7/9 Finished Emily of New Moon, by Lucy Maud Montgomery. An immensely rich book, with many ponderous thematic angles and favorite moments I can only hope to do justice to.
“I think I’ll wait for you.” ”Oh, I’m ready to go now.“ ”H’m. That wasn’t what I meant. Never mind.” A shock, chance encounter turns profoundly romantic when Emily wanders along the cliff by the sea, described vividly on 270-271, where the turf gives way to boulders far below, as shown on the cover of my edition. Emily sees “a magnificent spray of farewell summer” by the edge, but when she reaches for the flowers ends up sliding onto the edge of a precipice, where the slightest move might send her down onto the rocks.
Thankfully, Dean “Jarback” Priest comes along and pulls her to safety—and Emily doesn’t forget to grab the sought flowers (275). A man after my heart. Reading about adorable little Emily Byrd Starr page after page, constantly thought, “Can I marry her?” Though three times Emily’s age and a bit of a cripple, Dean instantly falls for her, nicknaming her Star—“Stars are prismatic—palpitating—elusive. It is not often we find one made of flesh and blood.”—and, perhaps hoping to be misunderstood, announces he’ll wait for her.
The two immediately connect over a shared love of poetry (275-279), and Emily finds in Dean what Anne Shirley would recognize as the most kindred of kindred spirits (282-284). “In Dean Priest Emily found, for the first time since her father had died, a companion who could fully sympathize. She was always at her best with him, with a delightful feeling of being understood.” As in the Anne books, there is a sense of the chosenness of those who can enter Fairyland: “Either the fairies themselves give you your passport at your christening—or they don’t. That is all there is to it.” Just so, while Dean Priest can speak like a pagan, in a title where the supernatural surfaces time and again, what he seems to mean by Fairyland—“everything the human heart desires”—as opposed to the threatening, “blasphemous” weird realities beyond the ken of reason, is everything of a higher order which is wholesome and friendly to mankind. Emily is privileged to know these things directly when she experiences “the flash”, and Dean‘s own understanding of these things is renewed by Emily. “As for Dean Priest, a certain secret well-spring of fancy that had long seemed dry bubbled up in him sparklingly again.” Both better and complement the other.
Tangentially, the reader will also like to see Emily’s political beliefs taking shape during her friendship with Dean. While he drolly says, “The happiest countries, like the happiest women, have no history,” and that “a bloodless battle at the polls” would have been a better means of stopping the Persian invasion, Emily honestly says, “I—can’t—feel—that way.” Intelligent as she is, like Anne she is decidedly an F rather than a T on the Myers-Briggs. And while Anne Shirley/Blythe is one of the few children’s book heroines whose political affiliation we know (she is a Conservative; at some unspecified time Gilbert converts from being one of the “Grits” in his youth to sharing Anne’s views), here we’re given a preview of Emily’s future elucidation of her here inchoate anti-democratic beliefs:
”She was not old enough to think or say, as she would say ten years later, ‘The heroes of Thermopylæ have been an inspiration to humanity for centuries. What squabble around a ballot-box will ever be that?’”
Very nice that this moving character, whom Montgomery based on herself, wanted to #EndDemocracy.
But will Emily, will ‘Star’ end up with Dean? I haven’t looked ahead. As it is, Emily is in a pretty spot, with three likely suitors. I don’t think Teddy has much of a chance, not manly enough and too much an air of tragedy, but the hired boy Perry looks to be a feisty contender, and would probably make a more ‘normal’ choice. But for now, I love that they get to spend innocent intimate moments together. When Dean visits Blair Water, they go on nocturnal walks in many lonely places. In Montgomery’s piercingly passionate words, “They watched a young moon grow old, night by night” (341). Even if they never become more than friends, what a glad thing, to share such special experiences, together by themselves.
