'Emily Climbs' by Lucy Maud Montgomery

Emily Starr was born with the desire to write. As an orphan living on New Moon Farm, writing helped her face the difficult, lonely times. But now all her friends are going away to high school in nearby Shrewsbury, and her old-fashioned, tyrannical aunt Elizabeth will only let her go if she promises to stop writing! All the same, this is the first step in Emily's climb to success. Once in town, Emily's activities set the Shrewsbury gossips buzzing. But Emily and her friends are confident—Ilse is a born performer, Teddy's set to be a great artist, and roguish Perry has the makings of a brilliant lawyer. When Emily has her poems published and writes for the town newspaper, success seems to be on its way—and with it the first whispers of romance. Then Emily is offered a fabulous opportunity, and must decide if she wants to change her life forever.

MY THOUGHTS: 

We left our intense young heroine writing a contract to herself, to climb the Alpine Path of literary success and write her humble name on the pinnacle. This installment of Emily's story takes her from the age of 14 to 17, while she attends High School and has a good scramble after her writing dream at the same time. 

Her three best friends are joining her at Shrewsbury High School. Dr Burnley will do anything for Ilse at this stage, Teddy's possessive mother loosens her apron strings the tiniest smidgen, and Perry pays his own way through by doing odd jobs.

Aunt Elizabeth is still stately and proud enough to pull off a lifestyle that would seem ridiculously backward from anyone else. But for Elizabeth Murray, refusal to evolve with the times is merely preserving something precious with great inherent value and class. And all the floor sanding, kerosene lamps, and old-fashioned recipes are great fun to read about. It's set in the earliest years of the 20th century, when a pair of girls might knock on a random door and request a meal and beds for the night. (For this is something Emily and Ilse actually do during this story.) 

Ilse is as vibrant and choleric as ever, and continues to get away with murder. She slaps her landlady and doesn't get evicted. She smashes the principal's office vase and doesn't get expelled. All these rages without consequences make her sound thoroughly spoiled, except for Montgomery's hints that Ilse can't get the one thing she really wants. It's never mentioned outright in this book, but I think clues are abundant enough for any but the most oblivious readers to read between the lines and guess what it is. What's more, her volatile outbursts are no doubt keeping what Ilse craves far from her. She's a very interesting secondary heroine.

Lots of the plot revolves around Emily's friction with overbearing Aunt Ruth, whose house she boards at to be close to school. (Since Shrewsbury is situated only 7 miles or 11 kilometres from New Moon, Emily would surely not need to board with Aunt Ruth had events taken place in modern times.) 

A severe, disapproving manner is Ruth's default. Her motto is to assume a person is shifty and sly until proven otherwise. She's over critical to the point of pushing Emily to be as bad as she thinks she is. And her close-minded prejudices seem set in stone. The narrator calls her, 'a stupid, stubborn little barnyard fowl trying to bring up a skylark.' Yet Montgomery offers glimpses of Aunt Ruth's point of view. Set in her ways for years, she's making a huge sacrifice by opening her house to another person. The question is will these two ever see eye to eye on anything?

There are some further incidents of Emily's second sight in action. Not enough to make it commonplace, but just enough to keep the wow factor flamed. Rather than celebrating it as a rare, distinguishing gift, Emily swings to the opposite extreme and flinches to think of some creepy, anonymous power borrowing her body and mind to work through from time to time. Yet since the incidents always yield positive results, we readers are drawn to conclude it must be a benign power. 

Emily has her fair share of admiring males. The family clan stands behind bland Cousin Andrew, although he doesn't tick Emily's boxes. And dynamic Perry Miller's brilliant ability to clear his own hurdles will never be enough for the Murrays (including Emily) to cancel out his Stovepipe Town origins. Her older friend Dean Priest lurks around with amorous intentions that Emily never picks up on, despite her uncanny knack for penetrating the hidden motivations of others. Her own favourite contender is unfortunately Teddy Kent, whose jealous and domineering mother probably puts up the most roadblocks of all.  

Emily's profoundly spiritual nature stands out to me this time round. Being out of doors is a reliable tonic for her, and she confesses that she loves things just as much as people. (I'm a bit like that too.) But the consolation she imbibes from the natural elements, considering herself one with the wind, trees and flowers, makes her a thorough nature mystic as well as just a budding writer.  

Emily faces many ups and downs in her ambition to be a published author. Aunt Elizabeth bans fiction writing for the duration of the Shrewsbury High years, with Mr Carpenter's approval. There's a nice bit of writing craft advice within these pages, courtesy of Mr Carpenter. He counsel that she's too lavish with words, and that she should never risk losing her Canadian tang. And Emily takes to heart his opinion that any writer should always aim to heal and never hurt with their pen. 

Finally, Cousin Jimmy deserves a shout-out as possibly the most tactful and perceptive person in the whole book. Although most people in his life dismiss him as a simple man-child, he is the person whose opinions ring most true to me, with the possible exception of Mr Carpenter. But since Jimmy is far less cranky than Mr C, he carries my vote as best mentor character. I sometimes start humming the Beatles' 'Fool on the Hill' when I think about him, because that's Cousin Jimmy Murray to a tee.  

These books are a joy to read, so let's bring on the conclusion, Emily's Quest 

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