L.M. Montgomery Reading Challenge

WiW: Anne on Contentment

January 23, 2012 3 Comments by bekahcubed

I thought that the quotes I had flagged in my copies of Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Avonlea were to no purpose. But now that I’ve got them written on the same page, I see they have a theme after all: Contentment.

“The ice cream was delicious, Marilla, and it was so lovely and dissipated to be sitting there eating it at eleven o’clock at night. Diana said she believed she was born for city life. Miss Barry asked me what my opinion was, but I said I would have to think it over very seriously before I could tell her what I really though. So I thought it over after I went to bed. That is the best time to think things out. And I came to the conclusion, Marilla, that I wasn’t born for city life and that I was glad of it. It’s nice to be eating ice cream at brilliant restaurants at eleven o’clock at night once in awhile; but as a regular thing I’d rather be in the east gable at eleven, sound asleep, but kind of knowing even in my sleep that the stars were shining outside and that the wind was blowing in the firs across the brook.”

~Anne Shirley, in Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery

I think I agree. I do so love having a variety of experiences–but for everyday life, I’d really much rather be Rebekah of the House of Dreams, watching the sun sink over the lake and then slipping into sleep myself in my own bed.

“Did you see all the diamonds those ladies wore?” sighed Jane. “They were simply dazzling. Wouldn’t you just love to be rich, girls?”

“We are rich,” said Anne staunchly. “Why we have sixteen years to our credit, and we’re happy as queens, and we’ve all got imaginations, more or less….You wouldn’t change into any of those women if you could. Would you want to be that white lace girl and wear a sour look all your life, as if you’d been born turning up your nose at the world? Or the pink lady, kind and nice as she is, so stout and short that you’d really no figure at all? Or even Mrs. Evans, with that sad, sad look in her eyes? She must have been dreadfully unhappy sometime to have such a look. You know you wouldn’t, Jane Andrews!”

“I don’t know–exactly,” said Jane unconvinced. “I think diamonds would comfort a person for a good deal.”

“Well, I don’t want to be any one but myself, even if I go uncomforted by diamonds all my life,” declared Anne. “I’m quite content to be Anne of Green Gables, with my string of pearl beads. I know Matthew gave me as much love with them as ever went with Madame the Pink Lady’s jewels.”

~Anne and Jane, after the Hotel Concert, from Anne of Green Gables

I can sympathize with Jane’s feeling that diamonds must be comforting. I’ve felt that way about wealth myself. I’ve imagined myself not having to work for a living, able to devote myself to the various and sundry interests and cause I care about. But I must come to Anne’s conclusion: I’m quite content to be Rebekah Menter, RD, working-girl. This is a good life that God has made for me, and I am content to be here.

“Do you think you will ever go to college?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Anne looked dreamily afar to the opal-tinted horizon. “Marilla’s eyes will never be much better than they are now, although we are so thankful to think that they will not get worse. And then there are the twins….somehow I don’t believe their uncle will ever really send for them. Perhaps college may be around the bend in the road, but I haven’t gotten to the bend yet and I don’t think much about it lest I might grow discontented.”

“Well, I should like to see you go to college, Anne; but if you never do, don’t be discontented about it. We make our own lives wherever we are, after all…college can only help us to do it more easily. They are broad or narrow according to what we put into them, not what we get out. Life is rich and full here…everywhere…if we can only learn how to open our whole hearts to its richness and fulness.”

~A conversation between Anne and Mrs. Allan in Anne of Avonlea

I love Mrs. Allan’s dreams for Anne, and how these dreams remind me of the many women I love so much who have encouraged me so much.

“I would like to see you go to college,” Mrs. Allan says, but I should best like that you would be content wherever you are.

In the same way, I feel the blessing and encouragement of dozens of women whenever we speak of my dreams (and even when we don’t speak of them.)

“I would like to see you in your own home, married with children,” they say, “but I would like best to see you content wherever you are.”

And by the grace of God, I am and shall be.

Don’t forget to take a look at Barbara H’s meme “The Week in Words”, where bloggers collect quotes they’ve read throughout the week–and Carrie’s L.M. Montgomery Reading Challenge to see what everyone else is working on.

