Or 'The one with the minister's kids.'
It's the 7th book in the Anne series, but the focus is on the new Presbyterian minister, John Meredith, and his young family. Mr Meredith is a widower preoccupied in his own head space while his four children, who love hanging out with the Blythe kids, virtually run amok. They intend no harm, but innocence of social cues is their undoing. They clearly need a woman's touch, but who'd marry such an airhead and hopeless dreamer?
What I appreciated even more than before.
1) The four Meredith kids, and their lifestyle predicament. They simply do whatever takes their fancy without knowing it's frowned upon, because nobody has ever told them. Even when they try to screen their actions and hold themselves accountable, things turn pear-shaped. What a great example they are that 'naughty' may be completely arbitrary and unintentional. I love it when Anne defends them, but wish her audience had been wider than just Miss Cornelia and Susan on her front porch.
2) The Meredith girls specifically. Faith is thought to have the wrong personality for a minister's daughter, because she laughs too much to please her father's congregation, yet she's expected to adapt to their sober demands rather than them accepting her as she is. Una is anxious and sweet, but when she musters her courage to make requests of people in the town, she gets results!
3) The Meredith boys too. I love decisive Jerry with his great intentions, and gentle little Carl with his fascination for creepy crawlies. LMM is great at character development.
4) I really love it when Miss Cornelia decides to adopt Mary Vance. It's like Marilla and Anne all over again.
5) The state of the manse! Those descriptive bits went a bit unnoticed when I was a kid, but as the person chiefly responsible for housework for many years, I got a real laugh out of it this time round. Especially when Faith and Una decide to clean house.
6) Walter Blythe, and his attempts to bolster his own courage. This beautiful boy really assumes the role of misunderstood genius in this book, and even takes on the mantle of a sort of prophetic bard. Not that anyone ever really listens to him, but we know the time until the Great War is moving steadily closer.
7) Norman Douglas. What a good ally to have on your side, and a total legend. I love his macanacaddy.
What I wasn't a big fan of this time round.
1) What's up with Shirley Blythe? My calculations show that he's only slightly younger than Carl Meredith, who runs around Rainbow Valley with the rest of the gang. Yet Shirley is being cuddled by Susan and having her carry him to bed when he falls asleep. I've noticed his fluctuating age is a bit of a joke among hardcore LMM fans. In the case of Rainbow Valley, he should be around seven or eight years old at the beginning, but appears to be a toddler all through.
2) Where are all the other Blythes? Walter gets featured in a nice story or two, but Jem and the twins don't appear as much as I'd hoped they would. And after Anne of Ingleside, I really missed them.
3) The villain of the piece is Aunt Martha. The chapter about poor Adam horrifies me. If you haven't read the book yet, I'll let you experience it for yourself. A quick summary can't do it justice. I wonder if poor Faith ever got over it.
4) At times, Mr Meredith irritated me chronically, and I wasn't inclined to brush off his shortcomings as LMM expected us to. The saying, 'he's so heavenly minded, he's of no earthly good,' could have been written about him. Surely being able to preach an interesting sermon doesn't make up for being completely clueless about what's happening beneath your own roof! Yet when I started thinking of him as a lost cause rather than a bad dad, I found myself mellowing a bit. He does have good intentions, but is so dreamy, they have no way of materialising (It's similar to me keeping my fridge crispers in pristine shape over the long term, but so much more at stake.) It's great when Rosemary West gets to marry him at the end, but man, I feel she's in for a frustrating time, more with her hubby than her stepkids.
Faith: I don't want to be like other people. I like being myself. It's more interesting.
Susan: I had an uncle who began by being a poet and ended up being a tramp. (She said that to discourage Walter from writing poetry, but I'm sure Susan's uncle was no random case.)
Mary Vance: Your father's alright when he does wake up. It's a pity he doesn't wake up oftener. (You said it, Mary.)
Faith: The things that don't seem a bit of harm to us seem simply dreadful to other people. How can we tell?
Miss Cornelia: What business has a man like that to have a family? He might as well be a monk.
Norman Douglas: A hundred a year to the salary and church once a month, but no spoiling good heathens to make poor Christians!
Susan: Cornelia Elliot thinks she was born to run this world, Mrs Dr Dear, so she is always in a stew over something. I have never thought I was, so I go calmly along.
Miss Cornelia: We've just been shutting our eyes to the big worthwhile things and squinting them on the little things that don't really matter a pin's worth.
Walter Blythe: I'm not going to be frightened anymore, sir. Being frightened of things is worse than the things themselves.
Jem Blythe: I'd give anything to see a big battle. Let the Piper come. (Nooooo!! He's going to regret saying that so much!)
Okay, the time is finally here. Stay tuned, because next up will be the emotional roller coaster which is Rilla of Ingleside.
Bonus: I've never sought or read fan fiction before, but when it comes to the Blythe and Meredith kids, I thought I'd just have a look to see if there's anything out there that might fill in the gaps between the end of Rainbow Valley and the start of Rilla of Ingleside. And I stumbled upon this one. The author has stayed true to canon, setting and characters, and I was very impressed.
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