So, I wasn't actually a big fan of Little House on the Prairie.
Weird, right?
I was all over Nancy Drew and Anne of Green Gables and Little Women, so you would think Laura Ingalls Wilder would have been right up my alley. Totally wasn't, though.
Anywho, I nonetheless find the idea of this cookbook intriguing.
(More nerdery?) I just love how books are snapshots of how lives were lived. For example, the clothes Jessica and Elizabeth wore in the original Sweet Valley High series tell us a lot about what was cool in the 1980s. Or, Judy Blume's adult novels highlight times when hippie-chic was chic....
Showing posts with label Anne of Green Gables. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Anne of Green Gables. Show all posts
2010-01-21
2008-11-22
cougars, chick lit and Christmas
Okay.... You know when you see a cougar at a bar?
(Yes, I know this is mean.)
Anyway, cougar at a bar. Sorry, two cougars at a bar, because cougars rarely travel alone. They are wearing something painfully horrifying, like white jeans and a vest as a shirt. You feel bad for them while hoping you are not going to become one. You take a quick look down to make sure your waist flab is covered by your shirt and jeans, not out there for the world to see. Anyway, besides the point. The point is, you see the cougars flirting with guys who are way younger, who are often blinded by drink, and the whole thing is just icky and embarrassing for all present. Also, reason enough to never let tequila pass your lips again.
On that note, I offer you this, which I assume happened sans tequila, but shouldn't have:
On the likelihood YouTube has wrested this video from its site, simply know Tyra Banks made the star of Twilight bite her neck. On daytime television. Yick.
Moving on.
Somehow, my blog was excluded from this list. Perhaps I should be happy, as this is sort of confirmation my blog is not all about chick lit. Or, I should be less self-centred for three seconds and recognize these here words are not an international cultural phenomenon in the making.
Um.... moving on again.
Today was a beautiful day in Edmonton. I'm not sure who needs to know this on the record, but it really was. It was the kind of day that made you feel good about winter (probably because it was like 7C), and a little excited about Christmas (even though Christmas decorations seem to be throwing up everywhere).
To me, one of the most fascinating aspects of Christmas is its romance -- not like sexual/love romance, but historic/times lost romance. I'm thinking of the way Anne describes a snow fall on Prince Edward Island over a hundred years ago, a snow fall completely unsullied by exhaust fumes and the constant background music of cars going past your apartment windows.
So, I offer this review, because nothing makes Christmas like Little Women.
(Yes, I know this is mean.)
Anyway, cougar at a bar. Sorry, two cougars at a bar, because cougars rarely travel alone. They are wearing something painfully horrifying, like white jeans and a vest as a shirt. You feel bad for them while hoping you are not going to become one. You take a quick look down to make sure your waist flab is covered by your shirt and jeans, not out there for the world to see. Anyway, besides the point. The point is, you see the cougars flirting with guys who are way younger, who are often blinded by drink, and the whole thing is just icky and embarrassing for all present. Also, reason enough to never let tequila pass your lips again.
On that note, I offer you this, which I assume happened sans tequila, but shouldn't have:
On the likelihood YouTube has wrested this video from its site, simply know Tyra Banks made the star of Twilight bite her neck. On daytime television. Yick.
Moving on.
Somehow, my blog was excluded from this list. Perhaps I should be happy, as this is sort of confirmation my blog is not all about chick lit. Or, I should be less self-centred for three seconds and recognize these here words are not an international cultural phenomenon in the making.
Um.... moving on again.
Today was a beautiful day in Edmonton. I'm not sure who needs to know this on the record, but it really was. It was the kind of day that made you feel good about winter (probably because it was like 7C), and a little excited about Christmas (even though Christmas decorations seem to be throwing up everywhere).
To me, one of the most fascinating aspects of Christmas is its romance -- not like sexual/love romance, but historic/times lost romance. I'm thinking of the way Anne describes a snow fall on Prince Edward Island over a hundred years ago, a snow fall completely unsullied by exhaust fumes and the constant background music of cars going past your apartment windows.
So, I offer this review, because nothing makes Christmas like Little Women.