Flashback Friday

Flashbook Prompt: A Room of Your Own

January 19, 2012 Leave a comment by bekahcubed

While holed up in a hotel room this week, I finished Anne of Green Gables for Carrie’s L.M. Montgomery Reading Challenge.

I couldn’t help but notice Montgomery’s description of Anne’s bedroom. The room is described on three different occasions.

When Anne first arrives at Green Gables:

“The whitewashed walls were so painfully bare and staring that [Anne] thought they must ache over their own bareness. The floor was bare, too, except for a round braided mat in the middle such as Anne had never seen before. In one corner was the bed, a high, old-fashioned one with four dark, low-turned posts. In the other corner was the aforesaid three-cornered table adorned with a fat, red velvet pincushion hard enough to turn the point of the most adventurous pin. Above it hung a little six by eight mirror. Midway between table and bed was the window, with an icy white muslin frill over it, and opposite it was the washstand. The whole apartment was of a rigidity not to be described in words, but which sent a shiver to the very marrow of Anne’s bones.

Then there’s what Anne imagines her bedroom might look like:

“Now I’m going to imagine things into this room so that they’ll always stay imagined. The floor is covered with a white velvet carpet with pink roses all over it and there are pink silk curtains at the windows. The walls are hung with gold and silver brocade tapestry. The furniture is mahogany. I never saw any mahogany, but it does sound so luxurious. This is a couch all heaped with gorgeous silken cushions, pink and blue and crimson and gold, and I am reclining gracefully on it. I can see my reflection in that splendid big mirror hanging on the wall.”

Finally, there’s her bedroom after she’s lived there several years, and grown up quite a bit:

“The velvet carpet with the pink roses and the pink silk curtains of Anne’s early visions had certainly never materialized; but her dreams had kept pace with her growth, and it is not probable that she lamented them. The floor was covered with a pretty matting, and the curtains that softened the high window and fluttered in the vagrant breezes were of pale green art muslin. The walls, hung not with gold and silver brocade tapestry, but with a dainty apple blossom paper, were adorned with a few good pictures given Anne by Mrs. Allan…”

After a week in a hotel room, I’m gladder than glad to be at home, in my own bed in my own room at my own house.

This week’s prompt is about your childhood room:

“What was your bedroom like growing up? Did you share it with your siblings, or did you have it to yourself? Can you remember the carpeting, the wallpaper, the pictures that hung? What did you do to make it your own?”

Books, The Week in Words

WiW: Taking Risks

January 2, 2012 5 Comments by bekahcubed

Yesterday being the first of January, I also knew it to be the first of the L.M. Montgomery Reading Challenge. I duly began Anne of Green Gables, which I intend to re-read, along with its sequel Anne of Avonlea over the course of this month. (I also intend to complete at least one additional article of clothing for my doll wardrobe based on the Anne series).

Early on in Anne of Green Gables I came across a passage that’s never really stuck out to me before, but which certainly stuck out this time. Marilla is explaining to Mrs. Lynde why she agreed to adopt a boy from Nova Scotia, despite the risks:

“And as for risk, there’s risks in pretty near everything a body does in this world. There’s risks in people’s having children of their own if it comes to that–they don’t always turn out well.

It’s true. Everything in this world comes with risks. It’s risky to adopt, but it’s also risky to have one’s own children. It’s risky to fly, but it’s also risky to drive. Exercise is risky, but so is being sedentary.

This life is full of risks, some small and some large.

Not that our emotions always know which is which.

Most of us probably recognize that driving a car is quite risky, just as risky as flying in an airplane. But that doesn’t stop some of us from being massively fearful of flying while being completely nonchalant about driving.

Many expressed terror when I told them I was skydiving last year–when, in fact, skydiving isn’t anywhere near as risky (statistically) as many presume it to be.

And then there’s the risk of not taking risks. I read a study once (that I probably have bookmarked or saved somewhere but don’t know where) that suggests that people who do not die taking risks live longer for having taken them. It seems that calculated risk taking can actually, paradoxically, be good for us.

So how does one determine which risks to take and which to avoid?

