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Sep. 14th, 2016 02:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
raincitygirlThe Emily of New Moon books by Lucy Maud Montgomery are not as well-liked by fans as the Anne of Green Gables books. I’ve heard complaints that Emily Byrd Starr is a Mary Sue. She’s prettier than Anne Shirley, and she has occasional psychic powers (she’s not reliably psychic, her powers only kick in when something important is happening). I admit these are probably valid reasons to consider her a Mary Sue, but I’ve always liked the books anyway. Haven’t re-read them in years, but my favourite part of the whole trilogy happens partway through the second book, Emily Climbs. Vague spoilers for the first book, Emily of New Moon and the second book. No spoilers for the third book, Emily’s Quest.
By the end of the first book (which starts with her being orphaned and sent to live with maternal relatives she doesn’t know, because her mother died when she was a baby and her father quarrelled with his in-laws), Emily has made 3 firm friends in her new home of New Moon, Prince Edward Island. At the beginning of the second book, we discover that the village school in New Moon doesn’t go up to high school, so Emily, Ilse, Teddy and Perry all have to go to the nearest big town for high school. I don’t remember if it’s Charlottetown, Summerside (real cities in PEI), or some imaginary big town that Montgomery made up, but the point is Emily’s nemesis, her widowed Aunt Ruth Dutton, lives there and Emily has to move in with her if she wants to continue her education.
The first two thirds of Emily Climbs involve various examples of Aunt Ruth being completely and totally odious. Not surprising, since on the few occasions we met her in the first book, she was also odious. Emily clashes with Aunt Ruth a good deal, and the reader likes Aunt Ruth no better than Emily does. The key point is that Aunt Ruth ALWAYS assumes the worst whenever Emily does something which is susceptible to more than one interpretation. Never fails.
About two thirds of the way through Emily Climbs, Emily, Ilse, Teddy and Perry have made a midwinter visit to New Moon and are returning to town by horse-drawn sleigh when they end up in a hard-core blizzard and have to take refuge in an abandoned barn overnight. Ilse gets roaring drunk on cough medicine heavily fortified with brandy (Ilse is the kind of person crazy stuff like this happens to). Nothing else happens. In the morning the storm has broken and they get to town uneventfully. Ilse then proceeds to tell the hilarious story to her entire social circle, but it backfires on her bigtime.
The entire town explodes in a frenzy of gossip, innuendo and malice aimed at Emily and Ilse, who obviously had a drunken orgy with Teddy and Perry, despite the guys denying it. There’s an orgy all right, an orgy of slut-shaming. The whole time all this whispering has been going on, Emily has been dying a thousand deaths thinking the gossip will get back to her Murray relatives in New Moon. She knows they’ll believe she didn’t do anything wrong, but the scandal will upset them all the same.
And Emily’s also dying a million deaths knowing that sooner or later Aunt Ruth, who lives in town, will find out about the scandal and assume the worst, like she’s always done before. During this whispering campaign, Aunt Ruth was laid up with sciatica or rheumatism or something, and nobody had the guts to tell her that her niece got into an orgy. They’re all sure she’ll do something horrible to the niece, but she might also shoot the messenger.
Aunt Ruth’s health complaint clears up and she quickly clues in that Emily is distraught and tearful. Aunt Ruth may be something of a witch, but she’s far from stupid. She demands that Emily tell her what’s going on right this minute if she knows what’s good for her, and Emily, full of foreboding, does so. Aunt Ruth lives in a big town now, but grew up in the country and knows how dangerous blizzards can be, so her initial reaction is, “Yes, and…” So Emily explains some more, including the fact that she was disinvited from some fancy party being thrown by the town’s leading hostess and the principal decided not to run a piece she wrote in the school paper, all because of the scandal.
And Aunt Ruth is outraged! Not at Emily, but at the insolence of these townies for daring to gossip about HER niece. Emily’s surname may be Starr, and Aunt Ruth may be a Dutton by marriage, but they’re both Murrays by blood, and how dare these ingrates drag the Murray name through the mud? Aunt Ruth is one of the richest people in town, although she doesn’t splash her cash around, she has a nasty tongue, and she has every intention of making everyone who dared to catcall or gossip about Emily regret it. She calls for her hat, visits the school principal and reads him the riot act, visits the leading hostess and threatens to call in a debt the hostess’s husband owes her, and makes it crystal clear to the whole town that while she may be strict with her niece HERSELF, she won’t tolerate anybody else being strict with her. Blood is a HELL of a lot thicker than water as far as Aunt Ruth is concerned.
Emily is bewildered, but also ecstatic, and for the first time in her life, feels some affection for Aunt Ruth. As I recall, though, Aunt Ruth manages to be a little bit odious even in her moment of triumph. She forcefully rehabilitates Ilse’s reputation along with Emily’s, but she feels the whole scandal started because of Ilse’s bad judgment in spreading the story around, and forbids Ilse the house. Emily can socialize with her best friend at school, but not at home. So Aunt Ruth remains Aunt Ruth, but when push came to shove, she had Emily’s back, and Emily won’t forget it.
