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osprey_archer) wrote2024-04-28 01:47 pm
osprey_archer) wrote2024-04-28 01:47 pm
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Book Review: Emily’s Quest
I love L. M. Montgomery’s Emily books, but it cannot be denied that the trilogy rather peters out in the third book. The problem, I think, is that the book rather loses sight of the center of Emily’s story. In the first two books, the unifying thread is Emily’s development as a writer, and both books end with Emily taking an important step on that journey.
In Emily of New Moon, Emily's favorite teacher Mr. Carpenter criticizes her work, ending by telling her that she has the makings of a real writer if she keeps at it—and Emily, of course, vows to keep at it. In Emily Climbs, Miss Royal invites Emily to New York City, where Miss Royal’s connections will smooth Emily’s climb up the “alpine path” as a writer—but Emily refuses. She has to take the harder road, not only as a Canadian author but an author rooted in a province that many see as a backwater.
In Emily’s Quest, however, the balance between Emily’s writing and Emily’s romances ends up getting out of kilter.
The book starts out strong. Mr. Carpenter dies, warning Emily with his dying breath, “Beware—of—italics.” Emily, devastated, nonetheless moves forward with her first novel: The Seller of Dreams. With Mr. Carpenter dead, she gives the book to her only remaining discerning critic: Dean.
But Dean hates the book. He hates it before he reads it, because he is jealous: the book, Emily’s writing as a whole, distract her from him. He hates it all the more after reading it, because he sees that it is good, that it will take her yet further from him; and so he tells her, “It’s a pretty little story, Emily. Pretty and flimsy and ephemeral as a rose-tinted cloud…”
Emily burns the book, then in a passion of regret rushes away, she knows not where—only to trip on Aunt Laura’s workbasket on the stairs, which leads to her spending months laid up in her room. Dean is her constant companion, the only light in this dark time in her life, and so at the end of the winter she agrees to marry him.
But in the end she just can’t stick it. She tells him that she doesn’t love him. Dean, his hopes flattened, at last admits that her book was good. This is what makes Dean such a haunting character, because you have evidence like this that he is capable of better things, and yet in the clinch he follows his worst instincts. Perhaps if you could have shared Emily with her writing, sir! But no. That was never an option.
And then Dean goes away ne’er to return, and slowly Emily takes up her pen again. But her writing, which has hitherto been the backbone of the series, even in those chapters where she was giving it up, now slips from center stage. Emily’s romance become the A-plot, just when the romance can least support that weight, because all obstacles to endgame Emily/Teddy have effectively been removed.
Dean is out of the picture. Perry finally stops proposing to Emily, and was never a serious threat anyway. Emily may be worried that Teddy love Ilse, but it’s impossible for the reader to worry about it when Teddy keeps drawing Emily’s face in all his magazine illustrations. (This is such a turn of the 20th century romance trope: the artist who always draws his beloved no matter who he is techncially supposed to drawing.) All that’s keeping these two kids apart is themselves, and admittedly the interference of Teddy’s strange mother (who, like Dean, is utterly warped by jealousy), but if Teddy ever got it together for two seconds to gaze at Emily in the moonlight and murmur, “Emily, do you…?”, they would get together like that
Unfortunately there is still half a book to fill, and rather than filling it with Emily’s writing journey (oh, Emily writes a best-selling novel, but that’s kind of an afterthought), Montgomery fills it with misunderstandings. These misunderstandings culminate in Teddy and Ilse almost getting married. Fortunately Perry is in a car accident on the morning of the wedding, and literally minutes before the ceremony Ilse tears out to see if he is dead, because Perry is the man she has always really loved. ILU Ilse, thank God someone in this book finally stops playing romantic chicken and just ’fesses up to being in love.
In Emily of New Moon, Emily's favorite teacher Mr. Carpenter criticizes her work, ending by telling her that she has the makings of a real writer if she keeps at it—and Emily, of course, vows to keep at it. In Emily Climbs, Miss Royal invites Emily to New York City, where Miss Royal’s connections will smooth Emily’s climb up the “alpine path” as a writer—but Emily refuses. She has to take the harder road, not only as a Canadian author but an author rooted in a province that many see as a backwater.
In Emily’s Quest, however, the balance between Emily’s writing and Emily’s romances ends up getting out of kilter.
The book starts out strong. Mr. Carpenter dies, warning Emily with his dying breath, “Beware—of—italics.” Emily, devastated, nonetheless moves forward with her first novel: The Seller of Dreams. With Mr. Carpenter dead, she gives the book to her only remaining discerning critic: Dean.
But Dean hates the book. He hates it before he reads it, because he is jealous: the book, Emily’s writing as a whole, distract her from him. He hates it all the more after reading it, because he sees that it is good, that it will take her yet further from him; and so he tells her, “It’s a pretty little story, Emily. Pretty and flimsy and ephemeral as a rose-tinted cloud…”
Emily burns the book, then in a passion of regret rushes away, she knows not where—only to trip on Aunt Laura’s workbasket on the stairs, which leads to her spending months laid up in her room. Dean is her constant companion, the only light in this dark time in her life, and so at the end of the winter she agrees to marry him.
But in the end she just can’t stick it. She tells him that she doesn’t love him. Dean, his hopes flattened, at last admits that her book was good. This is what makes Dean such a haunting character, because you have evidence like this that he is capable of better things, and yet in the clinch he follows his worst instincts. Perhaps if you could have shared Emily with her writing, sir! But no. That was never an option.
And then Dean goes away ne’er to return, and slowly Emily takes up her pen again. But her writing, which has hitherto been the backbone of the series, even in those chapters where she was giving it up, now slips from center stage. Emily’s romance become the A-plot, just when the romance can least support that weight, because all obstacles to endgame Emily/Teddy have effectively been removed.
Dean is out of the picture. Perry finally stops proposing to Emily, and was never a serious threat anyway. Emily may be worried that Teddy love Ilse, but it’s impossible for the reader to worry about it when Teddy keeps drawing Emily’s face in all his magazine illustrations. (This is such a turn of the 20th century romance trope: the artist who always draws his beloved no matter who he is techncially supposed to drawing.) All that’s keeping these two kids apart is themselves, and admittedly the interference of Teddy’s strange mother (who, like Dean, is utterly warped by jealousy), but if Teddy ever got it together for two seconds to gaze at Emily in the moonlight and murmur, “Emily, do you…?”, they would get together like that
Unfortunately there is still half a book to fill, and rather than filling it with Emily’s writing journey (oh, Emily writes a best-selling novel, but that’s kind of an afterthought), Montgomery fills it with misunderstandings. These misunderstandings culminate in Teddy and Ilse almost getting married. Fortunately Perry is in a car accident on the morning of the wedding, and literally minutes before the ceremony Ilse tears out to see if he is dead, because Perry is the man she has always really loved. ILU Ilse, thank God someone in this book finally stops playing romantic chicken and just ’fesses up to being in love.
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