Marilla took this one out of a sense of duty, at first:

“I don’t deny there’s something in what you say, Rachel. I’ve had some qualms myself. But Matthew was terrible set on it. I could see that, so I gave in. It’s so seldom Matthew sets his mind on anything that when he does I always feel it’s my duty to give in.”

Later, when things didn’t turn out as expected, she made the final decision to keep Anne when she realized that if she chose the lest risky option for herself (giving Anne up), it would mean great risk for Anne (living with “that Blewett woman”).

Ultimately, I think, the Christian has the perfect grid for evaluating risk-taking.

As I taught my Sunday School children yesterday, God is sovereign. Sovereign means that He is the ruler, in control of all things. We discussed how this is a scary thing for the person who does not trust in Jesus, because God hates sin. But we also discussed how this is good news for the person who trusts in Jesus–because God has already said what His plans are for the people who trust in Jesus. God has said that His plan is to conform them into the image of Christ.

So the Christian can evaluate every risk by asking the question: “Has God commanded it?” If so, whatever the earthly risks, there is a heavenly benefit far surpassing: that the believer will be conformed to the image of Christ. Beyond this, the believer can evaluate risks using the grid of I Corinthians 6:12 and 10:23-24: Is this permissible? Is this beneficial? Is this going to bring me under its mastery? Is it going to do good for another?

Presuming that a risk fits those criterion (it’s permissible, beneficial, and does good for another while not bringing you under its own mastery), it is a worthwhile risk.

After all, as my pastor occasionally says, “We’re immortal until God decides our life is over.”

Books, Everyday Life

The Closing Bell (L.M. Montgomery Reading Challenge)

January 1, 2015January 29, 2011 7 Comments by bekahcubed

Carrie has official sounded the closing bell for the L.M. Montgomery reading challenge–declaring that it’s time for everyone to link up.

The bell caught me by surprise, with plenty left unfinished.

Despite frantically reading a bit more this afternoon, I am still not through with Anne of Green Gables.

Anne of Green Gables

I did, however, read and review Much Ado about Anne by Heather Frederick Vogel. I also wrote some reflections on a quote from Anne of Green Gables.

But I did not complete the first piece of the project I had hoped to unveil at the end of this challenge.

I’ll share it anyway.

A bit of background…

When I was young, the American girl dolls were all the rage (I guess they still are in some circles). In those days, the company that made them was called “Pleasant Company” and the only dolls you could get were the historical ones that had short chapter books that went along with them.

I got “Addy”, a young girl who escaped slavery via the Underground Railroad (chronicled, of course, in Meet Addy), when she first came out.

And I spent hours poring over the Pleasant Company catalog, with its outfits and accessories that matched the books.

I was simultaneously in love with Frances Hodgson Burnett’s A Little Princess. I adored how Sara Crew and her indulgent Papa went to pick out the doll “Emily” and outfit her in the very fanciest of clothing.

I dreamed of a wardrobe for my doll, a complete set–and one that matched a book.

But the Pleasant company outfits were much to expensive for my (or my parents’) budget, and I had little patience to do any quality sewing in those days.

So I made do with the clothes Addy came with–and the few garments Mom made for her.

But I still dreamed of a complete wardrobe, based on a book.

I grew up a bit and decided that I wanted it to be based on a REAL book–not books that were written in order to sell doll clothes.

The Anne series.

It was perfect. Anne was the right sort of age, Montgomery goes into detail about her clothing and accessories, and I just happened to love the series.

I would make a complete wardrobe for Addy using the Anne series as a starting point.

And so I began to make lists of every object mentioned in the Anne series. The vivid chromo of Jesus blessing the children, the chocolate brown voile with its puffed sleeves and pintucked waist, the navy blue broadcloth jacket made by Marilla, the yellow pansy cut from a catalog that Ella May McPherson gave Anne to use to decorate her desk. I have a list of every object–and some only alluded to (the red and white triangles Anne had to work at before she could go out to visit with Dianna–what might that quilt have looked like?)

I started collecting bits and pieces of fabric that might be suitable for the project.

And, this month, I started sewing.

