Anne-Girl

So I belong to this great group of readers on facebook.  It's recently come to our attention that Netflix is putting out a series called Anne which is loosely based on L.M. Montgomery's books.  Some of the gals have had the chance to see a few episodes (It's been released in Canada), and whoa, Nelly, are there a few problems with it.  I watched the trailer, and my stomach was instantly in knots.  It's very dark for Anne of Green Gables, and I was kind of shocked.  I instantly didn't want to have anything to do with it.  First of all, hadn't read the books until now.  But I am a HUGE fan of the first two movies from the 80s AND the Road to Avonlea miniseries. They are funny and wholesome, and I just can't get enough of them.

Well, my suspicions about the series were verified when one of the facebook group members posted a short clip from one of the first few episodes.  There's content in it that is akin to showing how sexual predators groom children.

Wait, what?!

HOW DARE YOU!?

Needless to say, after reading this and this, with it's smattering of invented feminist rhetoric by someone who previously worked on Breaking Bad, I'll never watch it:

“Adapting Anne’s story really excites me,” says Walley-Beckett,[...] “Anne’s issues are contemporary issues: feminism, prejudice, bullying and a desire to belong. The stakes are high and her emotional journey is tumultuous. I’m thrilled to delve deeply into this resonant story, push the boundaries and give it new life.”

I'm already pissed because of this angle. I was searching the youtube comments to see how many other people were outraged, because it can't just be me and a ton of other homeschooling moms who don't want our beloved Anne to be treated thus. Seems there's a lot of disappointment with the series so far, but two comments summed it up:

"Angst of Green Gables."

"I think it's Anne of Green gables but they've taken out all the colour and fun and made it grim and edgy.  It's the emo version."

Update 4/28:  I recently found this eye-roll-worthy article.  It really seems like they're desperately trying to justify what Walley-Beckett is doing with the material, which should raise some alarm.  When something is beautiful, you don't have to make excuses for it.  

Beauty doesn't need to explain itself; it just IS.  

Also, after reading this passage, my BS meter went straight through the roof:

What this means in practice is that the cheerful novel has, in Walley-Beckett’s hands, become much darker. Extrapolating from asides in the text, Walley-Beckett has fleshed out minor characters; given major ones back stories; drawn out themes of gender parity, prejudice, isolation and bullying; and emphasized the trauma of Anne’s childhood.

[...]

Walley-Beckett did not use a writer’s room for “Anne,” writing all seven scripts herself, and told me with no little pride that she was “almost completely off book.” To flesh out what she hopes will be an at-least-35-hour series, she filmed new histories for Matthew and Marilla that explain how they wound up emotionally remote and unmarried; reimagined one of the novel’s many spinsters as one-half of a long Boston marriage; conjured an entire character, the Cuthberts’ young farmhand, Jerry, from a few of Montgomery’s sentences; sent Marilla to a progressive parenting group in which “feminism” is complimentarily defined; aged Anne from 11 to 13; and accentuated Anne’s abusive upbringing while taking countless other liberties with the plot.

[...]

Viewers familiar with the books and previous adaptations may feel when watching “Anne With an E” that the emphasis is on the wrong syllable, while also finding something provoking and substantive in the new pronunciation. Walley-Beckett’s series is recognizably “Anne of Green Gables,” but with a grimmer feel. Anne still, for example, smashes a slate over the head of her future husband, Gilbert Blythe, when he has the temerity to call her “Carrots,” but this is no longer foreplay; it’s the culmination of many weeks of bullying, including by an older boy who calls her a “talking dog” because she is an orphan.

No longer foreplay?!  WTF?!  She's NINE!

[...]

And yet at the end of “Anne of Green Gables,” Anne quits college and returns to the farm to care for an ailing Marilla, never becoming the writer she wanted to be as a child. This is, perhaps, a disappointing ending (and one that presages a string of follow-up novels in which Anne eventually becomes muted by family life), but it is an honest one: We still live in a world where a woman’s intellect does not preclude her from accruing vast domestic responsibilities.

There it is.  "Muted by family life."  Now, I really really want to finish all of the Anne books just to freaking prove this article wrong.  

UGH.

I'm sorry, but this just REEKS of invented feminist rhetoric.  Any time you happen to use the words "extrapolate, sophisticated, contemporary, and quintessentially" in the same paragraph whilst writing about a work meant for children, I want to vomit.  You're just trying too hard.  They're trying to make a ball-buster out of a fiery, but positive, 9 year old girl by just PLUCKING THINGS OUT OF THE AIR.  They're trying to turn Anne into an anti-hero.  She wasn't written as an anti-hero.  She was written as THE HEROINE, and a VIRTUOUS one at that!  Part of me is just really annoyed that I used to have anything to do with that movement.  It's just ridiculous, that's what.

Anne is not a Millennial.  I think they're trying to turn her into one.  Everything gives everyone PTSD lately.  Back then, when people suffered greatly, THEY KNEW HOW TO DEAL WITH SUFFERING.  They didn't sink into the depths of despair and stay there.  They moved ON.  

Lastly, I am not a 5 year old.  5-year-olds wouldn't be able to handle Anne in her entirety (because of the vocabulary and other things that a typical 5-year-old wouldn't understand), but they'd definitely be attracted to her innocence and ability to be childlike.  This show won't be worth my viewing.  

Recently, this excellent article was published in response to the "extracurricular" content in the new series.  

Ah well, enough ranting.  On to the books!  I'm sure I'll read the rest of them some day, but for now, I'm just focusing on the first two.  PS, I LOVE these editions that were published by Aladdin!  

I'm going to do the regular format for this review, but I'm sticking initial reactions and notable quotables to each book to avoid confusion.

