Why we love Ilse

Imagine Diana Barry saying this:

"If I hear of any more meddling and sneaking I'll slit your throats, and rip out your hearts, and tear your eyes out. Yes, and I'll cut off your ears and wear them pinned on my dress."

Confronting the uncanny

I'm up to Chapter 14 ("Fancy Fed") and have so many notes I'm going to try to group them by theme. I think this is also pretty telling of my sense of the differences between Anne and Emily. The former had me merely keeping track of her literary allusions, the latter is leading me into slightly darker territory and urging me to do a little more than simply copy quotations. All is not "sweetness and light" here. Perhaps that is one of the reasons Anne has so many more readers?

In reading about "the flash" I'm reminded of the sudden stabs of "joy" that C.S. Lewis described as beginning in his early childhood. Without going too deeply into it, he later linked it to the German idea of Sehnsucht (or "longing") that was an aspect of German Romanticism and a key part of the work of Novalis (particularly, the "blue flower"), who (incidently) hugely influenced George MacDonald (the Scottish author of At the Back of the North Wind and many many other things (Tori Amos is said to be currently working on the music to a stage adaptation of The Light Princess)--Lewis Carroll credits him with giving him the courage to have Alice's Adventures in Wonderland published). Of course, Lewis was heavily influenced by MacDonald as well.

Anyway, what's important for now is just to keep in mind this sense of something "other" that illuminates and inspires Emily at unexpected times.

Now. Aside from the trauma of the death of her father and sudden changes in her life, the first glimpse Emily gets of something truly strange is when Cousin Jimmy is showing her around his garden (in Chapter 7, "The Book of Yesterday"):

Emily's heart swelled with pride.

"It's a noble house," she said.

"And what about my garden?" demanded Cousin Jimmy jealousy [sic].

"It's fit for a queen," said Emily, gravely and sincerely.

Cousin Jimmy nodded, well pleased, and then a strange sound crept into his voice and an odd look into his eyes.

"There is a spell woven round this garden. The blight shall spare it and the green worm pass it by. Drought dares not invade it and the rain comes here most gently."

Emily took an involuntary step backward--she almost felt like running away. But now Cousin Jimmy was himself again.

This happens throughout the books--Cousin Jimmy's "spells" are attributed to the fact that he nearly died after being accidentally knocked into a well as a child (by Aunt Elizabeth). He's never been the same since...and also composes poetry, which he keeps "in his head" and will recite only "when the spirit moves him."

And then we come to Chapter 10 ("Growing Pains"). I don't want to describe too much of the story for those who have not yet read it, but Emily is about to have her hair cut off against her will:

Aunt Elizabeth returned with the scissors; they clicked suggestively as she opened them; that click, as if by magic, seemed to loosen something--some strange formidable power in Emily's soul. She turned deliberately around and faced her aunt. She felt her brows drawing together in an unaccustomed way--she felt an uprush as from unknown depths of some irresistible surge of energy.

"Aunt Elizabeth," she said, looking straight at the lady with the scissors, "my hair is not going to be cut off. Let me hear no more of this."

An amazing thing happened to Aunt Elizabeth. She turned pale--she laid the scissors down--she looked aghast for one moment at the transformed or possessed child before her--and then for the first time in her life Elizabeth Murray turned tail and fled--literally fled--to the kitchen.

"What is the matter, Elizabeth?" cried Laura, coming in from the cook-house.

"I saw--father--looking from her face," gasped Elizabeth, trembling. "And she said, 'Let me hear no more of this'--just as he always said it--his very words."

Emily overheard her and ran to the sideboard mirror. She had had, while she was speaking, an uncanny feeling of wearing somebody else's face instead of her own.

She is also frightened of what has happened, especially since it's completely involuntary. She can't assume "the Murray look" when she wants to.

Of course, something else happens that enables Aunt Elizabeth to get back at Emily, and she is "locked in the spare room and told that she must stay there till bedtime."

It's really interesting to do a parallel reading of this scene with the famous one in Jane Eyre. There are a lot of similarities: the dark room, the large bed, the fact that people have died there, the type of fear that invades the souls of these two young girls, etc. But where Jane passes out, Emily climbs out the window.

What I want to point out is that in describing the room, Montgomery adds something else:

Worst of all, right across the room from her, high up on top of the black wardrobe, was a huge, stuffed, white Arctic owl, staring at her with uncanny eyes.

There's that word again. I've checked with this handy "search" feature and Montgomery uses the word "uncanny" at least eight times--the first two within three or four pages of each other. (Also, you can find "possessed" at least five times and "possess" three. But this search tool is not perfect because it misses all of the uses of these words. For example, it says that there are no instances of "possession," although it's right there in Chapter 13.)

