There was nobody else — there never could be anybody else for me but you. I’ve loved you ever since that day you broke your slate over my head in school.
I’m so glad I’m finally getting around to reading this series. I enjoyed the first two Anne books, and this one was no exception. This one is about Anne’s college years, her relationship with her friends Priscilla and Philippa, and also about her beaux Gilbert and Royal.
Spoilers ahead, but it probably doesn’t matter as most of you have already read the book anyway…
Of course, how could she choose anyone BUT Gilbert? I do wonder why it took her so long to realize that. Besides their relationship, I enjoyed reading about Patty’s Place, Davy’s further development, and all the other girls’ drama. I do think I enjoyed Anne of Avonlea just a bit more than this one, but I still fell in love with Anne of the Island as well. I probably won’t get to the others in the series until next year, but I’ve enjoyed these first three books tremendously.
What a wonderful book! I enjoyed Anne of Green Gables, but I absolutely adored Anne of Avonlea. Now a schoolteacher, Anne is much admired by her students. I loved the sweet descriptions of Anne’s pupils. I enjoyed meeting the new cast of characters as well: Mr. Harrison and his parrot, Miss Lavender and her lovely stone house, the twins Davy and Dora, and the motherless Paul Irving. I anxiously await Anne of the Island.
I listened to the CD read by Barbara Caruso. What an excellent narrator. I wouldn’t hesitate at all to listen to one of her audiobooks again.
Perhaps, after all, romance did not come into one’s life with pomp and blare, like a gay knight riding down; perhaps it crept to one’s side like an old friend through quiet ways; 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.
Then the veil dropped again; but the Anne who walked up the dark lane was not quite the same Anne who had driven gaily down it the evening before. The page of girlhood had been turned, as by an unseen finger, and the page of womanhood was before her with all its charm and mystery, its pain and gladness.
Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet)
by Anne-Marie MacDonald
1990, 89 pp.
Rating:
Good Night Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet) is hilariously fun. Winner of the 1990 Governor General’s Award for Drama and written by the author of Fall on Your Knees, this play takes the main character, Constance, and puts her in the middle of Othello and Romeo and Juliet with very funny results. Plot lines are changed, lines rearranged, and we get to really know the players as never before.
If you’re familiar with both plays you will be in stitches in parts. Lines from the original plays are in italics to help the reader know the difference between those lines and MacDonald’s. Even MacDonald’s are written in iambic pentameter.
Highly recommended — especially for lovers of Shakespeare or those participating in the Canadian Literature Challenge.
Yann Martel’s Life of Pi won the Booker Prize in 2002. It’s the story of Pi Patel from his childhood to his time on a lifeboat after the ship carrying his family and his father’s zoo animals sinks. Richard Parker, a Bengal tiger, shares Pi’s fate on the raft. Due to the tiger, he must constantly be on guard during his 227 day ordeal.
I really didn’t get all that much into the story until the ship sunk — it really gets going at that point. And then, just when I was getting tired of all the desperate tactics for survival in the lifeboat, another interesting development occurs. I was surprised by the twist ending as well, but it was a good one. I was impressed by the symbolism in the book. Recommended.
“And what stood in their way? Their personalities and pasts, their ignorance and fear, timidity, squeamishness, lack of entitlement or experience or easy manners, then the tail end of a religious prohibition, their Englishness and class, and history itself. Nothing much at all.”
Didn’t care for it. I liked Atonement only marginally better. I read On Chesil Beach because it was short and I could use it for the Novella and Notable Books challenges. I also wanted to give Ian McEwan another chance.
Edward and Florence are both novices to s*x on their wedding night, and the experience doesn’t turn out too well for them. The consequences of this event have serious repercussions for the couple, even life-changing ones. I enjoyed the back-stories of the couple, but the wedding night scene was too graphic for my taste. Really, can’t the same thing be said in a more understated, tasteful way? I realize I’m in the minority on things like this, but certain language and descriptions just really don’t do it for me. Your mileage probably varies.
2007, 203 pp.
Rating:
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“I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved.”
Very uncomfortable reading for me. Disturbing and (literally) haunting. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and written by Nobel laureate Toni Morrison, Beloved tells the story of a family’s life before and after their escape from slavery. Sethe and her daughter Denver live in isolation at 124 in the countryside near Cincinnati. Also ‘present’ in the house is the ghost of Sethe’s other daughter, nicknamed Beloved, who died when she was two. Sethe fled to Ohio from Kentucky many years before after escaping from her owners at ‘Sweet Home.’ Also at Sweet Home was Paul D., who has now come to Ohio to look for Sethe. Soon after Paul D.’s arrival at 124, he drives the baby ghost out; however it’s not long before a strange young woman is found near the house and who calls herself Beloved.
I had a very difficult time following the story at first, and I’d probably understand it much better if I re-read it at some point. The storyline unravels as it goes along, and we see bit by bit the horrors that Sethe escaped from. Her actions are also called into question. Her mental state is dubious. But whose wouldn’t be after undergoing the ordeals she has gone through?
“Other people went crazy, why couldn’t she?”
I didn’t enjoy this book, but I don’t think readers are supposed to. The subject matter is difficult, and I don’t like hearing the horror stories of Beloved or Maus. At the same time, I realize they are necessary and I’ll continue to force myself to read them.
The Only Road Northby Erik Mirandette is a story of brotherly love — between actual brothers and also between the Mirandettes and their fellow ‘brothers’ in need. Erik Mirandette was attending the Air Force Academy when he decided to take a two year break to focus on humanitarian efforts in Morocco. After being instrumental in bringing food and medicine to refugees in that country, he decided to take one last trek through Africa beginning in South Africa and working his way north to Cairo. His brother Alex, along with two friends, Kris and Mike, were in on the once-in-a-lifetime trip. After getting through numerous dangers and threats along the way, terror strikes them in Cairo when a suicide bomber attacks. Will Erik keep his faith and trust in God, even when the unthinkable happens?
