'Anne's House of Dreams' by Lucy Maud Montgomery

Or 'The One with the Creepy Amnesiac Dude'

Warning: These discussions may include a few minor plot spoilers, but I consider old classics are fair game. 

It's the big day Anne and Gilbert have been waiting for. They tie the knot and head off to their new home sixty miles from Avonlea, where Gilbert is about to launch his medical practice. It's the halfway point of the series, which is evident through the tone. From now on, the action will take place around their new home at Glen St. Mary and Four Winds Harbour rather than Avonlea. The tang and romance of the sea is more present too. 

What I appreciated even more than before.

1) I realised Anne and Gilbert are the only couple LMM ever took beyond their wedding day. None of her others get this honour. Not Emily and Teddy, nor Pat and Hilary, nor Valancy and Barney. It puts Anne and Gilbert in a class of their own, and we get to share those wonder years of family planning and setting up house when you're married to your best friend. There's no other life season quite like it, which makes me think even more stories should probe beyond the 'happily ever after' of the wedding day. 

2) There's a sense of groundedness I love after the flotsam of characters who stream into Anne of Windy Willows and straight out again. I guess that's ironic since the lure of the sea and distant lands is a repeated motif, but it's like a breather to have a small cast we can get to know well. They are the closest neighbours of our super-couple, and all live a fair way out of the nearest town. There's Captain Jim, a retired sea-captain who's now the district lighthouse keeper, and the kind of guy every reader would love to have for their granddad; Miss Cornelia Bryant, a hilarious man-hater with a kind heart; and Leslie Moore.

3) Wow, Leslie is surely one of Anne's most complex and multi-layered friends ever written! She's a ravishing beauty with a tragic past, married to Dick Moore, who was once 'a big handsome fellow with a little ugly soul' but has a longstanding case of amnesia after an accident. Now Leslie is his baby-sitter rather than his wife, but either way she's trapped. A protective skin of aloofness has developed over her heart, although she knows in her head that it's unreasonable.I like the imagery LMM wraps around this girl, including the splash of scarlet she always adds to her clothes, whether it's a scarf, hat, belt or necklace, which Anne believes represents the vivid personality she's almost successfully suppressed.

4) I've seen The Blue Castle and The Tangled Web referred to as LMM's only novels for adults, but Anne's House of Dreams should be up there on the list too. It's assumed to be a kids' book since it belongs in a juvenile series, but the themes have a depth and maturity perfect for older readers. It's sad to think people with the potential to adore it may pass it by. They'd miss Anne's grappling with deeper reasons for the loss of her first child, Joy, who died the day she was born. (I can't say I loved that part, but it touched me deeply.) There's also Leslie's preoccupation with the heartbreaking events she's witnessed, and Captain Jim's lifelong devotion to one woman who was swept away from him. 

5) Gilbert's awesomeness deserves a mighty cheer. He has a major disagreement with Anne over an intense matter of conscience, but what she's asking him to do is something totally unethical which would be enough to have him struck off the medical register in our era. I don't think that aspect occurred to me as a younger reader, but I loved the conflict this time round. The fact that Gilbert would doggedly do the right thing, even if it makes Anne mad at him is very impressive. But would we expect anything less of our boy?  

6) The outcome of his decision is breathtaking! It's a re-read for me and I knew it was coming, but still loved it as much as ever. 

7) James Matthew Blythe, aka Little Jem! Isn't it fantastic when a new baby can change the dynamics of a household and infuse so much sunshine and delight, just by his mere arrival? No baby could have been more eagerly awaited than this one. I love everything, from the earliest evidence that he'll be another redhead to Anne's insistence on talking baby talk to him, even though she'd always vowed not to. For a very short time, this little boy is Numero Uno in everyone's lives, so take a breath before the Blythe family explodes exponentially in the next novel.

 I was baffled when they talked about 'shortening' him, but it seems that was the normal process of moving babies from long, flowing dress-like clothes into shorter dresses when they begin to get more mobile. Yep, even the boys wore dresses. I reckon Anne might have appreciated the little onesie suits we use today. Nothing could be more handy and functional.    

What I wasn't a big fan of this time round.

1) Where were all the Blythes? I know Gilbert's parents were just side characters in the early books who never actually appeared in a scene, but at least they were given lip service. Now they don't get a mention at crucial moments in their son's life at all. Not on the wedding guest list, nor paying a visit to meet their new grandson. Omissions like this irk me, but I guess we must assume they were still there for him at these times, but just unrecorded. 

2) Perhaps occasional moments could've done with a touch of re-writing. For example, how could Anne tell that Leslie's eyes were blue, when she and Gilbert were passing in their horse-drawn vehicle, and Leslie was standing far enough back off the road that Gilbert didn't even notice her at all? Perhaps she should be called X-Ray vision Anne from now on. 

3) Anne comes across a trifle overbearing in her parenting of Little Jem at times. But then again, who can blame her? Anyone who has lost one baby could be forgiven for being extra precious with the second. 

4) The nitpicking quality of those first three points shows there's really not much I would fault. That's why I love this book as one of my favourites in the series.   

Some great quotes to take on board. 

Miss Cornelia: I have had a real placid, comfortable life, and it's just because I never cared a cent what the men thought. 

Miss Cornelia: Fred Proctor was one of those wicked, fascinating men. After he got married, he left off being fascinating and just kept on being wicked. 

Captain Jim: I like to ponder on all kinds of problems, though I can't solve 'em. My father held that we should never talk of things we don't understand, but if we didn't, the subjects for conversation would be mighty few. 

Captain Jim: I've kind of contracted a habit of enjoying things. It's got so chronic, I believe I can even enjoy the disagreeable things. It's great fun thinking they can't last. 

Captain Jim: Heretics get lost looking for God under the impression that He's hard to find, which He ain't, never. 

Miss Cornelia: For my part, I think there are too many books in the world now. 

Captain Jim: It ain't our feelings we have to steer by through life. The only safe compass is what's it right to do?

Anne: I have a little brown cocoon of an idea that may possibly expand into a magnificent moth of fulfillment. 

Anne: I wonder why people so commonly suppose that if two individuals are both writers, they must therefore be hugely congenial. Nobody would expect two blacksmiths to be violently attracted towards each other merely because they were both blacksmiths. 

Stay tuned, because next up will be the cosy domesticity of Anne of Ingleside.