Author: L. M. Montgomery
Book One of this year's reading challenge is an e-book that I downloaded onto my Samsung Galaxy S (Android smartphone). I read it mostly in bed, the first half within a few sporadic sessions and, after about a week's break, a single marathon session to finish the remaining half. By then it was 2 o'clock in the morning, and I began to worry that my eyes would appear puffy at work the next day from lack of sleep and excessive crying.
I do not quite know how to categorize this book - since it starts with Anne as a young girl it could very well be considered children's literature, although the series continues into Anne's adulthood. Of course, it is a classic like 'Little Women', which I have read as a young girl. And how I wish I had read this one as a young girl.
Anne is a red-haired chatterbox of an orphan girl. She is mistakenly delivered to live at Green Gables with the Cuthberts - Marilla and her brother Matthew - who originally wanted a boy to help them around the farm. With a wild imagination and an equally impressive vocabulary of big words, Anne would end up in scrapes and endear herself to the Cuthberts and their neighbours, making friends as well as envious enemies. Her imagination is not without virtue, though, as she has a big heart and is ambitious to do good. At the Avonlea school, she proves herself to be one of their brightest students and secures a place at Queen's Academy, where she wins an Avery scholarship to do a B.A. at Redmond College.
Just before she begins her studies at Redmond, Matthew dies of a heart attack and Anne finds out that Marilla's eyesight is failing. She decides to give up her scholarship and take up a teaching position in a nearby town, which allows her to visit Green Gables often. Knowing this, her previous schoolmate Gilbert Blythe - who earlier earned Anne's wrath by calling her 'Carrots' - gives up his teaching position in Avonlea to Anne so she could stay with Marilla. The book ends with a promising 'bend in the road ahead'.
Montgomery writes very much the way I imagine Anne would write - her description of the places are full of verbal flourishes that paint a wonderful picture in your mind. What I loved the most, though, is Anne. The author clearly loves her protagonist, imbuing her with abundant energy and passionate feelings, along with a youthful optimism that makes the reader (i.e. me) long for those carefree days. It reminds me of the times when everything was possible and the big wide world was mine for the taking. When right and wrong was as clear as black and white. I think I cried as much for those days as I did for Matthew and Marilla.