2008-07-15
a moment of Anne
In honour of Miss Shirley's 100th birthday (and, I would estimate, the 18th anniversary of my having met her for the first time), I offer:
"What a splendid day!" said Anne, drawing a long breath. "Isn't it good just to be alive on a day like this? I pity the people who aren't born yet for missing it. They may have good days, of course, but they can never have this one. And it's splendider still to have such a lovely way to go to school by, isn't it?"
.... Going around by the main road would have been so unromantic; but to go by Lover's Lane and Willowmere and Violet Vale and the Birch Path was romantic, if ever anything was.
Lover's Lane opened out below the orchard at Green Gables and stretched far up into the woods to the end of Cuthbert farm. It was the way by which the cows were taken to the back pasture and the wood hauled home in winter. Anne had named it Lover's Lane before she had been a month at Green Gables.
"Not that lovers ever really walk there," she explained to Marilla, "but Diana and I are reading a perfectly magnificent book and there's a Lover's Lane in it. So we want to have one, too. And it's a very pretty name, don't you think? So romantic! We can imagine the lovers into it, you know. I like that lane because you can think out loud there without people calling you crazy."
(Pages 105-106 in the Seal Book edition of Anne of Green Gables. The one with a picture of Megan Follows on the cover.)
"What a splendid day!" said Anne, drawing a long breath. "Isn't it good just to be alive on a day like this? I pity the people who aren't born yet for missing it. They may have good days, of course, but they can never have this one. And it's splendider still to have such a lovely way to go to school by, isn't it?"
.... Going around by the main road would have been so unromantic; but to go by Lover's Lane and Willowmere and Violet Vale and the Birch Path was romantic, if ever anything was.
Lover's Lane opened out below the orchard at Green Gables and stretched far up into the woods to the end of Cuthbert farm. It was the way by which the cows were taken to the back pasture and the wood hauled home in winter. Anne had named it Lover's Lane before she had been a month at Green Gables.
"Not that lovers ever really walk there," she explained to Marilla, "but Diana and I are reading a perfectly magnificent book and there's a Lover's Lane in it. So we want to have one, too. And it's a very pretty name, don't you think? So romantic! We can imagine the lovers into it, you know. I like that lane because you can think out loud there without people calling you crazy."
(Pages 105-106 in the Seal Book edition of Anne of Green Gables. The one with a picture of Megan Follows on the cover.)
2008-04-06
two of my favourite things
This essay, written by Margaret Atwood on the 100th anniversary of Anne of Green Gables, is pretty long. And I have to admit entirely worth it because of the second-to-last and last graphs. I, too, always wondered whether Anne actually changed in the first book.... why be quieter? What does that mean? Marilla, on the other hand....
On other books, I'm reading The English Patient, and it is absolutely gorgeous. I've heard it is among a list of books readers are least likely to finish, but I honestly can't understand why. It's pages and pages of poetry, and layers of plot wrapped in characters. Why would anyone ever want to put it down?
And for those curious about the next book club selection, it is Into the Wild. Not, apparently, because of the movie. I haven't yet started it, but it appears to be written by an Important Male Author (or at least a Male Author), so picking it up by the first weekend of May will not lead to me cheating on my short-term resolution.
On other books, I'm reading The English Patient, and it is absolutely gorgeous. I've heard it is among a list of books readers are least likely to finish, but I honestly can't understand why. It's pages and pages of poetry, and layers of plot wrapped in characters. Why would anyone ever want to put it down?
And for those curious about the next book club selection, it is Into the Wild. Not, apparently, because of the movie. I haven't yet started it, but it appears to be written by an Important Male Author (or at least a Male Author), so picking it up by the first weekend of May will not lead to me cheating on my short-term resolution.
2008-03-23
happy birthday, Anne
I learned lots of things from this weekend's Globe and Mail. Alberta is hurting the country, according to Jeffrey Simpson. By maintaining a fixer in Afghanistan for longer than six weeks -- rather, keeping up trust and contact for nearly two years -- you can interview 42 members of the Taliban to interesting effect (but what then happens to the fixer?). And, Anne of Green Gables is 100 years old.
It's this last fact I hold closest.
Let me backtrack for just a moment -- bear with me, and apologies for the personal trek down memory lane.
In my family we do not have aunts. And certainly, I do not have any "awnts," as the Maritimers might say. I have tsias (the Italians) and aunties (the French-Canadians and Swedes). And Aunty Pam is my favourite.
