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Title: Before Green Gables
ISBN: 039915468X
Author:
Budge Wilson
Publicate Date: 2008-02-21
Publish: 2008-02-21
List Price: $22.95
Average Customer Rating: 4.0
Format: Hardcover
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $10.20
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $4.48
Amazon Merchant Price: $12.96
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| Customer Review: |
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1: A charming prequel to the beloved "Anne of Green Gables"
I remember being told about this great television series on PBS about this redheaded orphan girl. I checked it out the next time it was on and was immediately and totally captivated by Kevin Sullivan's adaptation of Lucy Maud Montgomery's "Anne of Green Gables." I watched it every time it was on and read the original novel. Within a year I had read all of the Anne books plus all of the other Montgomery books that were out in paperback and everything I could find on the shelves in local libraries. I tracked down books that were out of print and photocopied them and managed to pick up a 19th impression of "Anne of Green Gables" (from 1910) and a 1st edition of "Rainbow Valley."
When I got remarried we spent three days just driving to Prince Edward Island for our honeymoon, where we stayed at the hotel that shows up at the start of "Anne of Avonlea" and serves as the White Sand Hotel on "Road to Avonlea." We went to see "Anne of Green Gables: The Musical" in Charlottes town and saw every L.M. Montgomery site there was to see on PEI. On the way home we stopped at several of the places where they filmed the Sullivan adaptations, including the bridge where Anne finally told Gilbert she did not want sunbursts and marble halls, she just wanted him. We have a display case that has a couple of ceramic figures of Anne and Matthew, photographs of Green Gables, and assorted odds and ends including sandstone the peculiar shade of red you find on PEI. So when I found out that the Montgomery estate had authorized Budge Wilson to write a prequel to Montgomery's books, I was pretty excited to read "Before Green Gables."
Cranky old Mark Twain declared Anne Shirely to be "the dearest and most lovable child in fiction since the immortal Alice." But for my two cents Anne has Alice beat across the board. Alice is arguably the least interesting person in Wonderland or through the Looking Glass, while nobody on Prince Edward Island holds a candle to our beloved little red-headed orphan. If you ever thought that Anne grows up a bit too quickly in that first novel, "Before Green Gables" allows you the grand pleasure of reacquainting yourself with the young girl that Matthew Cuthbert discovered waiting for him instead of a boy at the Bright River station
Anne's history is laid out in chapter five of "Anne of Green Gables," so the framework of this new novel was essentially laid out by Montgomery herself a hundred years ago. Consequently, Wilson avoids having to come up with major developments in Anne's life, unlike those writers who have tried to come up with sequels to classic novels (e.g., those divergent paths taken by the sequels to "Gone with the Wind"). Wilson was ably assisted in her efforts by an army of knowledgeable Montgomery fans and scholars who were able to provide her with every detail of Anne's past to be gleaned from Montgomery's novels and short stories. Wilson focuses on fleshing out those key chapters in Anne's life. Montgomery's strength was always writing about children, and once Anne became a mother she faded into the background in the final novels. "Before Green Gables" keeps the spotlight on our beloved Anne-girl and is filled with familiar elements from Montgomery's writing, such as the people who thought they would never be married finding happiness, bratty kids getting their comeuppances, and Anne's peculiar ways thawing the hearts of sundry adults.
The only parts of Wilson's novel that are a bit discordant are when Anne is confronted with certain facts of life. I still remember failing to pick up the subtle clues in "Anne's House of Dreams." Anne was suddenly staying at home and then Marilla shows up. Next thing I know there is a baby. Wilson deals more explicitly with such things and while she goes farther than Montgomery ever would have dared, you have to admit that young Anne would be puzzled as to how a baby gets out of a mother's tummy and think that the bellybutton makes perfect sense as an available point of exit. More importantly, Wilson captures the voice of the young Anne Shirley, including her exquisitely elaborate vocabulary. The ending of the Wilson's story was a slight disappointment to me, but only because I had become firmly convinced that Anne's final line in this book would be her first line from Montgomery's novel. However, Wilson picks a different and totally reasonable point to end the prequel, so the dashed expectations were my own fault. Overall I found "Before Green Gables" to be charming and a worthwhile addition to the canon.
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2: It's better than Anne of Green Gables: The Continuing Story
I got about 70 pages in and can't 't finish this because I think it's incredibly poorly written and contains none of the charm of LM Montgomery's Anne. It's all telling, no showing, and while I realize that there's a degree of sentimentality in the original Anne books, we at least see why Anne and Gilbert love each other; Budge Wilson thinks it's sufficient to tell us how much Walter and Bertha love each other, rather than to actual develop their relationship. I think Gilbert would have a few words to say about it. ;)
More than that, I find it impossible to believe in the five-year-old Wilson depicts. Though Anne is precocious and obviously had a lot of her parents in her, she's being raised in a house full of uneducated people. How is a child supposed to learn language skills such as Anne has when they're never exposed to good language? By the time she arrives at Green Gables she had a bit of education and had read quite voraciously so it makes sense then, but the way Wilson imagines early childhood? I don't think even Anne has THAT vivid an imagination.
I think I will stick with LM Montgomery's books when I need an Anne fix.
