Book Review: Anne’s House of Dreams
Dec. 17th, 2023 02:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerAlthough it would be foolish to pick a favorite Anne of Green Gables book, I must admit that I have a soft spot in my heart for Anne’s House of Dreams. Montgomery writes wonderfully vivid characters, and this book in particular is full of delightful weirdos. I love Captain Jim, the lighthouse keeper who tells wonderful yarns of his adventurous life, and Miss Cornelia, Anne’s vociferous neighbor who hates men and Methodists.
And most of all I love Leslie Moore, Anne’s beautiful neighbor with the “splendid, resentful eyes.” On their wedding night, as Gilbert drives Anne to her new home by the sea, Anne notices a girl driving geese in the sunset. “Who is that beautiful girl?” Anne gasps, but her newly minted husband can’t answer: he saw no one, as he has eyes only for Anne.
So it is only a few weeks later that Anne learns Leslie’s story from Miss Cornelia. At sixteen, Leslie was forced by economic circumstances to marry the villainous Dick Moore, who soon after went off to sea, got into a brawl, and came back suffering from brain damage, including total amnesia. For the past dozen years, she’s looked after him, and she’ll probably grind the rest of her life away in poverty, looking after a man she never loved in the first place.
The rage and the pride of Leslie! Her lonely heart yearns toward Anne, but she’s held back by resentment, for Anne has everything Leslie ever wanted: a college education, a loving husband, and soon enough a baby on the way. “So you are to have that too,” she chokes out, and strides away in such a fury of resentment that there is nothing to do but stride along beside the crashing sea until the sound of the waves pounds it away.
Anne is hurt, of course, but unswayed in her determination that Leslie will be her friend, someday. And, since friendship is Anne’s superpower, her steadfast love and affection eventually coax Leslie out of her shell. But as Leslie’s happiness burgeons, she grows more receptive to the world… and falls in love with her summer boarder, the writer Owen Ford, who of course can’t help but love her back.
Then Gilbert realizes that an operation may restore Dick Moore’s faculties, a step that Anne vigorously protests: a recovered Dick Moore would only make Leslie’s life a thousand times worse! And all I’ve got to say is that it’s very convenient for both Gilbert and the author that this operation, in restoring Dick Moore’s memory, also reveals that he’s not Dick Moore at all! He’s George Moore, Dick’s lookalike cousin.
So Leslie has been a widow these twelve years, and she and Owen are free to wed! HAPPY END.
I also love the sense of place in this book. Anne’s house of dreams is a seaside home on a spit of land that ends in Captain Jim’s lighthouse, and the book is chock full of evocative shore walks, ships leaving the harbor, Captain Jim's sea stories: Lost Margaret drifting out to sea, asleep in her coracle... In some books I think Montgomery relies too heavily on stories-within-a-story, but here the stories enrich the sea-laden atmosphere like a sprinkle of salt over clam chowder. You can almost hear the lap of the waves as you read.
And most of all I love Leslie Moore, Anne’s beautiful neighbor with the “splendid, resentful eyes.” On their wedding night, as Gilbert drives Anne to her new home by the sea, Anne notices a girl driving geese in the sunset. “Who is that beautiful girl?” Anne gasps, but her newly minted husband can’t answer: he saw no one, as he has eyes only for Anne.
So it is only a few weeks later that Anne learns Leslie’s story from Miss Cornelia. At sixteen, Leslie was forced by economic circumstances to marry the villainous Dick Moore, who soon after went off to sea, got into a brawl, and came back suffering from brain damage, including total amnesia. For the past dozen years, she’s looked after him, and she’ll probably grind the rest of her life away in poverty, looking after a man she never loved in the first place.
The rage and the pride of Leslie! Her lonely heart yearns toward Anne, but she’s held back by resentment, for Anne has everything Leslie ever wanted: a college education, a loving husband, and soon enough a baby on the way. “So you are to have that too,” she chokes out, and strides away in such a fury of resentment that there is nothing to do but stride along beside the crashing sea until the sound of the waves pounds it away.
Anne is hurt, of course, but unswayed in her determination that Leslie will be her friend, someday. And, since friendship is Anne’s superpower, her steadfast love and affection eventually coax Leslie out of her shell. But as Leslie’s happiness burgeons, she grows more receptive to the world… and falls in love with her summer boarder, the writer Owen Ford, who of course can’t help but love her back.
Then Gilbert realizes that an operation may restore Dick Moore’s faculties, a step that Anne vigorously protests: a recovered Dick Moore would only make Leslie’s life a thousand times worse! And all I’ve got to say is that it’s very convenient for both Gilbert and the author that this operation, in restoring Dick Moore’s memory, also reveals that he’s not Dick Moore at all! He’s George Moore, Dick’s lookalike cousin.
So Leslie has been a widow these twelve years, and she and Owen are free to wed! HAPPY END.
I also love the sense of place in this book. Anne’s house of dreams is a seaside home on a spit of land that ends in Captain Jim’s lighthouse, and the book is chock full of evocative shore walks, ships leaving the harbor, Captain Jim's sea stories: Lost Margaret drifting out to sea, asleep in her coracle... In some books I think Montgomery relies too heavily on stories-within-a-story, but here the stories enrich the sea-laden atmosphere like a sprinkle of salt over clam chowder. You can almost hear the lap of the waves as you read.
