Anne of Ingleside

I hoped to read all the Anne books last year, but sadly, I didn’t quite manage to do so. After absolutely loving the first five books in the series, I eagerly dove into this one, too, and while it didn’t end up quite reaching five stars for me, I still thoroughly enjoyed being back with Anne and Gilbert and meeting their children.

If you’re expecting a lot more Anne-focused stories (as I half-way was, going into this book), you’ll probably be disappointed. This book focuses on her children, and once I got used to the change of perspective, I soon grew to enjoy it. One of my pet beefs with family-focused books like this one is that they can tend to struggle to keep all the family members unique.

That was not an issue for me with show more this story. Although it took a while for me to wrap my head around all the names that are thrust at us in the first few chapters of this book, each of the children quickly started developing their own unique tendencies and outlooks on life, and I loved that each one had at least one story of their own in these pages (interspersed with family happenings and Anne’s perspectives on things). Parts of this book are unforgettable—like Walter’s long nighttime walk, expecting Anne to be dead on his arrival home, or Di’s misadventures with friends who knew how to tell a good story.

It was fun to see Anne more grown-up here; a motherly woman with a strong focus on raising independent children, secure in their parents’ love. After all her dreaming of becoming famous and making a difference in earlier books, it’s delightful to see her fulfilled in her role as a mother here.

Then, too, there are the semi-frequent bouts of gossip that come through; I love the very real small-town feel of this story.

If you enjoy relaxing, uplifting reads, I’d highly recommend you check out this book and the previous ones in the series. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and can’t wait to pick up Rainbow Valley in the near future! show less

Although currently considered the sixth entry in Canadian author L.M. Montgomery's classic series of children's novels about red-headed heroine Anne Shirley - the first (and most famous) volume, Anne of Green Gables, was released in 1908, while the eighth and final one, Rilla of Ingleside, appeared in 1921 - Anne of Ingleside was actually published in 1939, long after its companions. It was, in fact, the last of Montgomery's works to appear in her lifetime, making it into print just three years before her death in 1942. I was very conscious of that fact, and of the recent revelations about Montgomery's likely suicide, during my rereading of the book, undertaken for a group discussion over in The L.M. Montgomery Book Club to which I show more belong, and was especially struck by some of the more melancholy passages that appear in its pages.

Meant to fill in gaps between Anne's House of Dreams (1917), which chronicles the first year of Anne's married life with Gilbert Blythe, and Rainbow Valley (1919), which focuses almost entirely upon the six Blythe children, the narrative of Anne of Ingleside is divided between Anne and her children, sometimes chronicling the former's trials and tribulations, as when she comes to doubt Gilbert's regard for her, toward the end of the book; and sometimes featuring the children's adventures and misadventures, from Jem's dog-related sorrows to Di's string of false friends. The result is a book that feels, much like the epistolary Anne of Windy Poplars, rather episodic. I found it quite charming, for all that, and while I'm not entirely sure it succeeds as a novel, enjoyed many of the individual episodes enough that it didn't make much difference to me. Anne's reunion with her childhood friend, Diana, and their day of remembrances of times past; the visit of the deliciously obnoxious Aunt Mary Maria Blythe to Ingleside, and the unexpected cause of her departure; the birth of little Rilla, and Walter's anguish, when exiled from home that day; the poignant discovery, on Jem's part, that you can buy a dog, but not his love - these episodes all appealed to me immensely, even if others - Nan's castle-in-the-air, regarding the GLOOMY HOUSE, for instance - strained my suspension of disbelief.

Anne of Ingleside is, in my estimation, the weakest of the Anne books, and despite my enjoyment, I am always cognizant of its flaws. There are some classist undercurrents here - the almost gleefully detailed descriptions of the poorer houses visited by the children, from Jenny Penny's run-down home, with its noisy, crowded dinner table, to the filthy seaside shanty of six-toed Jimmy Thomas - that I find rather unpleasant, and Anne herself sometimes appears as a distant figure, implausibly perfect as a mother, and curiously inactive, compared to her younger days. That said, I do think that the positives outweigh the negatives, and the realization that this was the last of Montgomery's books - something I had not been aware of, when reading it previously - gave the reading experience added interest and poignancy. When Anne describes herself as "a creature in an nightmare, trying to overtake someone with fettered feet," or laments that "Nothing had any meaning any longer. Everything seemed remote and unreal," one wonders whether Montgomery was writing from her own experience, at the moment of composition. show less

2nd read:
I'm impossibly nostalgic and therefore love this book. I like the jumps into the childish point of view, the small adventures that seem so large, and even the crabby old married feeling that Anne gets at the end of the book. It was a nice trot down memory lane when the worst that could happen was the bullying of the older "set." I felt an anticipatory cringe when one of the twins sneaked out of the house against "parental decree" to spend a night with a disreputable family... and was reminded that Mongomery, like Stowe and Alcott, was far from silent on the topic of emotional abuse.

This, the sixth book in the Anne of Green Gables series, focuses more on Anne's growing children and their reaction to various scraps they get themselves into. I missed Anne's voice in this story. Although she's in the book and we occasionally hear from her, she's mainly phased out.

I did hate reading one section where Anne, who was a published author in earlier books, says, "Occasionally I do write a little story, but a busy mother hasn't much time for that." I understand that this was written in a very different era, but still. Anne always dreamed of being an author and it seems like she gave up that dream entirely. She has certainly become a wonderful mother, but can't she be both?