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3: The things that made Anne become Anne
Though Anne Shirley had often alluded to the difficult years before her arrival at Green Gables, readers were left to fill in the blanks themselves. Now, thanks to careful research, author Budge Wilson has written a prequel of Anne's earliest days.
As young Anne often dreamed about and romanticized the schoolteacher parents who died during her infancy, Wilson begins with the story of their newlywed love. Some readers may find this section "unnecessary," as it takes place before Anne's birth; but it does have a great deal to do with the type of world into which the little girl was welcomed. Had her parents lived, it seems Anne's upbringing would have been one of solid love and education, making it all the more intriguing that she seems to have innately embraced all her parents' values without ever really having been exposed to them consciously.
From babyhood to age nine, Anne lived with the Thomas clan. Despite the longevity of this arrangement, she never presumed to think of them as "her" family, nor their home as her own. The little girl had no delusions about her purpose, which was simply housekeeper and nanny for four wild boys not much younger than her own self. Worst of all, Mr. Thomas was an alcoholic, unpredictable and undependable.
During this time, Anne kept her own spirits alive by dreaming up an imaginary friend, Katie Maurice, to whom she often confided the miseries of her daily existence. She also gained encouragement from her teacher and a mysterious local hermit, who were simultaneously helped by *Anne* in ways they never could have fathomed.
When tragedy strikes, Anne is sent to live with the Hammonds. Only in her early twenties, Mrs. Hammond is already the mother of eight children -- including three sets of twins, born one year after another. It is soon clear that Anne's purpose in her new home is to save the Hammond family from disaster -- only is that even possible?
While readers can and will certainly find nitpicks and flaws that the novel "isn't L.M. Montgomery," it is certainly a literary masterpiece of its own.
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4: Not Montgomery, and more importantly, not Anne
I understand that Budge Wilson is not L. M. Montgomery; I understand that no writer could truly duplicate another's style, and maybe it's not the best idea to try. Still, it is very hard to read a supposed "Anne" book with none of the magic Montgomery's books contain. I love Montgomery; I love Anne, and Emily, and the Story Girl, and all of Montgomery's other characters. Montgomery books are filled with humor, love, human bonding, and vibrant, dazzling, persevering characters who revel in beauty and happiness and find ways to rise above sorrow with their imaginations and far-reaching gazes toward the future and the brighter sides of their lives. That said, Before Green Gables is slow-moving, dull, and extremely repetitive, with a focus on a "poor me" version of Anne, while Anne's injustices and sufferings would have been felt so much more if they hadn't been so spelled out and bemoaned over and over and over again--often by Anne herself--as Montgomery's Anne never does (at least not in this way). It's true that this book is about the very early years of Anne's life, and so she would inevitably be different from the older Anne we're used to. But young Anne has no sparkle. She does not seem like Anne to me. As I was reading, it was extremely easy for me to forget that I was reading about THE Anne Shirley of Green Gables that I know and love, and that instead I was reading about a different girl who just happened to have the same name.
Of all the things that turn me off about this Anne, though, I'm most bothered by the fact that she seems to have no characteristics that are just her own, if we accept Wilson's view of things: Anne is intelligent and loves school because her parents were schoolteachers; she says "Anne with an 'e'" because that's what Eliza always said, though Anne herself doesn't know what it means (and before that, it was her father who dreamily insisted on Anne with an 'e' because he somehow knew that fit perfectly); her beloved Katie Maurice is so named because it was the name of Eliza's one-time "real" friend; and on and on. I could have handled if Wilson had dropped in maybe one or two of these (no matter how cutesy/cheesy some of them seem), because we DO get traits from our parents and pick up things from those around us. But everything? Did everything about Anne need to be tied up with such a neat little bow?
Ah, well. It's probably clear by now that I have the high standards of a die-hard Montgomery fan, so I'll end now, but not before I put just one more thing out there:
If Wilson consulted Montgomery scholars and fans alike, couldn't just one of them tell her that Anne didn't like cats? That was Emily and Montgomery herself . . . Anne didn't much care for cats until the one she almost consented to chloroform, and that wasn't until she was in college.
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5: I was not let down!
As soon as I heard about this book, I was immediately intrigued of the idea that a prequel had actually been written to the Anne of Green Gables series. And I was not let down.
In reading this book, you'll discover what one writer's thoughts of who Anne Shirley was before she arrived at Green Gables. I think Budge Wilson did a Superb job in writing a sound & wholesome story. She included many details that linked to the Anne of Green Gables books. Alert readers will catch on, and have appreciation for what those fine points mean. Of course, the deeply descriptive style of the original L.M. Montgomery has been neglected, but for the sake of the book, it was well worth it. Anne's spunky, hopeful, and in-the-depths-of-despair character still feels the same.
The story begins before Anne is even born, so you will get to know her parents first. You'll be taken through the entire journey Anne experiences... through all her difficult work, her playful dreams that leave a smile on your face, and through both the dazzling and the tough times of her young childhood.
I would recommend this book to any other readers who have a substantial understanding of Anne's charming ways. I have to say that you cannot fully enjoy this story unless you know who the real Anne Shirley is.
It takes Anne eleven long years to arrive at her destination... and what a fantastic eleven years that was.
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