Here’s a blog post that might get me in hot water – but I recently listened to the audiobook of Anne of Avonlea and, let me tell you, I felt let DOWN.
Anne of Avonlea (1909) is the second book in the Anne of Green Gables series. Until now, I had only read the original – and loved it. Anne is so spirited and fun, and there is a great deal of heart and humour in Anne of Green Gables. Fast forward to the next book, Anne is in her late teens, still living in Avonlea. All of the books are available for free in the Audible Plus catalogue, so I thought it was worth diving in.
Oh.
So much that made Anne of Green Gables wonderful is missing here. Anne is a schoolteacher, a founding member of the Avonlea Village Improvement Society, a sort of grown-up foster sister to a pair of twins who arrive on the scene (more on them later), and generally a noble and good member of society.
The rest of this post is going to be in bullet point form, because that is the best to describe my disappointment. Though I’ll try to throw in some good things along the way.
- Anne is so Noble and Good in this book. She has become the quintessential heroine of a Victorian children’s novel (albeit this is later than that), thinking good thoughts and doing good deeds.
- ALL her spirit seems to have gone. I cannot emphasise how dull she is now.
- Gilbert Blythe gets maybe four lines of dialogue?
- Even in his most interesting scenes, writing pretend letters to someone, he barely appears.
- WHY SO LITTLE GILBERT?
- (I know he comes back in later books, but I cannot fathom why L.M. Montgomery took away one of the two most interesting relationships from Anne of Green Gables. The other was with Matthew, so I can at least see why that isn’t present.)
- Marilla takes in the twins, Dora and Davy. And lord knows I wish she hadn’t. Davy is forever doing naughty things then saying “Good gosh, Miss Anne, I had no notion this was a naughty thing to do! How will I ever repent of it when it was so fun?” and Dora just cries. How did an author who made a girl character like Anne also make these Boys Will Be Boys And Girls Will Cry characters? I loathed them.
- Mrs Lavendar Lewis was great, I will acknowledge. An old lady who is something of a recluse but brings joy and wit to every scene she’s in.
- Did I mention that there is basically no Gilbert?
I had planned to go on with the rest of the series, but I’m much more reluctant now. Anne has gone from one of the best characters in fiction to one of the most tedious – and, without her spark, the novel really dragged for me.
Others have promised me that the series looks up in later volumes. Does Anne get her spark back? Should I continue?