I do love Montgomery's descriptions of life. The show more wonderful character of Anne finds such joy in the smallest things and has a very healthy view of dealing with change.

"Well that was life. Gladness and pain... hope and fear ... and change. Always change! You could not help it. You had to let the old go and take the new to your heart... learn to love it and then let it go in turn. Spring, lovely as it was, must yield to summer and summer loses itself in autumn. The birth ... the bridal ... the death."

I love the series and I'm glad I read the book, but it's definitely not my favorite. show less

Anne of Ingleside captured the charm that had been missing in the last couple of Anne books for me. From the opening pages that described a picnic that Anne shared with her friend Diana while on a trip home to Green Gables, to her joy at returning home to her husband and children, this was a fitting goodbye to the young Anne as she slips into a gracious middle age.

The focus of this book is on her family. Anne’s children are an assorted group from the two older boys, down-to-earth Jem and dreamer Walter, the twins Nan and Di, youngest son Shirley and the baby, Marilla, named after Anne’s beloved foster mother. The wonderful housekeeper, Susan rounds out the family and is an important member to both the adults and the children. As the show more seasons turn and time passes we get a bird’s eye view of their home called Ingleside and the happiness, laughter and love contained in that home. Of course, there are sad times as well, the death of a loved pet, the difficulties of an extended visit of an older, crabby great-aunt, a child’s fear when a parent becomes ill.

I personally believe that L.M. Montgomery excels in her writing of children. Yes, the story is old-fashioned and sentimental and these children are perhaps a little too good for total believability but she captures the essence of young hopes and dreams effortlessly. I very much enjoyed her descriptive writing of nature, seasonal changes and the society of rural Prince Edward Island. Anne of Ingleside both soothed and captivated me and certainly deserves it’s place on my shelf of best loved books. show less

In this installment of the Anne of Green Gables series, the focus changes from Anne to her children, and their adventures growing up. I must admit I found it slightly difficult to keep the ages of the kids straight in my head, but their adventures themselves were quite amusing. Little Rilla carrying the cake, Nan's fancies about the GLOOMY HOUSE (her caps), the family pets, and so on provide many delightful vignettes that can be read over multiple sittings. The focus returns to Anne at the end as she worries that perhaps she and Gilbert have become a habit with each other. Anne's concerns feel real, and it adds a good balance to the generally happy tone of the rest of the novel. This book is recommended for fans of Anne.

This book picks up from Anne's House of Dreams, but many years down the road. At the end of that novel, Gilbert and Anne are moving to a new home with their first child, who is still a baby. At the beginning of this novel, Anne is pregnant with her umpteenth child. Gilbert's great-aunt is staying with them, and no one likes her overbearing ways but they don't have the heart to send family away. After this part, the book becomes about the Blythe children and little vignettes from their lives such as worrying that Anne is ill and dying when she is in labor, saving up money to buy a strand of pearls for Anne, making bargains with God over silly things during nightly prayers, becoming friends with schoolmates who have a tendency to over show more exaggerate, and so on.

As this series continues, it seems to be a case of diminishing returns. I really hated the jump in time between the last novel and this one because I felt I didn't get to know these new children well and could never keep them straight in my head, which wouldn't have happened if a mess of them hadn't been introduced in one breath but instead been added to the family slowly over time.

I also disliked that the focus came away from Anne. It's not that hearing about the children's lives wasn't cute (and it did add back in the mishaps and foibles from the first two books in the series), but it's that we didn't see these from Anne's perspective. Instead there's a collective narration at times from the point of view of the children as a faceless mass. For instance, there's many passages such as this one: "That year was always referred to in the Ingleside chronicles as the one in which Dad almost had pneumonia and Mother had it. One night, Anne, who already had a nasty cold, went with Gilbert to a party in Charlottetown...wearing a new and very becoming dress and Jem's string of pearls. She looked so well in it that all the children who had come in to see her before she left thought it was wonderful to have a mother you could be so proud of." Also, I hated that our fierce, funny, and all-around likeable Anne is reduced to having her great accomplishment be looking pretty.

In addition, with all these children and their adventures to keep track of, we hardly ever hear a peep about Avonlea folks, which has unfortunately been the case in several of the later books. There's a brief recap in the beginning of the book that felt nostalgically nice, but after that any mentions became few and far between. However, we also barely hear about all the new acquaintances and friends that Anne made in Glen St. Mary during the previous title either, other than their live-in housekeeper Susan. Others make an occasional appearance or brief mention. I wish we heard more about Leslie at least but she's barely a cameo.

One thing that several editions of this book mention in the short blurb is how Anne needs to convince Gilbert to still be in love with her, or something to that effect. This is only one short vignette, which is literally in the last chapter! By this time, it has been 15 years since their wedding day and an old beau of Gilbert's is in town, so Anne starts to get jealous. Although brief, this chapter felt more like an Anne of Green Gables book, with a feisty Anne and some misunderstandings that all get cleared up.

I will continue with the next two books since I've almost completed my re-read of this series. I just wish it had held up to my memory of it better, because these later books have been disappointing.

The audiobook narrator for this book was just so-so. She tried to give different voices to different characters but they are all just okay. I felt her general narration could have been a little more lively overall. show less