Stine

Recently I was at a Victorian Christmas event at a nearby pioneer village, and it brought to mind all the wonderful Christmases included throughout the Little House books, from that first cozy Christmas in the Big Woods when Laura receives her beloved Charlotte to the oyster stew and homemade gifts during the Long Winter, before the long-awaited Christmas barrel finally arrives in the spring. And of course, the iconic journey of Mr. Edwards to deliver presents to the Ingalls girls in Little House on the Prairie. I think every book covers at least one Christmas, and some several. What are your favourite Christmas moments in the series?

Yeah, it's been a fun listen so far! I'm very interested to eventually get to the Kevin Sullivan interview, because they have been absolutely tearing The Continuing Story to shreds, so I'm really curious to hear what they'll ask him about that one and what he'll have to say.

Just stumbled upon a podcast that others here might enjoy. It's called Call Me Cordelia, in which a husband and wife podcasting team work their way through various Anne adaptations (and the Road to Avonlea series), starting with the classic 80s miniseries. I'm just finishing up their breakdown of Anne of Avonlea/AoGG: The Sequel, and about to embark on The Continuing Story, and I'm having a blast listening to it so far. They seem to disdain The Continuing Story as much as most of us here do, so the next part should be fun.

On the subject of the decor at the Echolls house, this is jumping ahead to the end of the season, but in A Trip to the Dentist, if you look carefully at the scene when Veronica and Logan are in the pool house, you can just for a split second see that the curtains actually have Aaron's and Lynn's faces on them! Super weird, and although I've seen that episode several times I never noticed until my most recent rewatch. Something to keep an eye out for when you get there.

I will say that as much as I liked this first season, one of my hopes for a second season is that there can be at least one episode that doesn't include a scene with Anne in tears. It's not that Amybeth McNulty doesn't do a good job with them, because she does, but Green Gables, even in this grittier version, should be a haven for Anne, and I just want to see her happy for at least one full episode!

I was wondering about that myself, Anothermi. It's one of my favourite of Anne's escapades as well, and I hope they include it at some point! Maybe it could somehow be the reveal of Gilbert's big return to Avonlea after some time away? (Although I hope he's not out of the picture too long!)