Anne of Green Gables

Lucy-Maud Montgomery

440 Pages, Reading time: 4 days

Back cover reads: When Anne Shirley arrives at Green Gables farm, she surprises everyone.  First of all, she's a girl.  Marilla Cuthbert and her brother, Matthew, had specifically asked for an orphan boy to help around the farm.  And Anne (spelled with an e, of course--it make s it much more distinguished) is not just any girl.  She has bright red hair and a wild imagination and can talk a mile a minute.  But her sweet disposition and quick wit convince her reluctant foster parents to let her stay.  
   She soon finds her place, making a friend in her neighbor Diana Barry and attending the local school, were she spurns the advances of the popular and handsome Gilbert Blythe when he commits the ultimate sin of making fun of her hair.  But trouble always seems to follow Anne.  She manages to ruin a perfectly good cake with an unwanted ingredient, hosts a terrible tea with dire consequences, and even ends up dyeing her hair green.  Luckily, she never makes the same mistake twice.  
   With a temper as fiery as her hair, but a big heart, Anne changes the lives of Marilla and Matthew and just about everyone she meets.

Initial Reaction:  Now, I've nothing but the movie to go off of, but you have to understand that those actors ARE the characters for me.  It was so great to delve deeply into each one.  The movie does a great job, but it falls far short of the character development that Montgomery gives to the reader.  We really get inside the heads of the Cuthberts and find out how amazing Rachel Lynde is.  The movies are very true to the books. If it isn't said by the original character in the movie, it's said by someone else.  Also, I love that the book begins with Rachel Lynde.

This was the first book in a very, very long time to actually make me cry.  And I couldn't even help it because I knew it was coming.  I started crying at the end of chapter 36 because I knew what was right around the corner.  Oh, how he loved that little girl.  

If I liked Marilla before, I love her now.  She's such a choleric/melancholic.  I really enjoyed getting to know her more through the book.  In the movie, Colleen Dewhurst does a fabulous portrayal, but she doesn't come off as stiff and cold as Marilla does at first in the book.  I think that this is largely due to the fact that we can see the character.  Marilla finally comes around to Anne, and when she does, it's a beautiful thing to read.  I also love the glints of her sense of humor that we get to see.

I was a bit disappointed that there wasn't as much sentiment between Anne and Gilbert in the books; they play it up a LOT in the movies.  However, I'm sure they took great care in pushing what needed to be pushed given their 3 hour time limit.  I was turning the pages praying that Anne would finally forgive him, but satisfaction wasn't mine until the last few pages.

Notable Quotables:

"Anne's beauty-loving eyes lingered on it all, taking every thing greedily in; she had looked on so many unlovely places in her life, poor child; but this was as lovely as anything she had ever dreamed" (45).  This is one thing that I really love about the book, Anne does not dwell too much on her past, and neither does the narrator.  Her positive outlook really lends a sense of hopefulness to the book.  She keeps moving forward, regardless of what is behind her (except for the incident with Gilbert), and she rarely wallows in self-pity. This is evident on page 58 when she is explaining herself to Marilla.  "Anne finished up with another sigh, of relief this time.  Evidently she did not like talking about her experiences in a world that had not wanted her."

"My life is a perfect graveyard of buried hopes" (54).  Said when Anne was 11.  Bahahah.

"She looks exactly like a gimlet" (67).  Bahahahah! This line in the movie always made me laugh.

"God always wants little girls to say their prayers" (71).  LOVE.  I might make some art out of this for the nursery of Smalls turns out to be a girl.

"Marilla felt more embarrassed than ever.  She had intended to teach Anne the childish classic, Now I lay me down to sleep.  But she had, as I have told you, the glimmerings of a sense of humor-which is simoly another  name for a sense of the fitness of things; and it suddenly occurred to her that that simple little prayer, sacred to white-robed childhood lisping at motherly knees, was entirely unsuited to this freckled witch of a girl who knew and cared nothing about God's love, since she had never had it translated to her through the medium of human love" (73).  This.  Marilla won me over with this.  It was so touching.

"Mrs. Rachel Lynde was one of those delightful and popular people who pride themselves on speaking their mind without fear or favor" (91).  

"I'm really very healthy for all I'm so thin.  I believe I'm getting fatter, though.  Don't you think I am?  I look at my elbows every morning when I get up to see if any dimples are coming" (131).  Oh, to live in a world where skinny wasn't the norm.

"Oh, Marilla, looking forward to things is half the pleasure of them" (133).

"'I am sorry to see a pupil of mine displaying such a temper and such a vindictive spirit,' he said in solemn tone, as if the mere fact of being a pupil of his ought to root out all evil passions from the hearts of small imperfect mortals" (158).  Bahahahah!

"'Mrs. Barry had her table decorated,' said Anne, who was not entirely guiltless of the wisdom of the serpent" (247).  I love that Montgomery assumes we know to what this sentence alludes.

"At that moment Marilla had a revelation.  In the sudden stab of fear that pierced her very heart she realized what Anne had come to mean to her.  She would have admitted that she liked Anne-nay, that she was very fond of Anne.  But now she knew as she hurried wildly down the slope that Anne was dearer to her than anything else on earth" (264).  Oh, love.

"When she pronounces my name I feel instinctively  that she's spelling it with an e" (270).

"He had recourse to his pipe that evening to help him study it out, much to Marilla's disgust.  After two hours of smoking and hard reflection Matthew arrived at a solution of his problem.  Anne was not dressed like the other girls! [...]  But surely it would do no harm to let the child have one pretty dress-something like Diana Barry always wore.  Matthew decided that he would give her one; that surely could not be objected to as an unwarranted putting in of his oar.  Christmas was only a fortnight off.  A new nice dress would be the very thing for a present.  Matthew, with a sigh of satisfaction, put away his pipe and went to bed, while Marilla opened all the doors and aired the house" (277-78).  Matthew is a straight up Melancholic/Phlegmatic.  I love him.

"For Anne, the days slipped by like golden beads on the necklace of the year" (349).  Gorgeous.

"'Well now, I'd rather have you than a dozen boys, Anne,' said Matthew, patting her hand.  'Just mind you that-rather than a dozen boys.  Well now, I guess it wasn't a boy that took the Avery scholarship, was it?  It was a girl--my girl--my girl that I'm proud of'" (417).  And this is where I start bawling, because I know what's going to happen in a few pages.

"'We are going to be the best of friends,' said Gilbert, jubilantly.  'We were born to be good friends, Anne.  You've thwarted destiny long enough.  I know we can help each other in many ways'" (439).  Oh, how he loves her.  

