest as well. It's only recently that I realised that there's probably years in there that just get brushed by.

I think someone mentioned earlier that LMM thought Emily should've had more love affairs, but her publishers weren't so keen? That strikes me as a pity, because she's a really interesting woman and it would've been cool to see more of that, with other people than those she'd known as a child. Though not with Dean. I was rereading the Emily books recently, and man, Dean is creepy. So very glad she didn't marry him.

I wasn't terribly keen on the Megan Follows Anne mini-series, mostly because neither Anne nor Gilbert were how I imagined them. I don't even mean physically - I have all the visual memory of the three blind mice - they were just off somehow. Anne was too...I don't know. But she wasn't ethereal enough. Her much-vaunted imagination seemed a lot more pretentious and calculated in the series than it did in the book. I don't think she's an easy character to portray, though, because so much of her character really is borderline pretentious and annoying, but I didn't think Megan Follows quite pulled it off. She did better when Anne was a kid than when she grew up. And Gilbert was just kind of full of himself. Not that he's the best developed of characters, but I always wanted to smack his face.

I did like Marilla and Matthew, though, and I think I'd be able to watch it a lot more happily now than I did at the time. Not the sequel, though. That drove me crazy - I spent the whole time screaming at the screen "that's from Anne of the Island! That's from Anne of Windy Willows! You're an annoying combination of Little Elizabeth and Sophy Sinclair! Where's Philippa and Priscilla and Stella, not to mention Aunt Jamesina? And whatever happened to Roy? Who the hell are you, old man?" And I didn't like Jen Pringle.

Yeah, I took that sequel kind of personally. I only saw about half an hour of the third one, but I nearly hit the ceiling when I realised that it had been shifted forward in time about thirty years, and that Anne was all anti-WWI, given the way LMM portrays the entire family in Rilla of Ingleside.

I used to wish there was an Emily series, but actually, I think I'm very glad there wasn't (that I'm aware of). They would've gotten it completely wrong, and I would've ended up bald from tearing my hair out.

[linared]

Oh man, the Anne movies. My sister never read the books but she did have the movies (can't believe I'm related to her). She used to put the movies on when she wanted to raise my blood pressure. I'd start foaming at the mouth and have to leave the room.

I've been rereading my LM books to prepare for my trip to PEI. I'm always surprised by how well these books hold up read after read. I always remembered the Rainbow Valley book as being kinda crappy but it was pretty good. But I realized that I don't really like The Story Girl or The Golden Road. Somewhere I read a review of the books and the writer said that those books don't work because they are narrated by Bev as an adult. There is a tone in the book where it seems that Bev is laughing and mocking his younger self. Generally, LM seems to take the problems and cares of kids fairly seriously, so this gosh kids are silly tone is weird. I'm not going to bother to read Magic for Marigold, I always thought that book was cheesy.

I really wish the Emily books had been continued. I'd love to read more about her ambitions and successes. It would be cool too if there was a contrasting Isle series, about her activities when she was away and being a star and her love affairs. I like Isle and Emily as best friends much more than Anne and Diane.

I also just finished, Rilla of Ingleside and I've read that book about 20 times and cry every time. The end is so painful with the characters discussing how there will never be a war again. Depressing.

[dwanollah]

Did anyone ever see that Emily TV show that aired in Canada...?

I like Isle and Emily as best friends much more than Anne and Diane.

Yeah, there was such a patronizing quality to Anne's relationship with Diana, whereas Ilsa and Emily were equals... and rivals.

[Deleted]

Did anyone ever see that Emily TV show that aired in Canada...?

Now I'm scared...what was it like?

Yeah, there was such a patronizing quality to Anne's relationship with Diana, whereas Ilsa and Emily were equals... and rivals.

I always got the feeling with Diana that Anne had latched onto her so passionately when they were so young that 95% of the relationship was habit and loyalty. Diana was a sweet girl, but there never was much to her beyond that, and although I think Anne really loved her, she was clearly very aware of Diana's "failings". Her teenage/adult friendships (particularly Phil and Leslie) were much more interesting, because the other party brought a lot more to it and challenged her more, and Anne wasn't so much the special one. Emily and Ilse, on the other hand, were both very complicated and interesting young women, and their relationship was much more interesting and meaningful as a result.

Somewhere I read a review of the books and the writer said that those books don't work because they are narrated by Bev as an adult. There is a tone in the book where it seems that Bev is laughing and mocking his younger self.

You know, I can see what you mean, but I never got that feeling, exactly. If anything, I thought the older Bev idyllicised (is that a word?) his childhood too much. I mean, the LMM worlds are always pretty idyllic (Rilla aside), but Bev was always meandering off on little poetic fancies about how wonderful it was to be so young and carefree, which I suppose is a bit condescending. I think it probably would've been better coming from the adolescent Bev, or else revealing more of the adult Bev than just that he was still living in the past and never really got over the Story Girl. It's quite consciously written, and I wonder what prompted Bev to sit down and relive his childhood like that.

[nuclearteacup]

Aww. No love for Bev? I really like The Story Girl, and loved The Golden Road, if only for Peg Bowen's visit to church.

The Blue Castle remains one of my favorites, but I HATED Magic for Marigold. The whole premise of Marigold seemed to be that Marigold constantly ran into people who were less boring than she was.

[Deleted]

Oh, I really like the Story Girl books - just sometimes the retrospective narration is a bit OTT. But I love all the kids' characters. Dan and Felicity crack me up.

"Do you really think so, my angel?"