There are many reasons for this -- geographical proximity when I was very young, my inability to remember a time when Aunty Pam wasn't part of my life and giggling, and of course, presents. What can I say? Like every other kid, I was pretty fickle when it came to likes and dislikes, and a good present went a long way with me.
She was the first person to give me a diary. It looked like a denim jean pocket and had a lock on its side, even though there was no one in my house with any interest in reading my diary. Still, I hid the key. Its clean white pages invited all the worries of an eight-year-old girl, and on its very first page my aunt scrawled a note. I don't remember the note, but I do remember the handwriting. I used to try to copy that handwriting.
Aunty Pam also offered a second inspiration to my young dreams of one day becoming a writer. She gave me the first three books in the Anne of Green Gables set -- Anne of Green Gables, Anne of Avonlea, and Anne of the Island. My favourite was the first. My second favourite the third. Later, when I read the rest of the set, I had a serious soft spot for Rainbow Valley, and Rilla of Ingleside pulled up alongside the first favourites. (Anne's House of Dreams, though, bored me to tears.)
I wanted to be L.M. Montgomery. I wanted to be Anne. I wanted red hair, and to have my stories published in newspapers, and I wanted a posse of girl friends to boss around and make re-enact Tennyson poems. I wanted children to arbitrarily love me, and I wanted to be an adored teacher. I wanted to have silly adventures, although I had no interest in accidentally making my best friend drunk.
I know, I've talked about this before. The gift of these works, though, were they were my first ticket to CanLit. They bridged the gap between the Beverly Cleary and Judy Blume books I first read on my own, and all the books I would later read as an adult. They were stories of Canadiana, of a pastoral time before the time I knew. They made me imagine what fresh-fallen snow might look like if there were no cars, and what roads and highways might have looked like if Anne had had her way and farmers hadn't been allowed to hang advertisements on their fences.
For all these dreams and imaginings, I owe my aunty.
It's this last fact I hold closest.
Let me backtrack for just a moment -- bear with me, and apologies for the personal trek down memory lane.
In my family we do not have aunts. And certainly, I do not have any "awnts," as the Maritimers might say. I have tsias (the Italians) and aunties (the French-Canadians and Swedes). And Aunty Pam is my favourite.
There are many reasons for this -- geographical proximity when I was very young, my inability to remember a time when Aunty Pam wasn't part of my life and giggling, and of course, presents. What can I say? Like every other kid, I was pretty fickle when it came to likes and dislikes, and a good present went a long way with me.
She was the first person to give me a diary. It looked like a denim jean pocket and had a lock on its side, even though there was no one in my house with any interest in reading my diary. Still, I hid the key. Its clean white pages invited all the worries of an eight-year-old girl, and on its very first page my aunt scrawled a note. I don't remember the note, but I do remember the handwriting. I used to try to copy that handwriting.
Aunty Pam also offered a second inspiration to my young dreams of one day becoming a writer. She gave me the first three books in the Anne of Green Gables set -- Anne of Green Gables, Anne of Avonlea, and Anne of the Island. My favourite was the first. My second favourite the third. Later, when I read the rest of the set, I had a serious soft spot for Rainbow Valley, and Rilla of Ingleside pulled up alongside the first favourites. (Anne's House of Dreams, though, bored me to tears.)
I wanted to be L.M. Montgomery. I wanted to be Anne. I wanted red hair, and to have my stories published in newspapers, and I wanted a posse of girl friends to boss around and make re-enact Tennyson poems. I wanted children to arbitrarily love me, and I wanted to be an adored teacher. I wanted to have silly adventures, although I had no interest in accidentally making my best friend drunk.
I know, I've talked about this before. The gift of these works, though, were they were my first ticket to CanLit. They bridged the gap between the Beverly Cleary and Judy Blume books I first read on my own, and all the books I would later read as an adult. They were stories of Canadiana, of a pastoral time before the time I knew. They made me imagine what fresh-fallen snow might look like if there were no cars, and what roads and highways might have looked like if Anne had had her way and farmers hadn't been allowed to hang advertisements on their fences.
For all these dreams and imaginings, I owe my aunty.
