One of the things I love about L. M. Montgomery's writing is how vividly she remembers what things feel and seem when you are a child. I also have very clear recollections of my childhood, particularly of my inner self as a child, and so much of what she writes rings so true. When Emily cries, "I am important to myself" (p. 25), I wanted to cheer because that is how I felt too when I was in single digits and being dismissed by adults. And, when "Elizabeth Murray had learned an important lesson -- that there was not one law of fairness for children and another for grown-ups" (p. 375), I set down my book and clapped. I was very sensitive to injustice, slights, and being treated condescendingly when I was a kid, and I try really hard not to treat kids that way now that I'm an adult.
Anyway, I read all three Emily books twenty years ago, when I was in my early twenties, and thought they were okay. I don't know if I loved Emily of New Moon when I read it just now, but I definitely liked it a lot more than I did before. I chuckled often, smiled oftener, and am eager to read the next book in the trilogy.
Emily Starr's father dies, and she is taken in by some of her mother's relatives. Cousin Jimmy and Aunt Laura are kind and loving to her, but Aunt Elizabeth bosses both of them and is less welcoming to Emily. Still, they give Emily a home at New Moon farm on Prince Edward Island, and if Aunt Elizabeth is not kind, she is at least honorable.
Emily makes friends with some kids and some adults. She starts out a lonesome, grief-stricken, pale child with a good deal of grit and spirit hidden under her puny exterior. She blossoms into a loveable, healthy, friendly girl over the course of the book. Always imaginative, Emily is determined to become a published author, and she spends a lot of time writing poetry, stories, and letters to her dead parents.
And, while terribly ill with a fever, Emily solves long-ago mystery. Her subconscious pieces together clues about a woman who disappeared and figures out what really happened to her, and brings joy and comfort to her best friend as a result. This is presented a little bit mystically, but I know how powerful a person's subconscious and imagination can be, and I find it wholly believable that a person could put together a few seemingly disparate facts and reach the logical and correct conclusion without consciously trying to do so.
I really loved Emily's concept of "the flash." I also have moments of such clear and unadulterated joy that they seem like ecstatic glimpses of a different world. Mine usually are brought about by bits of music, silhouettes, or something wonderful happening against all expectation -- they can all transport me with a jolt of ecstasy. I don't have a name for it like Emily does, but I think the concept is the same.
Particularly Good Bits:
And always when the flash came to her, Emily felt that life was a wonderful, mysterious thing of persistent beauty (p. 8).
Aunt Elizabeth was one of those people who never understand anything unless it is told them in plain language and hammered into their heads. And then they understand it only with their brains and not with their hearts (p. 54-55).
"Poets are so scarce in Blair Water folks don't understand them, and most people worry so much, they think you're not right if you don't worry" (p. 80).
Spring is such a happyfying time isn't it, father" (p. 215).
She was filled to her fingertips with a rapture of living (p. 269).
Outgrowing things we love is never a pleasant process (p. 361).
If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG for grief, mild mistreatment of a child, gossip about a woman leaving her husband for another man, and oblique descriptions of a sad and lonely death.
