the beauty of anne.

this post is dedicated to dear friends who, like me, have long enjoyed the anne of green gables/avonlea movies, but have never gotten around to reading the books. my answer to you is:

yes! read anne! 

i'm stuck right now on anne of ingleside [it's just hard to think of anne as a mother], and i have a few other library books to finish by a certain date, but i'll get back in the groove someday soon. because that's just what you do. and i want to finish. anne is positively lovely.

some advice on reading anne

think of it as a different story from the movies. the sequence of events is almost entirely off. for a long time i avoided the anne books because i felt like i already knew everything that happened, and, frankly, i was bored whenever i picked up a book and began reading. this took a bit of perseverance [you might even say perspicacity, because it is a positively wonderful synonym], but at a certain point i no longer felt dutiful when reading anne. it became delightful.

don't expect a hugely exciting plot. lm montgomery writes beautifully, but not exactly "plotfully." her power of description is magnificent. it's worthy of a good slowed-down read and a cup of something really delicious. it is not a good idea for a speed read, for when speed reading, the overall beauty of the books is overlooked. revel in the vocabulary, in anne's wonder and delight found in the simple things of life, in the sweet but lovely lives of simple people in a simpler time. there is certainly an amount of humor and lightheartedness in the books, and as anne grows older and you move on to later points in her life, you find you're growing up with her as well.

there are more characters! the movies combined a wider variety of characters and events and even towns into a smaller group. i suppose this makes sense, and they did it well, for the movies are lovely. but read the books to get the real story. and to get to know people like Mrs Allan, Dora and Davy, Phil and Priscilla, Gog and Magog, Captain Jim, Leslie, etc, etc.

i find that reading "old" or "classic" literature such as anne is a wonderful supplement to my ever-writing mind. the ideas, the personalities, the beauty found in nature, the words, the sentence structure [albeit sometimes a little over the top!], all of it lends itself to creativity. read well to be able to think well and write well and, dare i say?, live well.

so don't delay! put anne on your spring or summer reading list. you'll love her.

anne books:
Anne of Green Gables
Anne of Avonlea
Anne of the Island - my favorite!
Anne of Windy Poplars - second half is delightful.
Anne's House of Dreams - loved this one too.
Anne of Ingleside
Rainbow Valley
Rilla of Ingleside