This was a moving and sad story, but it was also full of hope. Thanks, Joy, for introducing it to me!
2007, 300 pp.
Rating: 4.5
Embers by Sandor Marai is a novel about Henrik and Konrad, two men who share a deep friendship from childhood. The novel opens with Konrad visiting Henrik for the first time in 41 years. The reasons why the pair were separated for so long are unraveled throughout the book.
Henrik comes from a privileged, wealthy background while Konrad is from poorer stock. They both attend a military training academy as youngsters, but Henrik is much more suited to the military life, while Konrad wishes to pursue the finer arts such as music. When Henrik’s father (a military man himself) meets Konrad for the first time, he states to his son that his friend will never be suited to the military because he is a ‘different sort of man.’
As they meet at Henrik’s castle for the first time in four decades, they discuss at first what they have been doing during that time, and then come to the reasons why these two friends have not seen each other for so long. The background to the story involves the first 80 or so pages, and then a dinner party discussion between the two goes on for the remaining part of the novel. Most of this discussion is a one-sided monologue by Henrik. In fact, Henrik goes on speaking about the pair’s past for almost the entire last 70 pages. While Henrik’s monologue goes on much too long, some of the passages were beautifully written:
The feeling that bound me to my mother and to you and to Krisztina was always the same, a longing, a hope in search of something, a helpless, sad yearning. For we always love the ‘other,’ we always seek it out, no matter what the circumstances and sudden changes in our lives….The greatest secret and the greatest gift any of us can be offered is the chance for two ’similar’ people to meet. It happens so rarely — it must be because nature uses all its force and cunning to prevent such harmony — perhaps it’s that creation and the renewal of life need the tension that is generated between two people of opposite temperaments who seek each other out. Like an alternating current. . . an exchange of energy between positive and negative poles, think of all the despair and the blind hope that lie behind this duality.
The book has quite a bit of suspense to it. I was definitely interested and engaged and wanted to know the pair’s secret, but at the end, it just didn’t quite satisfy. I would like to re-read this someday as a translation from the Hungarian to English. This translation was in English from the German translation of the original Hungarian, which doesn’t seem like it would quite work. In fact, I noticed in a few spots that the same words or phrases were repeated too close together. In one instance, ‘prettified’ was a word used twice in close proximity, and it just didn’t fit. I would read more by this author, though, if there were direct translations available.
1942, 213 pp.
Rating: 3.5
I am probably the last adult female in the world to fall in love with Anne Shirley, but it’s finally happened. Her sweet, spunky, imaginative spirit is impossible not to fall in love with.
Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery is a book I wish I’d read in childhood. I know I would have gobbled up this series just like I did the Little House books. While as a child I could relate to Laura’s tomboyishness and her location on the prairie, I now see in Anne a competitive spirit that I could have also related to, particularly with academics. It also would have been nice to have the American/Canadian contrast while I was a young girl, but at least now I know what I’ve been missing. Just as those around her were spellbound by Anne, so was I. I can’t wait to read more of the series.
Raidergirl, I thought about you often during the reading of this book. I’d love to visit you in PEI someday!
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison is a quick read, but by no means is it easy or light. With subjects of poverty, inc*st, and racial self-loathing (Morrison’s own description), it is difficult at times to read.
It starts off with a sappy reading of Dick and Jane, and continues on with why not all homes are the same as Dick and Jane’s. Morrison draws each character so well, and 11 year-old Pecola, especially, is a girl I won’t soon forget. My edition had an afterward by the author which gave even more insight into what she was trying to accomplish with this book.
Although The Bluest Eye was very depressing, I can see why Morrison has many fans. I hope to get to Beloved later this year.
There was nobody else — there never could be anybody else for me but you. I’ve loved you ever since that day you broke your slate over my head in school.
Yann Martel’s Life of Pi won the Booker Prize in 2002. It’s the story of Pi Patel from his childhood to his time on a lifeboat after the ship carrying his family and his father’s zoo animals sinks. Richard Parker, a Bengal tiger, shares Pi’s fate on the raft. Due to the tiger, he must constantly be on guard during his 227 day ordeal.
“I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved.”
The Only Road North by Erik Mirandette is a story of brotherly love — between actual brothers and also between the Mirandettes and their fellow ‘brothers’ in need. Erik Mirandette was attending the Air Force Academy when he decided to take a two year break to focus on humanitarian efforts in Morocco. After being instrumental in bringing food and medicine to refugees in that country, he decided to take one last trek through Africa beginning in South Africa and working his way north to Cairo. His brother Alex, along with two friends, Kris and Mike, were in on the once-in-a-lifetime trip. After getting through numerous dangers and threats along the way, terror strikes them in Cairo when a suicide bomber attacks. Will Erik keep his faith and trust in God, even when the unthinkable happens?
Embers by Sandor Marai is a novel about Henrik and Konrad, two men who share a deep friendship from childhood. The novel opens with Konrad visiting Henrik for the first time in 41 years. The reasons why the pair were separated for so long are unraveled throughout the book.
I am probably the last adult female in the world to fall in love with Anne Shirley, but it’s finally happened. Her sweet, spunky, imaginative spirit is impossible not to fall in love with.
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison is a quick read, but by no means is it easy or light. With subjects of poverty, inc*st, and racial self-loathing (Morrison’s own description), it is difficult at times to read.