So that’s my favourite part of the Emily of New Moon trilogy, watching Aunt Ruth confound the reader’s expectations and turn out to have a good side. And that’s why I put up with Emily’s striking looks and occasional psychic powers, because L.M. Montgomery sure knew how to write ogres with a well-hidden heart of gold.
By the end of the first book (which starts with her being orphaned and sent to live with maternal relatives she doesn’t know, because her mother died when she was a baby and her father quarrelled with his in-laws), Emily has made 3 firm friends in her new home of New Moon, Prince Edward Island. At the beginning of the second book, we discover that the village school in New Moon doesn’t go up to high school, so Emily, Ilse, Teddy and Perry all have to go to the nearest big town for high school. I don’t remember if it’s Charlottetown, Summerside (real cities in PEI), or some imaginary big town that Montgomery made up, but the point is Emily’s nemesis, her widowed Aunt Ruth Dutton, lives there and Emily has to move in with her if she wants to continue her education.
The first two thirds of Emily Climbs involve various examples of Aunt Ruth being completely and totally odious. Not surprising, since on the few occasions we met her in the first book, she was also odious. Emily clashes with Aunt Ruth a good deal, and the reader likes Aunt Ruth no better than Emily does. The key point is that Aunt Ruth ALWAYS assumes the worst whenever Emily does something which is susceptible to more than one interpretation. Never fails.
About two thirds of the way through Emily Climbs, Emily, Ilse, Teddy and Perry have made a midwinter visit to New Moon and are returning to town by horse-drawn sleigh when they end up in a hard-core blizzard and have to take refuge in an abandoned barn overnight. Ilse gets roaring drunk on cough medicine heavily fortified with brandy (Ilse is the kind of person crazy stuff like this happens to). Nothing else happens. In the morning the storm has broken and they get to town uneventfully. Ilse then proceeds to tell the hilarious story to her entire social circle, but it backfires on her bigtime.
The entire town explodes in a frenzy of gossip, innuendo and malice aimed at Emily and Ilse, who obviously had a drunken orgy with Teddy and Perry, despite the guys denying it. There’s an orgy all right, an orgy of slut-shaming. The whole time all this whispering has been going on, Emily has been dying a thousand deaths thinking the gossip will get back to her Murray relatives in New Moon. She knows they’ll believe she didn’t do anything wrong, but the scandal will upset them all the same.
And Emily’s also dying a million deaths knowing that sooner or later Aunt Ruth, who lives in town, will find out about the scandal and assume the worst, like she’s always done before. During this whispering campaign, Aunt Ruth was laid up with sciatica or rheumatism or something, and nobody had the guts to tell her that her niece got into an orgy. They’re all sure she’ll do something horrible to the niece, but she might also shoot the messenger.
Aunt Ruth’s health complaint clears up and she quickly clues in that Emily is distraught and tearful. Aunt Ruth may be something of a witch, but she’s far from stupid. She demands that Emily tell her what’s going on right this minute if she knows what’s good for her, and Emily, full of foreboding, does so. Aunt Ruth lives in a big town now, but grew up in the country and knows how dangerous blizzards can be, so her initial reaction is, “Yes, and…” So Emily explains some more, including the fact that she was disinvited from some fancy party being thrown by the town’s leading hostess and the principal decided not to run a piece she wrote in the school paper, all because of the scandal.
And Aunt Ruth is outraged! Not at Emily, but at the insolence of these townies for daring to gossip about HER niece. Emily’s surname may be Starr, and Aunt Ruth may be a Dutton by marriage, but they’re both Murrays by blood, and how dare these ingrates drag the Murray name through the mud? Aunt Ruth is one of the richest people in town, although she doesn’t splash her cash around, she has a nasty tongue, and she has every intention of making everyone who dared to catcall or gossip about Emily regret it. She calls for her hat, visits the school principal and reads him the riot act, visits the leading hostess and threatens to call in a debt the hostess’s husband owes her, and makes it crystal clear to the whole town that while she may be strict with her niece HERSELF, she won’t tolerate anybody else being strict with her. Blood is a HELL of a lot thicker than water as far as Aunt Ruth is concerned.
Emily is bewildered, but also ecstatic, and for the first time in her life, feels some affection for Aunt Ruth. As I recall, though, Aunt Ruth manages to be a little bit odious even in her moment of triumph. She forcefully rehabilitates Ilse’s reputation along with Emily’s, but she feels the whole scandal started because of Ilse’s bad judgment in spreading the story around, and forbids Ilse the house. Emily can socialize with her best friend at school, but not at home. So Aunt Ruth remains Aunt Ruth, but when push came to shove, she had Emily’s back, and Emily won’t forget it.
So that’s my favourite part of the Emily of New Moon trilogy, watching Aunt Ruth confound the reader’s expectations and turn out to have a good side. And that’s why I put up with Emily’s striking looks and occasional psychic powers, because L.M. Montgomery sure knew how to write ogres with a well-hidden heart of gold.