Great words: raiment, tempestuous, perturbation, inculcate, superfluous, qualm, dudgeon, dejectedly, rigmarole, grimly, inveigled, spasmodic.

Anne of Avonlea

210 Pages, Reading time:  Would have been less than a week under normal circumstances

Back cover reads:  Anne paused to throw her arm about a slim young birch at kiss its cream-white trunk.  Diana, rounding a curve in the path, saw her and laughed.
  "Anne Shirely, you're only pretending to be grown up.  I believe when you're alone you're as much a little girl as you ever were."
  "Well, one can't get over the habit of being a little girl all at once," said Anne gaily.  "You see, I was little for fourteen years and I've only been grown-uppish for scarcely three.  I'm sure I shall always feel like a child in the woods."

Initial Reaction:  Wow.  This one was definitely not as good as the first book.  It has it's charm, but you can definitely tell that Anne is growing up.  Comparing it to the movie, several things are taken from the book and changed a little for the movie, but it still stays true to the spirit of the books.  It ended on the up-tick, which I like, and it did make me hungry to keep reading the rest of the series.  It took me over a week to read it because I couldn't find the time.  

Notable Quoteables:
"Mr. Harrison was certainly different from other people... and that is the essential characteristic of a crank, as everybody knows" (8).

"Mrs. Lynde looked upon all people who had the misfortune to be born or brought up elsewhere than in Prince Edward Island with a decided can-any-good-thing-come-out-of-Nazareth air.  They might be good people of course; but you were on the safe side in doubting it.  She had a special prejudice against "Yankees."  Her husband had been cheated out of then dollars by an employer for whom he had once worked it Boston and neither angels nor principalities nor powers could have convinced Mrs. Rachel that the whole United States was not responsible for it" (13).  First:  Bahahahaha.  Second, I love that Montgomery allude to scripture and assumes that we know where it's coming from.

"The remembrance of her own neglected childhood was very vivid with her still" (47).

"(Rachel Lynde can put a whole sermon, text, comment, and application, into six words, and throw it at you like a brick" (54).  Bahahahahah!

"Everything that's worth having is some trouble," said Anne (56).

"Everybody else in Avonlea, except Marilla, had already forgotten quiet, shy, unimportant Matthew Cuthbert; but his memory was still green in Anne's heart and always would be.  She could never forget the kind old man who had been the first to give her the love and sympathy her starved childhood craved" (97).

"Both girls laughed over the old memory...concerning which, if any of my readers are ignorant and curious, I must refer them to Anne's earlier history" (188).  Heh.

"...it is still not pleasant to have faces made at you.  And Davy makes such terrible ones.  Sometimes I am frightened he will never get his face straightened out again.  He makes them at me in church when I ought to be thinking of sacred things" (126, from Paul Irving, 9 years old).  Dawwwww.

"Anne thought Gilbert was a very handsome lad, even though he didn't look at all like her ideal man. [...]  If Gilbert had been asked to describe his ideal woman the description would have answered point for point to Anne, even to those seven tiny freckles whose obnoxious presence still continued to vex her soul" (130).

"In Gilbert's eyes Anne's greatest charm was the fact that she never stooped to the petty practices of so many of the Avonlea girls- the small jealousies, the little deceits and rivalries, the palpable bids for favor.  Anne held herself apart from all this, not consciously or of design, but simply because anything of the sort was utterly foreign to her transparent, impulsive nature, crystal clear in its motives and aspirations" (130).

"The next day, Mirabel Cotton was kept in at recess and 'gently but firmly' given to understand that when you were so unfortunate as to possess an uncle who persisted in walking about houses after he had been decently interred it was not in good taste to talk about that eccentric gentleman to your deskmate of tender years" (139-40).  Bahahah.

"...They found a road leading into the heart of acres of glimmering beech and maple woods, which were all in a wondrous glow of flame and gold, lying in  a great purple stillness and peace" (140).

"It seems irreverent, like running in a church" (140).  BOOM.  They knew what reverence looked like in the early 1900s

"My name (Anne) just smacks of bread and butter, patchwork and chores" (148).

"I think people make their names nice or ugly just by what they are themselves.  I can't bear Josie or Gertie for names now but before I knew the Pye girls I thought them real pretty" (148).  This is so true.  I wouldn't dare name any of my children Anna or Becky or Shawn-Patrick.  *shudder*  Sorry to all the Annas and Beckys and Shawn-Patricks that I know out there who are great, but there are three specific ones that have turned me off the names

"Pride and sulkiness make a very bad combination, Anne" (155).  Yeeeaaaaahhhh.  I need to work on that.

"...they sat on the front door steps and listened to the silver-sweet chorus of the frogs" (158).

" 'Was the storm bad at White Sands, Gilbert?'
'I should say so.  I was caught in the school with all the children and I thought some of them would go mad with fright.  Three of them fainted, and two girls took to hysterics, and Tommy Blewett did nothing but shriek at the top of his voice the whole time' "(163).  Bahahah!  What great imagery!  I suspect that Tommy Blewett is a relation of the gimlet-compared Mrs. Blewett of the first book.  Bahahahaha!

"Dora will make a good , reliable woman but she'll never set the pond on fire" (177).  From the mouth of Rachel Lynde.  Bahahaha!

"I shall never forget the thrill that went over me the day you told me you loved me.  I had such a lonely, starved heart all through my childhood.  I'm just beginning to realize how starved and lonely it really was.  Nobody cared anything for me or wanted to be bothered with me.  I should have been miserable if it hadn't been for that strange little dream-life of min, wherein I imagined all the friends I loved and craved.  But when I came to Green Gables everything was changed" (181-182).  Anne reflecting a little on her past.  I still really enjoy the fact that Anne/Montgomery don't make a it a point to dwell on the darker details of Anne's past.

"The mail carrier was a rather grumpy old personage who did not at all look the part of a messenger of Cupid" (196).  Heh.

"But somehow I wouldn't want Fred to be tall and slender... because, don't you see, he wouldn't be Fred then" (204).  Find someone who feels this way about you.  I've been blessed enough to find him.