2007-07-03
a late ode to Canada Day
In honour of our 140th birthday (ha ha! we secured Confederation before Germany or Italy!), I offer up my Top 10 picks for best Canadian books.... Recognizing, of course, that this is a rather sad, English-only list. But taking pride for a moment that it's also a rather woman-heavy list.
- Anne of Green Gables. Long before I fell for Tennyson, we were kindly introduced by L.M. Montgomery. Was there a girl more imaginative than Anne Shirley? I wanted curly red hair. And freckles. Without any real understanding of what a gingham dress might be, I longed for one. I wanted a group of little girl friends who would join me in my story-writing and play-acting. I wanted a Gilbert Blythe of my very own....
- Oryx and Crake, by Margaret Atwood. If Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale was a harrowing look at where humanity could go -- in its worst-case, women as little more than baby-producing cattle, way -- then Oryx and Crake is a worst-case tale of where science could go in a world poisoned by man. And woman. This is not a book of lyrical feminism but achingly dirty and ego-driven masculinity. A world where one needs lots and lots of sunblock. And hope. For something.
- I just finished reading a story as told through the eyes of a very young girl. And while admirable, it was no A Complicated Kindness. Miriam Toews gently imbues her tale of a young woman living in a small Manitoba Mennonite community with angst and confusion and hope and hopelessness. For example: "Travis told me that when I was dying to get high was when I was the most together and brilliant. Well, I said, it's the dying part that makes me feel alive."
- There are moments when Ann-Marie MacDonald's Fall on Your Knees feels like the worst kind of melodrama. They are tiny glimpses of moments buried amongst all the overwhelmingly excellent prose. Her The Way the Crow Flies, however, may be a little shorter on the poetic prose and a little longer on the excellent story-telling. Maybe it's because my mom grew up on an Air Force base, maybe it's because there's a hopefulness and news-worthiness to her tale of Madeleine McCarthy -- an eight-year-old girl accidentally drawn into the biggest news story of her time, whose ripe fear keeps her silent -- but I would have to say MacDonald's second major novel outshines her first.
- Remember when Maclean's was really really good? And you always read the back page first? Fotheringham's Fictionary of Facts and Follie is an ode to that time, an ode to the days when you ran to the post box on Tuesdays, eagerly awaiting that week's periodical. And then you laughed and laughed.
- If I was astounded by Atwood's ability to depict a man gone wild in Oryx and Crake, I was far more blown away by Richard B. Wright's tale of two sisters in Clara Callan. Was Clara a realistic, representative small-town Ontario woman of the 1930s? I still can't decide. She was daring in her silence, in her privacy, in her life choices.... More daring, really, than the sister who pursued adventure in the United States. Clara is a tragic anomaly, and Wright created her so perfectly.
- Rilla of Ingleside is the somewhat melodramatic final tale of Anne of Green Gables. Rilla is Anne's youngest daughter, a girl so feckless and unimaginative she is completely unlike her mother. Instead of the bouncing chapter-to-chapter fun of L.M. Montgomery's first novel, Rilla's story speaks to the author's last wishes for peace and love in this world. I have long loved Rilla, even for her self-centredness. Her tale brings the whole story to a close -- a close that allows us to remember Anne forever as an adult, too, a mother who hurt and cried and laughed and loved....
- Okay. This list is making me gross sentimental. Time for some harsh come-uppance. Cue Naomi Klein's No Logo. I don't think there's any Canadian between the ages of 20 and 30, who went to university or college at some point during that time, who doesn't remember when this book came out. When it kicked ass (depending on your opinion). When it made you feel guilty (again, depending on your opinion). When it made you want to make a change in your world. (Come on!)
- No list of top Canadian books is complete with Timothy Findley. (I'm sure people would say the same about Mordecai Richler. I'm not one of them, but I respect the opinion.) I offer you the mystical, sepia-toned tale of The Piano Man's Daughter.
- In The Strangest Dream, Merrily Weisbord tells tales of Canadian communism. Of sweatshops in Montreal and the Cold War. Of spies and treason and, yup, I'm going to say it again, hope. I have almost as many folded-over corners and drawn-in stars and arrows in this book as I do in More's Utopia. Perhaps that says more about me than the book.... "What now? What do we believe now after the death of what was at once the most noble dream and a soul-destroying nightmare? Is global capitalism all there is? What remains of the impulse for social justice? What, if anything, is the legacy of the strangest dream?"
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