Monday, May 17, 2010

Romantic mood and the two Annes

I noticed that the writer of this fantastic blog has just finished re-reading the Anne of Green Gables books. I must admit also to having just the other week skimmed through the last three of the six books. 'Why skimmed?' you ask.

Well I must have been in a bit of a romantic mood and I wanted to get to the juicy parts.... like at the very end [spoiler alert!] when Anne meets the former flame of Gilbert, Christine, who is now a rich and childless society widow. Anne is eaten up with jealousy and it becomes a bit of a page turner...



I love one quote from the last pages of Anne of Ingleside: Christine is very scornful of Anne having had seven children and no longer writing stories. Anne comments:
"I'm writing living epistles now"

Christine doesn't recognise the quote (ha ha!) and neither did I (oh...)  until I looked around the net and I think it's a reference to 2Corinthians:2-3 about Christians being epistles of Christ, written on our hearts. I do love the idea of the parents helping to shape that living epistle.



The other book I skim read in my romantic mood was Persuasion. The  heroine, also called Anne, in the interests of duty, rejects the man she loves only to meet him again 10 years later and is still in love with him. (Oooh, how will it turn out?!!) The parts I love skipping to are when Anne re-meets Captain Wentworth in Bath and also when Anne's rival, Louisa, falls off the Cobb in the town of Lyme Regis.



It seems that I was not the only one impressed by the Cobb scene. Apparently the first thing Tennyson did on a visit to Lyme Regis was go to see the Cobb where "Louise Musgrove fell".  At first I imagined the Cobb to be only a few steps high, but the full drama of the scene is evident when you see how high the Cobb really is.

Romantic indeed!

1 comment:

Liz said...

Ah, another kindred spirit. My daughter, my nieces, and I are all great lovers of Anne. When my daughter was homesick at grad school I boxed up the Anne volumes and sent them to her (in her haste to pack she'd forgotten them) and Anne has definitely brightened a few of my "Jonah Days" as well. Have you discovered Emily as well? I discovered her via Madeleine L'Engle after I was all grown up. I tried introducing her to my daughter when she was younger and it didn't take initially, but now she actually loves her as much if not more than Anne. Unfortunately, there aren't as many Emily books out there, but the ones there are definitely fall into the romantic category.