"For a moment Anne's heart fluttered queerly and for the first time her eyes faltered under Gilbert's gaze and a  rosy flush stained the paleness of her face.  It was as if a veil that had hung before her inner consciousness had been lifted, giving to her view a revelation of unsuspected feelings and realities.  Perhaps, after all, romance did not come into one's life with pomp and blare, like a gay knight riding down; perhaps it revealed itself in seeming prose, until some sudden shaft of illumination flung athwart its pages betrayed the rhythm and the music; perhaps...perhaps... love unfolded naturally out of a beautiful friendship, as a golden-hearted rose slipping from its green sheath" (210).  Yes.  *sigh*

Great words: demure, furtively, dubiously, averring, latent, animadverted, raiment, tremulous, lissome, extricate, indignantly, coquettish, predilection, discrepancy, waylaid, pervaded, peregrination, erstwhile, superfluous, plenishings, congenial, 

Regarding both books:

Promote Virtue?  Yes.  The many, many characters, but especially Anne, are completely aware of their faults and are sincerely trying to be good Christian people.  

Transcendentals?  The book is just imbued with beautiful description.  The people of Avonlea are, for the most part, Christians, but all strive to know the truth and be genuinely good.  The characters are also acutely aware of their faults, and they strive to overcome them.  

Overcome human condition?  Yes.  there are several struggles represented in the book.  The main one being Anne's darker, sad past.  However, she doesn't dwell on it.  She moves forward and remains positive.  She does also not give in to the feminine stereotypes of the times.  Anne is a splendid role model for any reader because of her great and positive outlook.  Even though she has a temper, she sincerely tries to keep it in check.  

Attitude toward Catholicism?  None, but I'm not really a fan of this one: "When I carried it in I was imagining I was a nun-of course I'm a Protestant but I imagined I was a Catholic- taking the veil to bury a broken heart in cloistered seclusion" (177, emphasis mine).

There is also a scene in Green Gables where Anne is asking Marilla why there aren't any ministers who are women.  They're all Protestant, so they do things differently, but it'll be a great teaching moment when I read this with my kids.  

Paganry?  None

Swearing?  Nope

Violence?  Nope

Appropriate age?  I'd definitely say that the first book is appropriate as a read-aloud for age 7+.  The second book is a tad bit calmer.  It still has that adventurous air, but it's a bit more dry, because Anne is more grown up than the first book.  I'd say that a good independent reading age for this would be 9+.  There are a LOT of big words, though, so a dictionary would be useful to have on hand.  

Writing Style:  She is sort of Dickensian in some places.  The first sentence of the novel is 14.5 lines long!  She does an amazing job of showing us that Anne is a chatterbox, giving her paragraphs upon pages of dialogue without taking a breath in the first half of the book.

An excellent example of description:  "Anne reveled in the drive to the hall, slipping along over the satin-smooth roads with the snow crisping under the runners.  There was a magnificent sunset, and the snowy hills and deep blue water of the St. Lawrence Gulf seemed to rim in the splendor like a huge bowl of pearl and sapphire brimmed with wine and fire" (216).

Final Summation:  Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Avonlea are charming books that start off a classic set.  I think that my viewing of the movies as a child really made me biased toward the series in a good way.  As an adult, I enjoyed these first two books, but I'm pretty sure I would have loved them even more as a kid.  I can't wait to read them aloud to mine.  There fore, Anne of Green Gables is 

A Freckle-Faced, Red-Head Girl

So, at a recent book fair, I found a current edition of Pippi Longstocking for about 5 bucks.  I got all excited because I love the movie from the 80s, and I have an old copy of Pippi Goes on Board.

Well, lo and behold, my husband is at goodwill on 50% off day, and he finds a really old edition of Pippi for $3!

I'm pretty excited, because it matches my other copy.  I had no idea that there were three books, I just knew about the second one and the movie.  They do have the third one at the library, but I'm not really interested in reading it.  

I've decided to take a stroll down memory lane and stick with reading things from my childhood for now.  Because these books are so darn short (each is  exactly 116 pages), I'm just going to do an overall summary with some thoughts.  I polished off each book in a few hours.  

Initial reaction:  Wow.  Not too impressed with these.  I really don't think that I finished Pippi Goes on Board when I was a kid.  The last few chapters were completely foreign to me.  My impression of these books leans heavily on the movie from the 1980s, and I really think that the Pippi from the movie and the Pippi in the books differ greatly.  The Pippi in the books is much more of a liar who has completely atrocious manners.  The first book is somewhat outrageous- Pippi tells stories about her travels that are huge whoppers all.  the. time.  In the second book, though, she confesses: "But that's just like me--always trying to make myself important and wonderful and pretend that people have more arms than they have" (13).  So at least it shows some growth of her character- she's aware of her faults, and she seems to tone it down a bit in the second book.

On page 93, there's a commentary on lying between Pippi and her father, and Annika and Tommy chime in:

"It's not nice to lie," she said.  "Mommy says that."

"Oh, how silly you are, Annika!" said Tommy.  "Pippi doesn't really lie.  She just lies for fun.  She makes up things, don't you understand, stupid?"

Pippi looked thoughtfully at Tommy, "Sometimes you speak so wisely that I'm afraid you will become great," she said.

While I'm glad that this explanation came out eventually, I'm sad that it took more than half the series to say.  I still think that little kids will think it's ok to tell whoppers after hearing Pippi do it.  We know she's not doing it maliciously, but she is being prideful, per what she said on page 13.  I dunno.  Just don't have a great feeling about it.  The books are overall ridiculous, but they don't make me laugh aloud like Harriet the Spy.  I liked the second book as a kid, but I think I grew bored with it so that I didn't finish it.  I also think Pippi's lying went over my head. I think that I knew that she was just making stuff up and telling stories, which wasn't as bad as lying.  

Or is it?

Also, it's sad that Pippi's parents are absent from her life.  Her mother has died, and her father is roaming about the seas.  When he finally does come back to Villa Villekulla, he only stays for a short while before departing again.  When Pippi elects to stay behind, he says,

"Do as you like," he said at last.  "You always have done that" (112).  [...]