Pic is not Dean and Emily, but Stephen and Betty, another couple where a significant age gap is a factor, from L. M. Montgomery’s short story “The Education of Betty”, in her collection Further Chronicles of Avonlea. #LucyMaudMontgomery #LMMontgomery #EmilyOfNewMoon #love #romance #kindredspirits #Fairyland #childrensliterature #childrensbooks #literature #books
“I think I’ll wait for you.” ”Oh, I’m ready to go now.“ ”H’m. That wasn’t what I meant. Never mind.” A shock, chance encounter turns profoundly romantic when Emily wanders along the cliff by the sea, described vividly on 270-271, where the turf gives way to boulders far below, as shown on the cover of my edition. Emily sees “a magnificent spray of farewell summer” by the edge, but when she reaches for the flowers ends up sliding onto the edge of a precipice, where the slightest move might send her down onto the rocks.
Thankfully, Dean “Jarback” Priest comes along and pulls her to safety—and Emily doesn’t forget to grab the sought flowers (275). A man after my heart. Reading about adorable little Emily Byrd Starr page after page, constantly thought, “Can I marry her?” Though three times Emily’s age and a bit of a cripple, Dean instantly falls for her, nicknaming her Star—“Stars are prismatic—palpitating—elusive. It is not often we find one made of flesh and blood.”—and, perhaps hoping to be misunderstood, announces he’ll wait for her.
The two immediately connect over a shared love of poetry (275-279), and Emily finds in Dean what Anne Shirley would recognize as the most kindred of kindred spirits (282-284). “In Dean Priest Emily found, for the first time since her father had died, a companion who could fully sympathize. She was always at her best with him, with a delightful feeling of being understood.” As in the Anne books, there is a sense of the chosenness of those who can enter Fairyland: “Either the fairies themselves give you your passport at your christening—or they don’t. That is all there is to it.” Just so, while Dean Priest can speak like a pagan, in a title where the supernatural surfaces time and again, what he seems to mean by Fairyland—“everything the human heart desires”—as opposed to the threatening, “blasphemous” weird realities beyond the ken of reason, is everything of a higher order which is wholesome and friendly to mankind. Emily is privileged to know these things directly when she experiences “the flash”, and Dean‘s own understanding of these things is renewed by Emily. “As for Dean Priest, a certain secret well-spring of fancy that had long seemed dry bubbled up in him sparklingly again.” Both better and complement the other.
Tangentially, the reader will also like to see Emily’s political beliefs taking shape during her friendship with Dean. While he drolly says, “The happiest countries, like the happiest women, have no history,” and that “a bloodless battle at the polls” would have been a better means of stopping the Persian invasion, Emily honestly says, “I—can’t—feel—that way.” Intelligent as she is, like Anne she is decidedly an F rather than a T on the Myers-Briggs. And while Anne Shirley/Blythe is one of the few children’s book heroines whose political affiliation we know (she is a Conservative; at some unspecified time Gilbert converts from being one of the “Grits” in his youth to sharing Anne’s views), here we’re given a preview of Emily’s future elucidation of her here inchoate anti-democratic beliefs:
”She was not old enough to think or say, as she would say ten years later, ‘The heroes of Thermopylæ have been an inspiration to humanity for centuries. What squabble around a ballot-box will ever be that?’”
Very nice that this moving character, whom Montgomery based on herself, wanted to #EndDemocracy.
But will Emily, will ‘Star’ end up with Dean? I haven’t looked ahead. As it is, Emily is in a pretty spot, with three likely suitors. I don’t think Teddy has much of a chance, not manly enough and too much an air of tragedy, but the hired boy Perry looks to be a feisty contender, and would probably make a more ‘normal’ choice. But for now, I love that they get to spend innocent intimate moments together. When Dean visits Blair Water, they go on nocturnal walks in many lonely places. In Montgomery’s piercingly passionate words, “They watched a young moon grow old, night by night” (341). Even if they never become more than friends, what a glad thing, to share such special experiences, together by themselves.
Pic is not Dean and Emily, but Stephen and Betty, another couple where a significant age gap is a factor, from L. M. Montgomery’s short story “The Education of Betty”, in her collection Further Chronicles of Avonlea. #LucyMaudMontgomery #LMMontgomery #EmilyOfNewMoon #love #romance #kindredspirits #Fairyland #childrensliterature #childrensbooks #literature #books
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