My first project has been a dress to approximate the dresses Marilla made for Anne to replace the dreadfully skimpy wincey:

“Well, how do you like them?” said Marilla.

Anne was standing in the gable room, looking solemnly at three new dresses spread out on the bed. One was of snuffy colored gingham which Marilla had been tempted to buy from a peddler the preceding summer because it looked so serviceable; one was of black-and-white checked sateen which she had picked up at a bargain counter in the winter; and one was a stiff print of an ugly blue shade which she had purchased that week at the Carmody store.

She had made them up herself, and they were all made alike–plain skirts fulled tightly to plain waists, with sleeves as plain as waist and skirt and tight as sleeves could be.

“I’ll imagine that I like them,” said Anne soberly.

Perhaps it’s a bit of a depressing place to start, but that is where I have started.

And this is what I have so far.

Anne's plain dress

Nothing exciting, but it’s a start to this project I’ve been dreaming of for nigh on 15 years.

Visit Carrie’s L.M. Montgomery Reading Challenge to see what others were saying/doing about L.M. Montgomery this month.

Book Notes, The Week in Words

WiW: Great Expectations

January 24, 2011 6 Comments by bekahcubed

“You have such expectations,” my Dad tells me again–the third or fourth time. “and it sets you up for great disappointments. You see, I never really expected much from myself or from life. And so when I turned out to have a wonderful life, I was pleasantly surprised. You have great expectations, so when things don’t turn out the way you expected, you’re disappointed–even if your life is still objectively quite good.”

It’s an observation, not a statement that his way is better or worse than mine.

But I think of it when I read these words in Anne of Green Gables:

“You set your heart too much on things, Anne,” said Marilla with a sigh. “I’m afraid there’ll be a great many disappointments in store for you through life.”

“Oh, Marilla, looking forward to things is half the pleasure of them,” exclaimed Anne. “you mayn’t get the things themselves; but nothing can prevent you from having the fun of looking forward to them. Mrs. Lynde says, ‘Blessed are they who expect nothing for they shall not be disappointed.‘ But I think it would be worse to expect nothing than to be disappointed.“

I’m glad my Dad doesn’t make light of my aspirations, like Mrs. Lynde and Marilla seem to of Anne’s. But his observations–and those of Marilla, Anne, and Mrs. Lynde–do make me think.

I do expect a lot from life. I expect a lot from myself.

I want to do, I want to be, I want to see, I want to hear, I want to write. I want to live an extraordinary life. I want to do extraordinary things. I want to be an extraordinary person.

I have great expectations.

But, as my dad and Marilla and Mrs. Lynde observe, it does set me up for more disappointments than if I hadn’t such expectations.

I end up with less time and energy than I thought I’d have even after moving permanently to Columbus–and I’m disappointed not to be able to accomplish the grandiose expectations that I’d had for how my first few months in Columbus might look.

I find myself in a corner of dietetics I didn’t expect to find myself in, in a corner of the state I didn’t expect to find myself in, with…

I find that life is very different than what I expected.

On the other hand, like Anne, I love the expectation itself–the dreaming, the planning, the process of trying to make the dreams become reality. I still haven’t taken that bike ride across Nebraska, but I’ve loved what training I’ve done (I’ve trained gung ho three springs in a row, only to find busyness and/or medical issues stymie the actual completion), I’ve loved the planning, I’ve loved the bike rides taken with friends in the meantime.

And, as my Dad points out, my high expectations, while not always achievable, have enabled me to achieve a great deal more than someone who just floats through life with no goals or expectations.

My dad makes it clear that my driven personality is not a fault but a blessing. But he is also quick to caution that it can become a fault. When I become so focused on results that I ignore people. When I become so focused on unmet expectations that I fail to be thankful for unexpected blessings. When I set my heart on things instead of Christ.

And ultimately, that is what it comes down to.

“You set your heart too much on things,” Marilla says.

She’s right. I do.

Not that there’s anything wrong with doing things, having things. Neither the doing of things nor the desire to do things is wrong. It’s the setting of my heart on things that is wrong.