"You're right, as always, my daughter," answered Captain Longstocking.  "It is certain that you live a more orderly life in Villa Villekulla, and that is probably best for little children."

"Just so," said Pippi.  "It's surely best for little children to live an orderly life, especially if they can order it themselves" (113).

I do appreciate the juxtaposition of Pippi against Tommy and Annika.  The siblings are well behaved kids who strive to do what is right.  

I just really don't know how I feel about sharing this with my kids.  I think I'll stick to the movie, which is a conglomeration of different chapters from the first two books.  

Writing style:  These books strike me as a mash-up of verbal bedtime stories that they author may have told to her kids.  This thought was confirmed after looking up Astrid Lindgren on Wikipedia.  She made up the stories for her daughter, Karin, at bedtime.  It reads like a story that was passed on verbally.

Final Summation:  While I remember Pippi Goes on Board fondly from my childhood, I remember that I never finished it.  As an adult, reading the first two books was enough for me, I don't want to continue on to the 3rd.  The Pippi books are ridiculously tall tales that really don't hold my interest anymore.  I'd rather watch the movie.  Therefore:

Next week, a first-time reading of another red-haired, freckle-faced girl: Anne Shirley! 

The Time Has Come

Fellow readers, today I have the pleasure of introducing you to my favorite literary character of all time:

Harriet M. Welsch

Or, as she's more commonly known, 

Harriet The Spy

I'm starting to write this blog on 3/31 in anticipation of reading.  Good Lord.  I can't even wait to start re-reading this book because of all the feels.  All I've done is look up book covers and some of the art, and I'm about ready to tear up.  This book is really responsible for shaping me into the word nerd that I've become; I can't believe I haven't reviewed it before now.  When mentioned in one of my very first blog posts, I had this to say about it:

One of the single most influential books of my childhood was Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh. The exact date of initial inspection is unknown, but the approximate age was 9 or 10. Everything traumatic or important in my young life seemed to happen between 3rd or 4th grade, at least that’s how I remember it. I read that book so many times that it fell apart twice. The protagonist is a 6th grade hotshot named Harriet. My heroine is a self-proclaimed spy who constantly carries a notebook to write down observations. The plot thickens when she accidentally drops her notebook during a game of tag. Her friends find her notebook and read it. The remainder of the story intimates how she deals with each insolent child and the subsequent year at school. This is where my obsession with writing began. I’m also sure that it’s responsible for the birth of my obsessive/compulsive journal collection.

 There are so many feels, I don't think I'll be able to handle it.   

  

I am going to throw my traditional format slightly into the wind for this one.  Hunker down, gentle reader, we're in for a blow!  I will most likely be all over the place with a plethora of gifs or memes added in.  I'm pretty sure I'll quote the entire book.  This very well may be my longest and most heartfelt book review yet.  I've also read Sport (published posthumously in 1979), which was a sequel to Harriet the Spy, and I wasn't too impressed with it.  Imagine my surprise when I looked up Louise Fitzhugh on wikipedia.  There is ANOTHER sequel called The Long Secret (published only a year after Harriet).

Mayhaps I'll read that next.  But for now, I'm ecstatic to explicate:

Harriet The Spy

Author: Louise Fitzhugh

300 Pages

Reading Time:  3 days

This is the cover that I remember as a kid.  I read it to pieces no less than three times.  THREE.  It got dropped in the bathtub several times, too.  I think that the current version that I still own is the third one that has stayed with me through childhood.   

Note how worn out and dingy it is.  I'm kind of afraid to start reading it, because it looks like it'll just disintegrate in my hands.  I know I've read it before in this condition, though.  

Just got this one from the library so I don't destroy mine.

  I think that I started reading it in 5th grade.  I remember this because Harriet is a 6th grader, and I recall being slightly annoyed that she and I weren't in the same grade.  This book is responsible for my addiction to scribbling in notebooks, my compulsive journal buying, and my love for tomato sandwiches  ("When I look at him, I could eat a thousand tomato sandwiches" 58).  I started writing down everything in a notebook and "spying" when I was a kid, just like our heroine here.  I also remember that it was discovered by my mother (even though it obviously had "PRIVATE" written all over the front of it), and she read it.  I think, at that point, I hadn't reached the part of the book where the notebook was discovered by Harriet's classmates.  If I had, I most likely would have had a better hiding place for it.  Side note- as a parent, if my kids are writers (and they most likely will be), I'm not going to read their journals (well, unless they join death-metal bands and start sacrificing goats on the weekends).  What a terrifying invasion of privacy!  I felt completely betrayed by my mother as she nonchalantly rattled off, "oh yeah, I read it."   Yeah, no big deal, there, it's just my SOUL you are reading!  I mean, it was  the stupidest, juvenile, 5th-grade stuff (which I can read through when I look at my old journals), but even a 5th grader deserves some amount of anonymity and privacy.  Sheesh!

5th/6th grade were two of my worst years in school (2nd and 3rd grade were the other two worst); I was bullied a lot and had no close friends I could trust.  I think that was one of the main reasons I started journaling.  Re-reading the betrayal and bullying that Harriet endures really kicked me in the childhood feels and made me remember why I related to her so much.

I think that one of the scenes that I relate to the most is the discussion between Harriet and her mother right after the notebook is found:

" 'Harriet Welsch, answer me.  What do you write about your classmates?'
'Oh, just...well, things I think....Some nice things ... and-and mean things.'
'And your friends saw it?'
'Yes, but they shouldn't have looked.  It's private.  It even says PRIVATE all over the front of it.'

(Private, not public.  DUH)

[...]
'Don't you think that maybe all those mean things made them angry?'
Harriet considered this as though it had never entered her mind.
'Well, maybe, but they shouldn't have looked. It's private property.'
'That, Harriet, is beside the point....'" (198-199).