I guess the best thing any adaptation can do is point you back to the original books, and so after watching (and enjoying, far more than I expected to) the first several episodes of this new series, I decided to revisit the books. I’d read Anne of Green Gables all the way through for the first time a few years ago, and for some odd reason had read Anne of the Island some time before that, but I’d tried Anne of Avonlea a couple of times and stalled out after a few chapters. However, I was determined to see it through this time! And now that I have I’m bursting to tell someone about it, so forgive my rambling. Man, that first book is so, so good. I enjoyed it just as much as I did the first time I read it, if not more. I took my time with it and really tried to savour the writing, even on a sentence-by-sentence level. (A couple of my favourites were “[Mrs. Rachel] thought in exclamation points”, followed by a string of said thoughts, with the according exclamation points, and “During Marilla’s speech a sunrise had been dawning on Anne’s face.” Odd choices amidst many other more descriptive paragraphs, but they stuck out to me for some reason.) And some of Anne’s speeches are just so much fun, I actually had to read them out loud, just for the chance to do my best Anne voice. I think Miss Shirley would approve of my dramatic readings. :) One thing I noticed on this reading is the somewhat unusual narrative structure. It surprised me how much of the “action” is given to us filtered through Anne’s retelling of an incident to Marilla. In many chapters, Anne is about to set out to some event, she leaves, and then comes home and recounts the proceedings to Marilla. It’s not all that often that we actually go with Anne and see the action unfold. So we get Anne’s perspective, in her words to Marilla, but it’s not told from her point-of-view in the traditional sense. In fact, I found that we get inside Marilla’s thoughts much more often than we do Anne’s, at least in this first book. Clearly, this unique structure wouldn’t be sustainable for the entire series to follow, and beginning in book two, there is a shift to a more traditional point-of-view, with much more linear storytelling following Anne herself more closely. On to book two. I found Avonlea to be, unfortunately, a less-than-stellar follow-up. It’s hard to pinpoint why I found this one so much less delightful. I think it’s a combination of really not caring about some of the new characters and their subplots and a lack of compelling storyline for Anne herself. Considering that Anne’s teaching career is ostensibly the setup for this installment, I was surprised by how little her teaching experiences are actually shown. I felt that we were told about her progress and eventual success as a teacher over those two years rather than shown that progress. I guess LM Montgomery wasn’t that interested in showing more of that for whatever reason. But by the end of the novel, I didn’t feel that I’d gotten to Anne really grow or change all that much. And as to the new characters, they were a mixed bag for me. I was pleasantly surprised to enjoy Davy (and Dora, I guess, though she’s not as much developed) more than I’d expected to. I found his various scrapes fairly entertaining. Paul Irving, on the other hand, really grated on me. Every time he’d mention his “little mother” or say “you know, teacher”, I just wanted to grind my teeth. Anne adored him for some reason, but I didn’t! Miss Lavendar was okay, I guess. She didn’t irk me like Paul did, but I also wasn’t very invested in her situation, so it didn’t really do much for me even in its culmination at the end of the book. Oh, and...holy ellipses, Batman! They seemed to take the place of dashes for some reason. Was that a grammatical fad at the time of writing, perhaps? Very distracting. On to Anne of the Island! I remembered really enjoying this one when I read it back in the day, so I was hoping that it would hold up on rereading. And happily, it really did. I breezed through this one much faster than Avonlea, enjoying the college adventures of Anne and her friends, and the periodic returns to Avonlea. First, to get it out of the way, there were just a couple of things I didn’t like that much in this one. First, the sort of random detour near the end of the book when Anne takes a summer teaching job in Valley Road. A bit too late in the game to introduce a new set of characters and get me to care about their mini-subplot. I just wanted to get back to Redmond at that point. Also, I think that there’s some missed potential with Stella and Priscilla. To me, there wasn’t much distinguishing them as characters – they’re nice, good friends/housemates, but there’s not much depth there. On the other hand, there’s Phil, who I found to be a great addition. She’s just a lot of fun as a character, flighty and flirtatious but with a heart of gold. Love that despite her seeming frivolity, she’s smart too, winning those math prizes and being a voice of reason in Anne’s relationships with Gilbert and Roy. It was fun to read about her friendship with Anne, especially with Diana at a distance through much of this one. I can sympathize with Anne’s misgivings about seeing her friends grow up and change, and wishing that things could go on as they were in their younger years. Ruby Gillis’ death was very touching. Like Matthew’s death, it’s a sad, but powerful, note in the often-idyllic world of Avonlea. And of course, the Anne and Gilbert romance finally takes off. Gilbert may be a bit underwritten as a character, but I still can’t help but get invested in these two crazy kids. I really liked that Anne doesn’t break things off with Roy Gardner because she realizes she loves Gilbert, but that the important thing is that she doesn’t love Roy, and has come to understand that a romantic ideal does not a good match make. Gilbert’s not really in the picture at that point, but she’d rather remain single than marry the wrong person. Her relationship with Roy does move along pretty quickly, and we don’t spend much time in-scene with them as a couple, but I guess that works since he doesn’t seem to have had much depth to him anyway, so why spend the time when he’s obviously not the right fit? My shipper heart was very glad to see Anne realize her love for Gilbert in the end, of course. Overall, loved this one; a return to form after a disappointing second installment. The coziness of Anne and friends’ life at Patty’s Place made me nostalgic for my own university days. Hoping that this new series will keep going through Anne’s Redmond years! Very glad to have read/reread these first three books! And apologies for writing my own novel in this post. :)

It's been so long since I saw the end of series 2 that my memory of all that went on with the Blenheim Vale conspiracy is quite foggy. But are there any threads from that still left dangling? I just had the thought when they conspicuously stamped the file with "sealed for 50 years" that perhaps they would pick up on that old mystery in the Lewis series, since the 50-year seal would be ending right about now in that show's timeline. But I haven't kept up with Lewis recently, so I don't know if they'd be likely to make that connection between shows. Probably just a far-fetched theory!