“Do not trust in extortion
or take pride in stolen goods;
though your riches increase,
do not set your heart on them.”
~Psalm 62:10, NIV (c)1984

I was made to do great things.

It is right that I desire to do great things.

But my heart was made to be set on Christ.

“Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.”
~Colossians 3:1-4, NIV (c)1984

Be sure to follow through with Barbara H’s meme “The Week in Words”, where bloggers collect quotes they’ve read throughout the week.

I’m reading Anne of Green Gables as a part of Carrie’s L.M. Montgomery Reading Challenge. Check out the link to see what others are saying about (or reading of) L.M. Montgomery this month

Book Reviews

Book Review: “Much Ado About Anne” by Heather Vogel Frederick

January 18, 2011 4 Comments by bekahcubed

In my experience, lit about lit or books based on books tend to follow a fairly typical pattern.

You know, high school students perform “Romeo and Juliet” only to find that their own lives parallel the play in ways they never imagined (and generally don’t get until the end of the story.)

So I was expecting some orphans or a precocious redhead or at very least someone in need of a bosom friend when I picked up Much Ado About Anne.

When I got a couple chapters into the book and still hadn’t started to see parallels, I got a bit nervous.

It wasn’t what I expected at all.

And that’s a good thing.

Heather Vogel Frederick’s Much Ado About Anne doesn’t try to recreate Anne of Green Gables (as though another author could do it better than L.M. Montgomery!) Instead, Much Ado About Anne finds the mother-daughter book club experiencing their own story while reading through Anne’s story in book club.

Two great conflicts rise in the lives of the book club girls: first, their mothers invite the oh-so-stuck-up Becca Chadwick to join their club–and then Jess discovers that her family may be forced off their ancestral farm.

The girls (and therefore their readers) learn interesting factoids about L.M. Montgomery thanks to one girl’s librarian mother. And, just like good bibliophiles, they find ways of relating what they’re reading to their own lives.

And so, they realize that Becca is a Pye, and must be tolerated as a Pye. They relate to the utter mortification Anne felt when she dyed her hair green–although, of course, their mortification is over something entirely different. And they emulate their new heroine by naming the lands around them with fanciful names.

I enjoyed this book a great deal. It has just enough Anne to make it worth its title–but not so much Anne that it’s lacking any substance of its own.

I’m glad I took the opportunity to take a glimpse at Anne through the eyes of four fictional middle-school girls. As a long-standing Anne-fan, I found myself thrilled with these girls’ glimpses of Anne–and I’m willing to bet that this book would be a great way to introduce a young reader who’s reluctant to read “old” books into the great story that is Anne. Once she’s read this, I can almost guarantee she’ll want to read the “back-story”–the novels the mother-daughter book club read and discussed and applied to their own lives.

Rating: 4 stars
Category:Middle grade fiction (female)
Synopsis:The mother-daughter book club gets busy reading Anne of Green Gables, dealing with their very own Josie Pye, and racking their brains to save Half Moon Farm.
Recommendation: Great for lovers of Anne, or lovers of YA fiction/young chick lit, or anyone who wants to introduce a younger girl to the joys of Green Gables.

I read this as a part of Carrie’s L.M. Montgomery Reading Challenge. Check out the link for more people’s comments on L.M. Montgomery. Visit my books page for more book reviews and notes by me.

Books

ANNE through another pair of eyes

January 3, 2011 3 Comments by bekahcubed

Man, I’d completely forgotten that TODAY was the day for beginning Carrie’s L.M. Montgomery Reading Challenge.

But today it is, and I’m gonna participate.

Having already read and re-read the “Anne” series by L.M. Montgomery a bazillion times and having read each title by L.M. Montgomery that my library owns at least once, I have decided to do something a bit different for this year’s L.M. Montgomery Reading Challenge.

This year, I’m going to re-read Anne of Green Gables in conjunction with Heather Vogel Frederick’s Much Ado About Anne, a middle grade (?) novel about a mother-daughter book club that reads through the Anne books (See Jennifer’s 5M4B Review).

I’m excited to take a look at Anne through another pair of eyes this year!

Check out some of the other Montgomery-readers at Carrie’s L.M. Montgomery Reading Challenge page