emma_in_dream

1, I attended an inadvertently funny training session yesterday. I can say no more on an open forum, but, as Terry Pratchett would say, I did not know where to put my eyes.


2, Ruby read a book yesterday. With some help from me, looking at the pictures and spelling out the words, she made it all the way through an ‘I can read’ book. I was very impressed.


3, After warning Pearl about the sad ending of *Anne of Green Gables*, she has decided to stop where she is, just short of the end of the novel. We have begun reading *The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe*, with frequent assurances that yes, the witch really is evil, not just misunderstood, and yes, it will all end ok, and no, Aslan will defeat the bad guys, and yes, they do make it back through the wardrobe, and yes, Edmund does make up with his siblings and no, he isn’t permanently hurt by the witch. Also, we have had some digressions into the world of back then people thought girls couldn’t do all the things boys could and that’s why the girls don’t get weapons or fight, and yes, on the whole most adult men are stronger than most adult women but not all and some women do become soldiers, and yes, it’s another example of how things were different in the past.

This collection contains the novella length ‘Deep Haven’ and some short stories.


I can see why Orne Jewett was so popular. I will go out on a limb and say that she reminds me of LM Montgomery. She has the same love of a particular region, the same beautiful descriptions of scenery.


‘Deep Haven’ is about two young women who come to a small backwater town. They enjoy rambling around and they meet the local characters. Stories, both comic and tragic, are told to them. This could be the plot of *Anne of the Island* or *Anne of Windy Willows*.


The difference – and perhaps this is the reason that Orne Jewett is read less than Montgomery – is that the narrator of ‘Deep Haven’ is not nearly so loveable as Anne. Anne enjoys meeting all her neighbours, she rejoices in them and loves being tied to a particular place. The narrator is much more distant, amused by but not tied to her neighbours.


There’s an element of disdain as she observes but does not participate in life. For instance, there’s a chapter describing a struggling family with poor children. When they make a return visit the parents have both died and the children are about to be split up and sent to different homes. As I read I honestly thought the next chapter was going to be the narrator intervening to bring them home. Or, failing that, giving them the twenty dollar bill she had mentioned was in her pocket. But no… she observes, she paints a wistful picture of the old homestead left unoccupied, the family circle broken up, but she doesn’t intervene. This is not what Anne would do!


I found the short stories equally frustrating. They were beautifully written and had gorgeous descriptions of the scenery. But they were oddly about enforcing gender compliance. One was about a man who went mad and thought he was his own sister and began wearing her clothes and going to missionary society meetings to sew. He was much to be pitied. Another was about a married couple where the woman took on running the factory and the man kept house until he became frustrated at being described as a man who kept house (even though he was good at it) and insisted that they instead go on holidays.


There are moments when I find Montgomery equally frustrating – That bit in *A Tangled Web* where the naked statue is sprayed bronze because a naked bronze lady is fine in the home but a naked white lady is not. But on the whole Montgomery entrances.


Orne Jewett is good but not entrancing.

I have posted a story in the active and growing fandom of LM Montgomery’s *Pat of Silver Bush*.

Kidding, it’s not growing.

Except, technically I think it just experienced a 100% growth overnight, going from one story to two. I’d be surprised if even *Sherlock* or *Teen Wolf* could match that rate of growth. Will check tomorrow to see if it can sustain this rate of creative expansion.

I have been thinking about representations of female friendship. Here are a few thoughts... I’d be interested in recommendations from others.

Jane Austen’s *Sense and Sensibility* (1811) may not pass the Bechdel test* - most of the dialogue is about love and relationships and, you know, men - but it certainly is about female friendship. The love of Eleanor for Marianne is the centre of the novel. And the relationship between Lizzie and Jane in *Pride and Prejudice* (1813) is pretty cool too.

I guess I am reminded of Louisa May Alcott’s *Little Women* (1868) - Jo loves her sisters so much. There’s a line in there where she talks about wanting to marry Meg herself, to keep her in the family, which I guess is a bit creepy but in the context of the book just seems sweet. (And, indeed, the only one who does marry to get into the family is Laurie who is desperate to find a March girl who will take him in.)

*Little Women* would certainly romp home the Bechdel test as it’s essentially an all-female community which is interested in growing up and improving themselves. Ditto *Anne of Green Gables* (1908) which has the ‘kindred spirits’ of Anne and Diana.

Terry Pratchett’s *Witches* books take the Bechdel standard and toss it contemptuously aside as something far exceded. Each character is completely different and each one is completely kick ass. I particularly like the way they hand the roles of maiden, mother and hag around as they move through their lives.

Marilyn French’s *The Women’s Room* (1977) is basically all about women’s relationships, friendships. Like the blurb says, this book will change your life.

And, for another out of left field suggestion, John Marsden’s *Tomorrow When the War Began* series. Ellie Linton’s friendships with Corrie, Robyn and Fi are incredibly well drawn. She relies on them, idealises them, knows them so well, lives with them and fights by them.

So, what genres am I looking at? Not entirely sure actually. Obviously there’s tons of female-centred fiction in the genre of, say, school stories like the Chalet schools. Apparently there’s a lot of female friendships in classic girl’s stories like *Little Women* or *Anne of Green Gables* or, just thought of it, Frances Hodgson Burnett’s *A Little Princess*.

And when I get into contemporary writing, I’m all over the place. My examples don’t come from one genre. Perhaps that’s because there isn’t one genre of contemporary writing centred around female friendships?




* The Bechdel test - It has to have at least two women in it, who talk to each other, about something other than a man.