A second book...

I'm not here to announce the completion of Northanger Abbey, but, as you may have guessed, the commencement of a second book.  I'm not abandoning Catherine Morland, by any means.  As a matter of fact, I like her quite a lot (certainly more than Fanny Price, who infuriated me to no end).  And I'm always pleasantly surprised by Austen's wry tone and acerbic wit.  But as I mentioned previously, Northanger Abbey is on the iPad.  While I'm adjusting to using the iPad as a reader (though I remain staunchly in the actual book camp), there are some times when it simply will not do - to wit, in the bathtub (where I dearly love to ensconce myself with a good book) or in the pack on the back of my bike (because I firmly believe that a book is a necessary accompaniment to any occasion, including a bike ride).  A borrowed iPad especially has no place near water or bumping along a bike trail.  Thus...

Not my copy.  But a very close
approximation of the shape mine
is in.

Anne of Green Gables.  The literary equivalent (for me, at least) of a warm bath, comfort food, or a broken-in pair of jeans (or all of the above).  I read this the other day -- Fire Up Your Tivos, Nerds: Anne of Green Gables is Returning to TV -- and this nagging urge to revisit the books for the umpteenth time has been dogging me ever since (as has a desire to revisit the Megan Follows movies, which I'm proud to own).  Thus, confronted with a lazy, rainy day and the desire to take a nice, long bath, I fished out my well-worn (well-loved) copy of Anne of Green Gables and happily returned to Avonlea.

I doubt there is much I can say about Anne that hasn't already been said.  (Of course, the same could be said for most books, yet here we are.)  Since I've only just begun, let me try to explain why I'm always sucked back in so quickly, why I'm always certain that rereading these books was a good decision.  First, there are the characters.  Perhaps it's a bad idea for what is ostensibly a children's book to start by focusing on three characters, Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert and Mrs. Rachel Lynde, who are in their 60s.  But the quick sketches that are given of them in the opening chapter are so deft that they come immediately to life (it doesn't hurt, of course, to have Colleen Dewhurst, Richard Farnsworth, and Patricia Hamilton in mind while you read, either).

For instance, this:
"She looked like a woman of narrow experience and rigid conscience, which she was; but there was a saving something about her mouth which, if it had been ever so slightly developed, might have been considered indicative of a sense of humor."

Also, I can't help being delighted by a world in which you know expected company is nothing special because "the dishes were every-day dishes and there was only crab apple preserves and one kind of cake."  Only one kind of cake - heaven forbid!

Also, though I would probably find a particularly precocious and talkative eleven-year old exhausting in person, I think Anne is just delightful and I love her world-view.

"Isn't it splendid there are so many things to like in this world?"

Indeed.  And this series, my dear, is one of those things in this world that I like immensely.