As a kid, I loved L.M. Montgomery’s books. They were cozy and sweet and always had a happy ending. I read and re-read each one; I owned most of Montgomery’s books and got the others from the library. I read the series and the novels and the short stories. They were my ultimate comfort reading and I never seemed to get tired of them.
I’d heard that a new book of Montgomery’s had been published and that some were touting it as #9 in the Anne series but by this time it was 2009 and it had been a few years since my obsession with Montgomery. Reminded about it again recently, I thought it might be a nice, cozy fall read and got it out from the library.
Here’s what you need to know: There isn’t a lot of new material in this book. All but one of the stories here were collected many years ago and published as The Road to Yesterday. There are a few minor changes but the stories are the same. The first story in this collection, “Some Fools and a Saint” is new and is a nice long short story with a decent mystery but all the rest were ones I’d read previously. The new content is primarily made up of poems and short dialogue between members of the Blythe family. These little vignettes are placed between stories and exist around the premise of Anne reading the family her own poems and, sometimes, Walter’s. The family comments on them and sometimes share further thoughts. These sections are very short, there isn’t any sort of plot and they tell us only the tiniest bit about the Blythe family (and really, nothing new if you’ve read the rest of the series).
What is, perhaps, illuminating is what it shows us about L.M. Montgomery herself. What I didn’t know as a kid, reading and re-reading her happy books, was how deeply unhappy Lucy Maud herself was. Her own happy ending and her own lovely romance never came. I remember as a teenager being dismayed to learn that she had lived away from her beloved Prince Edward Island for much of her life. The stories in this collection and the poems are organized the way Montgomery herself ordered them, which is different than the way they are collected in The Road to Yesterday. She has divided them here according to the first and second world war. The glimpses of Blythe conversation we get show us how futile the war has been. After the First World War and the terrible loss of their son Walter, they are not experiencing the peaceful world they hoped for. Instead, Anne and Gilbert watch their grandsons go off to the Second World War.
The stories themselves were fun to re-read but haven’t all aged well. Whether it’s how Penelope Craig needs to have a husband in order to raise children in “Penelope Struts Her Theories” or how dare Chrissy Clark start dating a gardener in “The Pot and the Kettle” or simply the fact that babies born out of wedlock are not the social shock they once were, these stories show a society that has long been extinct if, indeed, it ever truly existed at all.
This book is worth reading for fans of L.M. Montgomery who will enjoy the glimpses it gives us of the Blythe family and their life in Glen St. Mary and who will probably like the old-fashioned, happy stories. If you’re new to or ambivalent toward Montgomery though, this probably isn’t for you.
Karissa Reads Books 
I’ve never read any Montgomery! It’s a shame this one didn’t offer you much in the way of new content, but it’s nice to revisit an old favourite author.
It is! She’s a total comfort read for me so I really didn’t mind.
I loved the early Anne books, but was ambivalent about the later ones even as a kid – somehow real life began to intrude and there was too much unhappiness. Made them more realistic, of course, but I don’t think I ever read Anne for the realism. So tempting though it is to think there might be a little more, I think I’m content to leave my memories intact, and revisit the early books if I ever need to top up my Anne levels…
Rilla of Ingleside was the first book I ever read that dealt with war at all, really. It surprised me but was also a good introduction. I agree though that no one was reading Anne for realism! I always loved the Emily Starr novels Montgomery wrote and those tended to be a little heavier (though still with lots of happy endings).
Yay, I’m so glad you picked it up so you could share your thoughts. I still haven’t read The Road to Yesterday just yet (it’s on my kitchen table), and I am surprised to learn that the new Blythes book is basically the same thing. I wonder why the published a new collection?
The editor talks a bit about it in the afterword. It seems this is the manuscript as Montgomery handed it to her publisher but they never published it and then years later re-arranged it and edited it into The Road to Yesterday. No one seems to know why the publishers didn’t publish the book originally or why it was changed into The Road to Yesterday. This one has the extra material but if you do read The Road then I don’t think you need to read this as well.
Would it be better to read the Blythes book so I get the experience Montgomery wanted readers to have?
Have you read all of the Anne books? If not, I don’t think this works well as a stand-alone. But if you have (especially Rilla of Ingleside) this might be more interesting.
I have read all of the Anne books! Which one might be more interesting? Blythes or Road?
I want to say Blythes…but since you already have Road, I wouldn’t rush out to get it since they are almost the same.
I got it from the library, so no harm no foul! Thanks for your advice, Karissa.
[…] The Blythes are Quoted – L.M. Montgomery (Viking Canada, 2009) […]
I loved this book. But I love all things LMM. I don’t mind revisiting the old stories, and thought the new material was interesting.
How I wish LMM had been as happy as her Anne.
I agree! I didn’t mind revisiting at all, it just wasn’t what I expected when I began the book!
It was devastating to learn how unhappy Montgomery was in her own life. I hope she found some happiness in creating happy fictional lives though.