It is NOT beside the point.  It IS the point.  It's COMPLETELY the point!  As a child, I totally sided with Harriet in this matter, and as an adult, this scene pisses me off even MORE.  People are far too nosy and curious for their own good.  Curiosity is a form of pride.  Anyone, ANYONE has the right to think and write whatever they want about whomever they want in whatever private way they WANT.  It doesn't mean that they should, but they certainly can.  This isn't 1984.  It might not be the most holy thing to do to write down mean thoughts about people, but regardless, we have an ability to think for a reason, and we were given the gift of free will.  We can use it at our discretion (even our 11 year old discretion).  If journaling my experiences and emotions keeps me from screaming at people or hauling off and punching and kicking them (which I was wont to do as a choleric 3rd-5th grader who was in a troubled home), then I should be encouraged to do it!  If it helps prevent me from saying mean things and smashing stuff (which I was wont to do as an angry teenager from a broken home), then I should do it!  Journaling is a great form of temperance- it allows you to express the thoughts in your head (which fly in and out naturally) in a neutral way without hurting anyone. I don't think that Harriet should have been reprimanded at all for writing.  She should have been reprimanded for being careless with her notebook that has private thoughts in it AND been taught beforehand the responsibility that comes with carrying around a private notebook.  It makes me want to smack her parents and her insolent little classmates who were

Regardless of the content of Harriet's notebook, her classmates were the ones who were completely in the wrong, just like you'd be wrong if you  just walked into my house and started rifling through my computer, or craft table, or underwear drawer without my permission.

You don't get to enjoy that privilege.  

Ok. conclusion to rant.  Don't be nosy.  Or curious.  They're both forms of pride.  And what is pride?  It's a SIN.  Mind your own business about what people choose to keep private, and respect their privacy.  Everyone should observe an appropriate reserve concerning persons' private lives.
-Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2492

Because, after all the correction and coddling, even Harriet understands that no one can make her stop writing, thinking, and discovering:

THAT WAS ALL VERY NICE BUT IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH MY NOTEBOOK.  ONLY OLE GOLLY UNDERSTANDS ABOUT MY NOTEBOOK.  I WILL ALWAYS HAVE A NOTEBOOK.  I THINK I WILL WRITE DOWN EVERYTHING, EVERY SINGLE SOLITARY THING THAT HAPPENS TO ME (200).

The kids are retaliating and bullying her because they were nosy little creeps who did something they should not have done.  The fairness equilibrium is completely askew at this point.  Harriet was wrong in how she was careless about her notebook; her classmates are wrong for invading her privacy and bullying her on top of it.  Harriet starts down the wrong path when she maliciously retaliates.  But seriously, those damn punks deserve exactly what she dishes out to them.

Can you tell that I'm biased and I love her?  I'm pretty sure she's also a choleric/melancholic.  I also LOVE the part in the story when scribbling in her notebook wasn't enough and she lugs her father's old typewriter up to her room and starts punching the keys furiously.  

I just gotta say right now: if you didn't originally read this as an elementary student, and your first time through it is as an adult, you most likely will not get hit in the feels.  You might even completely hate it, which is totally your choice.  However, if you read it to any elementary kid who remotely likes to write or has ever been bullied, they'll love it.  

Back cover reads:
  When I grow up I'm going to find out everything about everybody and put it all in a book.  So writes Harriet M. Welsch, who is determined to grow up to be a famous author.  In the meantime, she practices by following a regular spy route each day and writing down everything she sees in her secret notebook.
  Then one morning, Harriet's life is turned upside down.  Her classmates find her spy notebook and read it out loud!  Harriet's in big trouble.  The other sixth-graders are stealing her tomato sandwiches, forming a spy-catcher club, and writing notes of their own--all about Harriet!










Initial Reaction:  First of all, I'm a sucker for hooks.  The first sentence is "Harriet was trying to explain to Sport how to play Town" (3).  We're immediately sucked in because we don't know how to play Town, either.  Secondly, as a kid, I had no idea, absolutely NONE, where this story took place.  I don't think I knew what/where Manhattan was, nor did I know that a brownstone was.  Now I do!  Fitzhugh does an admirable job of piquing the reader's curiosity.

One of the reasons that I love Ole Golly so much is not only because of her firmness (I'm pretty sure she's a choleric), but because she's always quoting literature.  Quoting Dostoievsky, Wordsworth, Emerson, Carroll, and Shakespeare to an 11-year-old in context is pretty awesome.  It tends to go right over Harriet's head, but that's one of the things that I love about Ole Golly.  She tries to make Harriet think by never stating the obvious to her.

As a child, I guess it never struck me how completely "absent" Harriet's parents are from her life.  They are kind of bumbling, distracted, privileged morons, but I think that they're set up that way in the beginning of the book so we pay more attention to the relationship between Harriet and Ole Golly.  Harriet is an only child who has two completely oblivious parents.  After Ole Golly leaves and Harriet's notebook is found, they finally start stepping in and acting like parents.  Some of the descriptions of Harriet's loneliness just break my heart, though.  "Without a notebook, she couldn't spy, she couldn't take notes, she couldn't play Town, she couldn't do anything.  She was afraid to go and buy another one, and for once she didn't feel like reading" (258).  It's so sad that she doesn't have any siblings to play with, and her parents just take her to a shrink to find out what's "wrong" with her instead of trying to actually talk to her.  But, the lack of emotional attachment of Harriet to her parents is obvious, and it's because they've practically been absent for all of her 11 years.  It makes me sad.  One of the readers on goodreads.com said that the book is "like social commentary on the lonely lives of privileged NYC children."  I agree somewhat.  I can't keep reading the comments on goodreads or I'll want to scream.  Harriet is like a mini-me, and I love her, faults and all.

Harriet's first few articles in the Sixth Grade Page are such a let down after all of the notebook drama, which points to more absentminded and passive parenting.  Instead of writing good things, she ends up publishing honest and mean observations about some of the people on her spy route and gossip about her classmates heard from her parents.  Writing in private is one thing.  Publishing them about someone is another.  Where the hell are her parents, and why aren't they teaching her this stuff?!?!  Why don't they also pay attention to the fact that she is IN the room and tries to listen to EVERYTHING?!  Gah.  I just want to smack them.