I don't think there's anywhere else this would fit, so here it is: http://www.cbc.ca/player/News/Canada/ID/2668731348/ I'm not sure if this can be viewed outside of Canada or not, but basically there is a new production of Anne of Green Gables going forward, with the involvement of LM Montgomery's family this time, and they're introducing the girl they've chosen to play Anne. They also mention that this version will include elements from a prequel book that was written (which I haven't read - anyone here? Is it the same one that the TV movie Before Green Gables - which I also never got around to watching - was based on?), so there will be flashbacks to Anne's time before arriving at Green Gables. I'm interested to see a new production, but I do think that it's going to have a heck of a lot to live up to from the Megan Follows version.

Not sure where else to post this sad news: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/jonathan-crombie-anne-of-green-gables-actor-dead-at-48-1.3038948 By all accounts, he was a great guy; this is so sad for his family. I think everyone who watched the Anne miniseries were a little bit in love with Gil. Rewatching in the light of this news will be very poignant.

I also received a copy under the tree this morning. It is gorgeous, and I can't wait to dive in, but it is going to take some time to get through, for sure. Looks like it'll have been well worth the wait!

Britta's parents are Colonel Mustard and Miss Scarlet? ;)

Here is the history of my relationship with the Twilight series. Back when the Twilight craze began, I was the target demographic, a high school girl. And I'll be honest: for a couple of years, I was completely sucked in. I don't actually remember how the books were introduced to me, but I think the first three were already out, and I read them in quick succession. I actually have a copy of a book report that I wrote about Twilight saved on my email. Just found it, and here was my initial verdict, which is quite embarrassing to look back on now: "I loved this book. It was a perfect mix of romance and suspense, and I couldn’t stop reading even if I wanted to. The author has you turning the pages as fast as you can, because you need to know what will happen next. The question is always, “Will she be safe? Will Edward be able to resist her blood?” which sounds like a very weird question, but it propels the entire story, the dangerous romance between Edward and Bella. I would definitely recommend this book to others." As I said, pretty cringeworthy in hindsight, but proof that although my enjoyment of the series eventually shifted to mocking it from the sidelines, I was genuinely invested in the series for about a year or so. For me, the turning point was Breaking Dawn.* I remember the anticipation before that book was published, and how eager I was to get my hands on it. I think I was expecting something akin to the end of the Harry Potter series, I was SO let down by this book. I believe that's when I started to dislike the series and all the hype, because I was so disappointed by how it all ended. And that started to make all the flaws of the earlier books become clearer to me as well. Although I must not have given up on it entirely, because I still saw the first movie on opening night (but skipped the rest until about last year, when I finally caught myself up, just for kicks). So yeah. That's my story. Thanks for reading, if you got through all that, and I look forward to all the snark here! *I spoiler-tagged this section just in case, but if we're going to be discussing the whole series, which ended 6 years ago, are spoiler tags necessary going forward? Just wondering.

Thanks for the Serial recommendation! It is indeed riveting--I binged it over the past two days and am very curious to see where it will go from here. I truly don't know what to make of the case one way or the other; there are enough holes on either side to keep it all very ambiguous.

Was I the only one who thought that the scene with Robert and Carson in the village was incredibly hokey? They needed Carson to come around on the location for the war memorial, so they had them discussing the importance of people going about their daily business being able to stop and remember the fallen, and then at that exact moment, they spot a woman and her son visiting his father's grave, and she expresses the exact same sentiments that Robert was trying to explain to Carson? So of course Carson hears just what Robert needed him to, and agrees that the monument needs to be there. Really, writers, it doesn't get any clunkier than that. I've never warmed to Gillingham, and I agree that there's something off about the whole situation with him and Mary. Not that Blake is all that interesting either, but at least he doesn't come across as needy/slightly sketchy the way Tony does (to me). Everything else? Meh--it's all right, but I find most of the subplots entirely forgettable as soon as I've finished the episode. And I'm definitely not looking forward to reopening the Greene business.