This part of Emily's story strongly reminds me of one of the better digressions in Mark Danielewski's House of Leaves (or at least, one of the few I still remember, having read the book about seven years ago). It begins with the contemplation of the word "uncanny" and extends into a long quotation from Martin Heidegger's Being and Time:

In anxiety one feels uncanny. Here the peculiar indefiniteness of that which Dasein finds itself alongside in anxiety, comes proximally to expression: "the nothing and nowhere". But here "uncanniness" also means "not-being-at home."

The narrator quoting Heidegger then picks up the thread and says,

Nevertheless regardless of how extensive his analysis is here, Heidegger still fails to point out that unheimlich when used as an adverb means "dreadfully," "awfully," "heaps of," and "an awful lot of." Largeness has always been a condition of the weird and unsafe; it is overwhelming, too much or too big. Thus that which is uncanny or unheimlich is neither homey nor protective, nor comforting nor familiar. It is alien, exposed, and unsettling [...].

I also came across another exploration of this word in my academic reading. This is from J. Hillis Miller's essay, "The Critic as Host" (in specifically referring to work by Thackeray and Hardy):

These sad love stories of a domestic affection which nevertheless introduces the uncanny, the alien, the parasitical into the closed economy of the home, the Unheimlich into the Heimlich, no doubt describe well enough the way some people may feel about the relation of a 'deconstructive' interpretation to 'the obvious or univocal meaning'. The parasite is destroying the host. The alien has invaded the house [...].

The editors added a footnote to "Unheimlich" and explain that it's "the German word for 'uncanny'. Miller implies that Heimlich means 'homely'. Heim is indeed the German word for 'home', but heimlich means 'secret'. For once Miller seems to have underestimated the duplicity of language."

Wheels within wheels...

And I suddenly remember that both the Emily books and Jane Eyre each contain decidedly uncanny events that help resolve their respective plots.

It may seem that I'm exaggerating these darker themes and a "normal" reader wouldn't really notice them so much. But as a girl reading these books, I remember being creeped out a lot...especially as the series progressed. I can't separate this current reading of the first Emily book from my knowledge of the last two, and I particularly notice how skilfully Montgomery has set the stage for what comes later. Forgive the comparison, but an example is what Rowling has done with the world of Harry Potter. People, places, and objects are present in the first book that take on greater (and darker) significance as the books progress, but because of the protagonists' age and the newness of everything, the unsuspecting reader takes it all as a matter of course. All the more reason why the subsequent unfolding of events seems so revelatory.

Call her "Em'ly" at your own risk

I first read the Emily books as a teenager living in Colombia and was struck by the subtle sense of danger that's threaded through them. I've mentioned that although I've always considered Anne a friend, I personally identify more with Emily--not because she seems more "human" or has more faults (which certainly is an argument that could be made), but because the world in which she lives is more hazardous; hence, real. We never really fear for Anne in the various environments and "scrapes" in which she finds herself, but Emily's situation is much more precarious. The physical setting of New Moon and the fragile condition of her internal state deepen the reader's concern. Plus, Emily's world is simply darker... By the time you hit Emily's Quest, you wonder whether Montgomery was influenced by Villette in evoking the novel's tone. (In her journals, she mentions not being able to forgive Charlotte for the ending--but it would be interesting to compare the dates to see if this was before or after the last Emily book was published.)

I'm reading this one more slowly and am only at Chapter 7 (it's hard for me to slow down once I start rereading these books!). I don't think I'll list the literary allusions in the same way I did with Anne, but I do plan on mentioning them. Aside from the clear references to The Pilgrim's Progress and the Song of Solomon (her comments about the former always make me smile because they're so true!), I also suspect that George MacDonald's At the Back of the North Wind may have inspired the "Wind Woman." (I easily imagine Emily flying away with her like Diamond did.)

I was also reminded of Jane Eyre (which I am almost positive influenced these novels). It begins with this exchange with Ellen Greene:

"I don't think I want Aunt Ruth to take me," said Emily deliberately, after a moment's reflection.

"Well, you won't have the choosing likely. You ought to be thankful to get a home anywhere. Remember you're not of much importance."

"I am important to myself," cried Emily proudly.

I was immediately reminded of one of Jane's famous lines to Rochester:

"I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself."

I have some thoughts about "the flash" as well, but I'll save them for another post. I look forward to reading other thoughts on this brilliant little book.

