Anne of Green Gables

By: L.M. Montgomery


Published: 1908


Synopsis:


"When eleven-year-old Anne Shirley arrives at Green Gables with nothing but a carpetbag and an overactive imagination, she knows that she has found her home. But first she must convince the Cuthberts to let her stay, even though she isn’t the boy they’d hoped for. The loquacious Anne quickly finds her way into their hearts, as she has with generations of readers, and her charming, ingenious adventures in Avonlea, filled with colorful characters and tender escapades, linger forever in our memories." (Amazon.com)


My Thoughts:


Anne of Green Gables epitomizes the genre this site focuses on. I watched the movies since I was a child but I only first read in 2006 when I was homesick overseas. I highlighted so many parts of this book that my copy is a total mess. But Anne, Anne is so charming! And not perfect, but the way she deals with those feelings of imperfection is perfect. She is completely genuine.

Creation of Guileless

I began this blog because I wanted a way to compile a list within a very specific genre of literature for myself and like-minded readers. I am also hoping that whoever comes across this site will contribute titles that I haven't listed. I have always been a fan of women's lit between the mid-nineteenth century and the mid-twentieth, but over the past few years I have gotten very specific. I like simplicity, I like a reverence of nature, goodness, purity, etc. and I think there are some authors who have found a way to create heroines that some people might find sickeningly sweet, but that are still interesting because they are flawed. L.M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables is a perfect example, the same with Jo March from Alcott's Little Women. Both writers had to discover this, but I even like their before works. Alcott's earlier protagonists were model young women who didn't even have flawed thoughts, and while that may be obnoxious at times there is something about an earlier age when virtue was still valued that I find very alluring. These young women make me want to be a better person. I find that most people like to identify with protagonists, and when they read about someone with issues much like their own (i.e. Holden Caulfield) they feel validated. I don't want to focus on my failings, I want to be excited about trying to become better.