Lucy Maud Montgomery's Emily Trilogy winds up with this novel about writing and love.
MY THOUGHTS:
This third novel in the trilogy takes off where the second left off. It's essentially a gentle tale about a girl quietly working at home, but there is so much discussion worthy material packed in.
The core four have all graduated from high school and gone their separate ways. Ilse is at the School of Literature and Expression and Teddy off to the School of Design, both in Montreal. (What cool sounding institutions.) Perry is a law clerk in Charlottetown, aiming for the Supreme Court bench. Only Emily, having refused Miss Janet Royal's offer to live with her in New York, is back at New Moon, convinced that she's made the right decision. She wants nothing more than to buckle down and produce some quality writing from her beloved home, unless it's the love of a certain young man. (Okay, let's not be coy, anyone who comes to this book straight after Emily Climbs know that she fancies Teddy Kent.)
Emily realises the sacrifices it'll take to chase her writing dream, yet her peace of mind still gets one almighty pummeling throughout this book. We readers can't help sensing a certainty that Montgomery is drawing from her own experience of shooting for the moon professionally. The toll it took on her translates to Emily, who is a more melancholic personality with far deeper depressive depths than other heroines of Montgomery who weren't aiming for brilliance and fame, such as Pat, Jane, Valancy and even Anne.
Emily had long ago decided that if she couldn't be more than just a 'pretty scribbler' she'd sooner give up, yet she can't stop, because the drive to write is too powerful. So she has no choice really, but to flagellate herself to aim for the stars. It's a heavy burden to place upon her own shoulders, and I'm sure we can sense her psyche sinking beneath the weight of her ambition in this novel in particular.
I've heard that the drive of celebrities and high fliers prevents them from ever truly relaxing, so it's a restless and often miserable way to live, with a few hard won highs in return. When Emily holds her first published novel in her hands, she reflects, 'What a reward for the long years of toil and endeavor and disappointment and discouragement.' I question whether a published novel is really enough to atone for the sacrifice of your life's vitality, but how thankful I am for people like Emily (and Maud by extension) who believe the single-focused scramble is worth it. We benefit from their hard work.
But Emily is open for romance too. One of the biggest questions in this book is whether she will choose Teddy or Dean. A subtle coolness exists between Teddy and Emily which often seems to be unaccounted for. Her 'stiff, pale, queenly aloofness' and his 'cool detachment and impersonal eyes' got on my nerves a bit, because 'why?' There's nothing I really dislike about Teddy. In fact at times I quite like him, but he's said to be 'sleek and well groomed' in his twenties, which doesn't strike me as the most appealing description Montgomery could have chosen.
Anyway, if taking Teddy means taking his deranged, morbid mother as part of the package, my response in Emily's place would always be, 'No way.' Even when Mrs Kent's secret past comes to light, I can't share Emily's sympathy for anyone who would stoop to poisoning innocent pet dogs and cats because she's jealous of them. Toward the end, Mrs Kent expresses amazement that anybody could face another person who has what she wants without wishing curses and grievous bodily harm upon them. Come on lady, you're not the first person whose in-laws have treated them rudely, but not everyone turns into a destructive, vindictive menace.
Talking about possessive individuals, Dean Priest finally gets his Colonel Brandon moment, when his devotion to Emily after an accident and subsequent sickness wins him her gratitude; perhaps a stepping stone for something more. But the fact that he's indirectly responsible for her state of mind leading to the accident lends a feeling of doom and gloom to their relationship. Still, this is the moment where I actually started liking him more. Emily has long grown up, so at last he comes across more the constant suitor than the creepy stalker. Montgomery gives him plenty of character development, colourful lines and good taste too. I feel Teddy just doesn't get the same space and time.
I can see why Team Dean contenders support their man, despite his worst moment. To Team Teddy fans, I'd say at this stage their guy needs to be brighter, more charismatic and at least equally as three dimensional, but he doesn't hit the mark. Sure, he's younger than Dean, but that's about it. The fact that he's a celebrated artist doesn't impress me much. Emily ponders the 'magnetic attraction of Teddy's personality' yet it doesn't come through on paper. Sure we're told about it, but never really see it.
Ilse and Perry's big, dramatic moment of coming together in the nick of time gets a great thumbs up from me though! It's an incident worthy of their flair and energy, and I'd better say no more than that. For me, it's the high moment of the book, and they aren't even the central focus. But the beta couple carries off the prize for romance in this story, and I wish we had even more of this vibrant couple.
Still, it's a beautifully written book. I love the descriptions of Emily's tasteful household treasures and Ilse's exotic, eccentric clothes that she manages to pull off with such panache. And I'm glad we now have trusty Google to turn to, which we didn't when I first read the Emily series in my teens. If we wonder what Emily's beloved portrait of Lady Giovanna or Dean's charismatic Elizabeth Bas actually looked like, it takes only a second to find out.
I think it loses a star for my eventual apathy about the central question. (Will she choose the manipulative, cynical, way older man or the bland hunk whose mother is probably jabbing pins into a voodoo doll of her?) But it retains a solid four for Montgomery's transparent honesty about the toughness of the writing life, and for Ilse and Perry.
But how about the ultimate cruel cut, which is alluded to in just a paragraph or two? When Aunts Elizabeth and Laura and Cousin Jimmy eventually pass away, the person to inherit New Moon will be Uncle Oliver's son, Andrew, who has no value for old world charm. The father and son duo have already started planning the modernisations in store for it, so it'll be goodbye to Jimmy's orchard and the old dairy. There's no indication that any rescue attempt will be possible. Emily finally gets a happy ending but poor old New Moon will be the ultimate loser. It's a sober dose of realism for us readers indeed.
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