What I have been reading wednesday
Jan. 31st, 2018 07:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
scripsiRainbow Valley by L. M. Montgomery. I remember liking this book as a kid, but I didn’t remember how little on Anne it actually contained. Even her children are merely supporting characters. The focus of this book is the Meredith family; the new, widowed, minister, and his four children. It’s a much more complex story than any of the other Anne-books I have reread. The meredith children are loved by their father, and they love him, and each other. They are kind and considerate, with a well-developed sense of moral ethics. But their absent-minded father leaves them largely in care of an relative who, if not cruel, is very old and too frail to run a household. The children have no sense of social conventions, or practical skills, which repeatedly makes them at odds with their fathers' congregation.
Then we have Mary Vance, a runaway orphan the Meredith children befriends. Mary has been severely abused by her foster mother, and forced to work very hard. She is well aware how society runs, and she has many practical skills, but she has learned nothing of moral ethics. The Meredith are horrified other ignorance, and set themselves to teach her. And by learning, Mary Vance eventually secure a safe and happy home. In return Mary relentlessly points out the siblings lack och social conventions, leading to them trying to raise themselves “as no one else do it”. The result is often funny, but sometimes heartbreaking, and in the end it finally makes their father realise his neglect and do something about it. There is a very strong message that a person needs to know both good morals and know how to navigate society to be integrated, and in the end both the Meredith’s and mary Vance, by learning from each other, reach that point.
Mary Vance is an interesting character. Montgomery often fall back to the idea of nature of nurture. It is, for example, implied that Anne is such a refined character despite her early childhood, because her dead parents were gentlefolks. Mary, however, has a terrible background. Her parents were drunkards who abused her, and both committed suicide. And though mary isn’t an altogether sympathetic character, she feels a lot more realistic than most of Montgomery's children.
And though Montgomery fall back to one of her favourite tropes; the two spinster sisters with the old, dark-haired, the dominant character, the West sisters are both living breathing characters. I also liked the side-step from The One True Love-trope. Both Rosemary West and John Meredith has lost their first love, but eventually learns it is possible to love again. And I also liked the recognition that different people wants different things in a relationship.
The Only Girl in the World, A Memoir by Maude Julien. I’m not sure why I picked this up, because I usually can’t stomach books where children suffer. I don’t regret reading it, but it was a very hard book to get through. Maude Julien was born in 1957, and her father isolated her, and her mother, putting Maude to a series of horrific experiences in the effort in making her a super human. Clearly insane, he had spent years planning this, going so far to adopt her mother when she was only six years old, grooming her into the “perfect” wife, and future teach to maude, by giving her a very throughout education. It was really a very strange, and horrible book, with Maude growing up completely ignorant of the world outside her father’s estate, and deprived of any pleasures apart from reading and a few pets. And despite the abuse she is put through, her father is never caught and punished. Maude finally get some contact with the rest of the world at fifteen, and at eighteen she gets married and escape her father through that. I would have liked to know more about her mother who seem to see Maude as a rival more than daughter- possibly because she was raised by Maude’s father herself, but there is very little analysis over that. Possibly because Maude’s mother is still alive.
Then we have Mary Vance, a runaway orphan the Meredith children befriends. Mary has been severely abused by her foster mother, and forced to work very hard. She is well aware how society runs, and she has many practical skills, but she has learned nothing of moral ethics. The Meredith are horrified other ignorance, and set themselves to teach her. And by learning, Mary Vance eventually secure a safe and happy home. In return Mary relentlessly points out the siblings lack och social conventions, leading to them trying to raise themselves “as no one else do it”. The result is often funny, but sometimes heartbreaking, and in the end it finally makes their father realise his neglect and do something about it. There is a very strong message that a person needs to know both good morals and know how to navigate society to be integrated, and in the end both the Meredith’s and mary Vance, by learning from each other, reach that point.
Mary Vance is an interesting character. Montgomery often fall back to the idea of nature of nurture. It is, for example, implied that Anne is such a refined character despite her early childhood, because her dead parents were gentlefolks. Mary, however, has a terrible background. Her parents were drunkards who abused her, and both committed suicide. And though mary isn’t an altogether sympathetic character, she feels a lot more realistic than most of Montgomery's children.
And though Montgomery fall back to one of her favourite tropes; the two spinster sisters with the old, dark-haired, the dominant character, the West sisters are both living breathing characters. I also liked the side-step from The One True Love-trope. Both Rosemary West and John Meredith has lost their first love, but eventually learns it is possible to love again. And I also liked the recognition that different people wants different things in a relationship.
The Only Girl in the World, A Memoir by Maude Julien. I’m not sure why I picked this up, because I usually can’t stomach books where children suffer. I don’t regret reading it, but it was a very hard book to get through. Maude Julien was born in 1957, and her father isolated her, and her mother, putting Maude to a series of horrific experiences in the effort in making her a super human. Clearly insane, he had spent years planning this, going so far to adopt her mother when she was only six years old, grooming her into the “perfect” wife, and future teach to maude, by giving her a very throughout education. It was really a very strange, and horrible book, with Maude growing up completely ignorant of the world outside her father’s estate, and deprived of any pleasures apart from reading and a few pets. And despite the abuse she is put through, her father is never caught and punished. Maude finally get some contact with the rest of the world at fifteen, and at eighteen she gets married and escape her father through that. I would have liked to know more about her mother who seem to see Maude as a rival more than daughter- possibly because she was raised by Maude’s father herself, but there is very little analysis over that. Possibly because Maude’s mother is still alive.