A Discussion of Emily of New Moon

I apologize for having neglected this blog throughout my travelling summer and the beginning of a new term. I’m glad that other participants have been keeping it lively with interesting posts! At the beginning of the summer, when I asked if there was any interest in continuing on after Anne of Green Gables to discuss another Montgomery novel in this forum, the resounding response was affirmative. Opinion was divided on which Montgomery novel that should be, but those voting for Emily of New Moon slightly edged out those voting for another in the Anne series. So I’m proposing that we commence a discussion of Emily of New Moon this month, beginning on October 15th. That’s coming up quickly I know, but I also know that several of you have read it already, perhaps multiple times, and might wish to post some of your thoughts on it right away. And we can continue the discussion over the course of a month or two as we did with Anne, so that those who want to read or reread Emily before contributing to the discussion can take the time to do.

Here are a couple questions, just to start us off. Two years ago I attended a conference on Montgomery’s work at which one presenter described a then newly published anthology of essays by Finnish women about their childhood reading of Montgomery’s novels. A pervasive feature of the anthology was the passionate identification of contributors with either Anne or Emily, but rarely both. If you were a childhood fan of Montgomery, which was it for you, Anne or Emily, or were you equally fond of both? If your acquaintance with them is more recent, do you have any thoughts about the similarities and differences between Anne and Emily, the characters, or Anne of Green Gables and Emily of New Moon, the novels?

I will be very interested to read everyone’s thoughts on Emily!

Trip to Melbourne

I am off to Melbourne for a few days with some ex collegues from the school I used to teach at and to see my friend who emigrated from the Uk. It will be fun but I doubt I'll have time to blog. See you all next wek. Hope it's a good one for you all.

PEI : a Magic Island

Upon rereading Anne this summer (and reading everyone's comments on their own rereadings) I've noticed more than previously the book's actual construction. I've read it numerous times since I was about twelve, but looking at how LMM structured it to work most effectively has been intriguing. She uses things like repetition and parallel constructions to build the story, leading us through Anne's adventures until we reach the final emotional climax of Matthew's death and Anne's decision to stay in Avonlea with Marilla. Just look at the titles of the first three chapters: "Mrs. Rachel Lynde is Surprised", "Matthew is Surprised", "Marilla is Surprised". Each chapter takes the same subject, Anne's imminent arrival, and further embroiders it and draws us in to feel the tension of wondering whether Anne will indeed make a home at Green Gables or be sent back to the orphanage. (at least the first time we read it).

I was actually surprised at how much I kept noticing the writerly aspects of Anne this time around. I guess it is good timing that just as I become interested in this, a new book has been published by Oxford University Press called Magic Island : the fictions of L.M. Montgomery, by Elizabeth Waterston (one of the acknowledged experts on LMM, co-editor of her journals, the other being Mary Rubio, whose full biography A Gift of Wings is to be released by Random House next month). It's a full look at all of LMM's novels, in chronological order, interpreting them in light of her life experiences and new facts about her writing career. It begins, of course, with her first book, Anne of Green Gables. Due to the scope of the book, the essays are brief, Anne's being only 10 pages. Still, for any Anne fan, it is a fascinating look at things you may not have known lurked in the background of any particular book; inspirations, dreams, problems being worked out, and so forth.

My only complaint is that there is a fair bit of speculation involved in many of the essays, ie: there may have been some repressed emotion showing up here, this character may have been influenced by the memory of her childhood friends, etc. Considering how brief the essays are, necessarily, I would have liked more reliance on direct correlations between her life and her fiction. Nevertheless, that is a minor complaint about a wonderfully entertaining, endlessly fascinating book tackling something which has been overlooked until now. It has also made me think what a wonderful reading project it would be to read each essay alongside the book it discusses. I skipped around in the book reading about my favourite novels first, but even those for novels I haven't reread in years have reignited my interest in all things LMM.

So. Next year? Anyone interested? ;)

[cross posted at The Indextrious Reader]

Kate's courage

Carolyn Kellogg at Jacket Copy reports on the recent revelation of L.M. Montgomery's granddaughter. She asks,

Will this add to or detract from Montgomery's legacy? Butler sees it as an important addition. She writes, "the legacy of L.M. Montgomery, and my grandfather, Rev. Ewan Macdonald, and its related responsibilities and joys, are taken very seriously by my family. I spoke with them before writing this essay and we agreed that it was important for us to share our family's story."

Yes, the truth is important. Heartbreaking and tragic, but necessary. As Butler writes,

I have come to feel very strongly that the stigma surrounding mental illness will be forever upon us as a society until we sweep away the misconception that depression happens to other people, not us – and most certainly not to our heroes and icons.

(via Sarah Weinman)