Lastly, this thought just dawned on me:

I'm just as bad as her classmates.  Bahaha.

An aside about the movie with Michele Trachtenberg and Rosie O'Donnell:  The two actresses don't really fit the characters well, in my estimation.  I used to own it on DVD, but I got rid of it before I became a missionary.  It's not bad, but it's not the book.  There are certainly similarities, but there are several glaring differences that fans of the book will notice and dislike.  It's a 90s movie, but it's not a good 90s movie.  In the movie, Harriet's nemesis (Marion Hawthorne) finds her notebook and reads it.  In the book, Janie, Harriet's best friend, finds her notebook and reads it.  There's much more of an emotional betrayal in the book.  In the book, Harriet is internally sassy and externally moderately well-behaved.  In the movie, she's much more snarky externally.  They tried too hard to make the character funny.

Promote Virtue?  Bravery & perseverance (dealing with bullying), self-awareness (Harriet knows who she is.  She's not ashamed of things that she likes), self-control and temperance (writing private thoughts in a book).  I think the story focuses more on being true to yourself amidst a huge dramatic crapstorm during middle school rather than trying to improve yourself.  Harriet doesn't really change at the end of the book, but she has learned some important things.  The book also leaves us hanging, so we don't get the opportunity to see her life after the lesson.

Transcendentals? Harriet and Ole Golly love truth.  That's evident.  Fitzhugh's writing is beautiful, and I love that she waxes word-nerd every now and then about writing.  Goodness isn't really too apparent.

Overcome human condition?  I wouldn't say that Harriet really strives to be good or kind, but she deals with what life throws at her in an admirable way.  The book really fails in two respects.  First, there is a lack of follow through about the lesson Harriet should have learned.  She doesn't really learn her lesson about being more careful about carrying around her notebook and writing mean things about people.  She even publishes mean gossip in the Sixth Grade Page.  *sigh*  Next, Ole Golly gives her permission to lie.  Albeit, she only encourages little white lies that "don't hurt anybody," but it's lying nonetheless.  And you all know how I feel about lying.  I never understood the lying part as a kid.  Harriet doesn't need to lie, and she doesn't actually lie in the rest of the book.  It kind of sounds like Ole Golly is giving her permission to lie about apologizing or saying she's sorry without actually being sorry.  That is NO GOOD.  I think that it'd be a great springboard for discussion with my kids about perfect and imperfect contrition as well as the four cardinal virtues.

Attitude toward Catholicism?  None.  But there is a point right after Harriet's notebook is found by her classmates where she's despairing a bit:
"It made Harriet feel better to try and quite like Ole Golly, so she wrote: THE SINS OF THE FATHER.  That was all she knew from the Bible besides the shortest verse: Jesus Wept" (189).  It makes my heart so sad for her.

Paganry?  Nope

Swearing?  Damned.

Violence?  Barely the schoolyard variety.

Appropriate age?  3rd grade and up.

Writing Style:  Fitzhugh writes in a way that sucks the reader in and makes you curious.  Her characters are realistic and often full of humor.  She makes so many sneaky literary references that it makes me swoon.  Re-reading it as an adult is just as fun as reading it as a 5th grader.  Several instances in the book made me laugh aloud.  Some things are very clear: Fitzhugh likes Dostoievsky, and she loves to write.

Notable Quoteables:

"I'm going to take you somewhere.  It's time you began to see the world.  You're eleven years old and it's time you saw something" (8-9).

"Harriet was scribbling furiously in her notebook" (11).

" 'This the lil Welsch Baby?  That her brother?'   Sport giggled.
'No, it's my husband,' Harriet shouted" (14-15).  LOL

"Ole Golly looked at Harriet in as gentle a way as she could considering the fact that her face looked like it was cut out of oak" (24).  Bahahah.

"Then Harriet did what she always did when she was supposed to be asleep.  She got out her flashlight, put the book she was currently reading under the covers, and read happily until Ole Golly came in and took the flashlight away as she did every night" (25).

"PINKY WHITEHEAD HAS NOT CHANGED.  PINKY WHITEHEAD WILL NEVER CHANGE" (31).  (The caps are Fitzhugh's way to differentiate the normal dialogue from Harriet's notes).  These two sentences have always tickled me since I was a kid.  This is the first of many snarky notes in Harriet's notebook.  Harriet is an observant kid, and she definitely has her opinions, but I think that she's just trying to be realistic instead of malicious.

"Like a missile you are, shot from that school," screamed the cook (36).  This one always made me laugh aloud because I could visualize the scene perfectly.

"She never minded admitting she didn't know something.  So what, she thought; I could always learn" (50).  Yup.

"No good.  No good," Papa Dei Santi screamed with all his might (54).  This is where my use of the phrase "No good" comes from.

The names of the cats of Harrison Withers suddenly take on a different meaning now that I'm an adult and get some of the references to actual historical figures like Rasputin, Goethe, Puck, Faulkner, Willy Mays, Mickey Mantle, and Dostoievsky (that's the second time he's appeared in the book already!).

(73) I didn't really think about having a tomato sandwich until I was in college.  Oh man.  One year when I was at the Place 2B, the sisters had a CRAPTON of tomatoes during the summer.  I ate 2 tomato sandwiches for lunch and dinner every day for about 2 weeks.  It was GLORIOUS.









"I'll be damned if I go do dancing school" (83).  This was the first swear word I ever encountered in a book as a child.  I was one thrilled 5th grader.

"I went there once on a visit with Beth Ellen because she had to go and I was spending the night, and you have to wear party dresses and all the boys are too short and you feel like a hippopotamus." She said this all in one breath and screamed "hippopotamus" (84).  This scene is one of my absolute favorites because the visual that instantly pops into my head is:

LMAO!

"The silence upstairs was deafening" (104).  I do believe that this is the first metaphor that I completely understood as a child.  

"Harriet thought the movie was a gas" (119).  I had no idea what in the hell this meant as a kid.  I've since learned that it's a positive thing because of similar expressions used in songs by The Brian Setzer Orchestra and the movie The Great Outdoors.

"None of that.  Tears won't bring me back.  Remember that.  Tears never bring anything back" (132).  Most people remember the next line: "Life is a struggle and a good spy gets in there and fights," but the four previous sentences have really helped me get through several losses in my life, especially as an adult.

"She sat down to read.  How I love to read, she thought" (136).  Love.

"Harriet, that's ridiculous.  An onion is a beautiful thing.  Have you ever really looked at an onion?" Miss Elson was losing all touch with reality (153-54).  Bahahaha.

"The head was completely round and carved out of butcher's block so that it resembled a beautifully grained newel post with a face carved in it" (157).  Bahahah.

"IS OLE GOLLY RIGHT?  IS IT TERRIBLE TO GET WHAT YOU WANT?  I WANT TO BE A WRITER AND I'LL BE FINKED IF I'LL BE UNHAPPY WHEN I AM.  SOME PEOPLE JUST DON'T THINK THINGS OUT" (172).

"IF MARION HAWTHORNE DOESN'T WATCH OUT SHE'S GOING TO GROW UP INTO A LADY HITLER" (184).  Bahahahah.

"What was sickening about a tomato sandwich?  Harriet felt the taste in her mouth.  Were they crazy?  It was the best taste in the world.  Her mouth watered at the memory of the mayonnaise.  It was an experience, as Mrs. Welsch was always saying" (191).  Hahah.  This reminds me of my father-in-law, who always says that "having BLTs is an event."  Bahahah.

"WHEN I WAKE UP IN THE MORNING I WISH I WERE DEAD.
Having disposed of that, she got up..." (200).  See, even the language (disposed) Fitzhugh uses to describe Harriet's writing is that of release.  Harriet has a feeling, she vents it, and moves on.

"THEY HAVE A CLUB AND I AM NOT IN IT.  IT IS ALSO A CLUB AGAINST ME.  THEY ARE REALLY OUT TO GET ME.  I HAVE NEVER HAD TO GO THROUGH SOMETHING LIKE THIS.  I WILL HAVE TO BE VERY BRAVE.  I WILL NEVER GIVE UP THIS NOTEBOOK BUT IT IS CLEAR THAT THEY ARE GOING TO BE AS MEAN AS THEY CAN UNTIL I DO.  THEY JUST DON'T KNOW HARRIET M. WELSCH" (224).

"(Ole Golly)  ALWAYS SAID THAT PEOPLE WHO TRY TO CONTROL PEOPLE AND CHANGE PEOPLE'S HABITS ARE THE ONES THAT MAKE ALL THE TROUBLE.  IF YOU DON'T LIKE SOMEBODY, WALK AWAY, SHE SAID, BUT DON'T TRY TO MAKE THEM LIKE YOU" (227).

"I WILL BE SO  FAMOUS [...] RACHEL HENNESSEY WILL PLOTZ' (230). Bahahahahah! What a great word.

"She felt her thoughts limping like crippled children" (238).

"...there was her handwriting, reassuring if not beautiful.  She grabbed up the pen and felt the mercy of her thoughts coming quickly, zooming through her head out the pen onto the paper.  What a relief, she thought to herself; for a moment I thought I had dried up.  She wrote a lot about what she felt, relishing the joy of her fingers gliding across the page, the sheer relief of communication.  After a while she sat back and began to think really hard" (241).  If this isn't the precise essence of what it is to enjoy writing, then I don't know what the hell is.  I insisted that all of my papers in college (except for some of the inconsequential ones that I really didn't care about) be written by hand first.  There was more of an emotional attachment that way.  Harriet gets it.  Fitzhugh gets it.  I wish kids and parents these days would get it.  Get off the screens and the keyboards (and trust me, the irony is not lost on me as I type this on my blog) and just write.  And actually, some of my most popular blogposts (The Unveiling of Arwen, Rosaries & Rammstein, The Front Lines, and Stop It) were all handwritten first in a journal.  I get it.

"She munched a thought over in her mind" (245).  This reminds me of Mother Mary Catherine leading Lectio Divina.  She'd always say "give yourself time to chew on the verse."  <3

"Quickly Harriet sat up, leaned over, and in one perfectly coordinated motion threw a shoe at her father" (248).  Best line in the whole book.  Always loved the ridiculousness of this scene when I was a kid.  However, as an adult, her father's incompetent passivity make me want to punch him in the face.

"Her fingers itched at the thought of a notebook, of a pen flying over the pages, of her thoughts, finally free to move, flowing out" (257).

" "'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,' -that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."  John Keats. And don't you ever forget it" (277 written in Ole Gollly's letter to Harriet).  I've never forgotten this.  It's stated with such weight and authority.

"Maybe she wasn't Dostoievsky, but she was readable at least" (285).  I'm still completely surprised that this guy has made three appearances in this book.  I think I need to read something he's done.  

"She took a few notes, concentrating on description which she felt to be her weakest point" (297).

Great words (I'ma list all of 'em): plaintively, dubiously, exasperated, briskly, interspersed, relentlessly, bellowed, burbling, snarky, timidly, sedately, contentedly, billowy, grimaced,  despised, simultaneously, immense, iniquity, unmitigated, minuscule, cretin (I had no idea what this word was when I was a kid, and I didn't look it up.  I use it all the time as an adult), eccentric, raucously, colloquy, foliage, enunciated, esplanade, agility, aplomb, bemused, peevishly, disconcerted, relented, astonished, amicable, cursory, sidled, pandemonium, askew, pompously, gaping, petulant, filch, agitated, querulous, dejectedly, zeal, aghast, menacing, clamoring, nuisance, despondently, sodden, contemptuous, careened, stealthily, forlornly, perplexity, reverently, bedlam, tentatively, vaguely, incessantly, moping, disdainfully, surreptitiously, and listlessness.  These are quite the level for the age that I read it.  I'm impressed.

Final Summation:  My heart.  My 34-year-old-turned-5th-grader-tomato-sandwich-loving-scribbling heart.  The feels.  Unabashedly, unflinchingly, and in all other ways, Harriet the Spy is and will always remain

PS- It took me at least 8 hours to compose this post in its entirety.