When You Talk to Me, I Smell Violets

So you may look at this title and ponder: What has it to do with The Return of the King? The answer is quite simple. Nothing. Stop trying to make it work. The truth is, it has been years since I have read the first two books, and I'm having a hard time recalling both characters and locations. Seems silly, in an age in which The Lord of the Rings trilogy has graduated out of geekdom and into the mainstream. But honestly, I've only ever watched the first movie. This is because I intended to read the books first, and all these years later, I have yet to do so. It really is silly. I enjoy movies that are books much more when I see them before reading the book, yet I cannot bring myself to do it in most cases. It feels like I'm cheating on the author with a younger, more energetic version of himself. But as I have read the first two volumes of Tolkien's epic, and, due to the self-imposed time constraints I have set upon myself, I will attempt The Return of the King after a Lord of the Rings viewing party minus the final installment.

In its stead, I have elected and completed the reading of L. M. Montgomery's Anne of Windy Poplars. I suppose I wanted to stick with the theme of authors with initials or something, to make up for abandoning our good friend J.R.R. I first became familiar with the "Anne" series out of requirement. I was assigned in a college class studying adolescent literature to read Anne of Green Gables, the first in the "Anne" series. I was immediately a fan - right from the beginning...of the second half of the book. Honestly I hated it. Anne was a red-headed orphan between the ages of 8 and 11 (I really can't recall how young she was when this all started), who was better than another common red-headed orphan only in the sense that she did not sing and dance. Anne is described as a spirited girl with lots of scope for imagination or something like that. But to me, the "poetry" of the character was lost in her rambling nonsense. I get the feeling that we are supposed to have liked her - even at that age - but I could not stand her until she was at least 16. Perhaps it would have been different had I read this book as a child, rather than at the condescending know-all age of 20, but as it is, I didn't, and I still don't care for young Anne.

Anne of Windy Poplars is the fourth book in the series. After that initial disdain, I have thoroughly enjoyed the series...up until this one. It was not horrible, but nor was it pleasant. Getting through this book seemed too much like a chore, which is in part why we are in the last days of January and I am just finishing my first book. The main difference between this one and the others is that I feel that this one had no main purpose other than marking time. You see, Anne is engaged. I'll not say to whom, in order to prevent spoilers, so from here on out he'll be referred to as Anne's "beau", as it seems fitting to the time of this book. Oh yeah, it's in let's say the early 1900s, Prince Edward's Island, Canada. Anyway, Anne has to wait three years to marry her beau so that he may finish his schooling and start a life for them. A good part of the book is made up of letters from her to him which gets annoying pretty fast because her letters take on that annoying tone of the rambling Anne of her youth. During these three years, she has taken on the principalship of another town and meets a whole slew of interesting people.

That's another thing I disliked about this book. There are so many new people (all of which just slightly more interesting than Anne) and they are introduced throughout the book as little mini-plots of various chapters. It's so episodic that it just seems like little glimpses of life. Some of you may like that. That's fine. You should probably read this book. It's not horrible, it's just not quite my thing, and doesn't fit with the flow of previous books. But so much negativity. Let's discuss something I did like.

Although Anne is known for her sunny disposition, she does have a morbid side. Yes. That's what I like about her. She has a little rift with the "Royal Family of Summerside," more commonly known as the Pringles. One day, while strolling through the graveyard (as all normal people do), she thought "...it would be positively encouraging to see how many Pringles were where they couldn't annoy anybody anymore" (Montgomery, 40). This makes me love her. Sure, it's cruel, but you have to admit that it's amusing. However, although Anne is okay with appreciating that some of her nemeses lay dead, one thing that is inexcusable in a person is sarcasm. I don't blame Anne for this one. It's not her fault. She was created by Ms. L.M. to believe this to be the greatest character flaw imaginable. Every new character that we meet that is considered even the slightest bit villainous is also sarcastic. But hooray for Anne! She now has a mission. Apparently the point of this book is for Anne to eradicate sarcasm from the evil people of Summerside, thus saving their souls from eternal damnation. If only I could meet her and be saved as well.

 L.M. clearly has a love for nature, and this shows through Anne. She is excited to see the house where she'll be boarding... you guessed it... Windy Poplars. "The path was edged by very prim, well-ordered beds of ribbon grass and bleeding-heart and tiger-lillies and sweet-William and southernwood and bride's bouquet and red-and-white daisies and what Mrs. Lynde calls 'pinies'" (Montgomery, 8). This is not very exciting to me, as I am not as visual as Anne, so I've included photos so that we can enjoy it too:

The only one I could not find to add is "bride's bouquet." As you can imagine, an image search for such a title would bring up various arrays of flowers carried in the hands of women in white. Anyway. Now that I've finally seen these images, and together, I have to admit that they are really quite lovely. L.M. has a sort of vision that I could never even dream of having. And, likewise, so does Anne. It is revealed in the next sentence that these things are not actually in bloom. She just imagines how lovely it would be. But that makes sense, as flowers seem to be a part of Anne, as is evident in the quotation that serves as my title. This is said to her by a little girl of six, and she doesn't mean it in a literal sense. There is another character, a student of hers, that tells her that she speaks the language of violets. These poetic musings by multiple characters could be very telling of her personality. Both girls are what Anne would call "kindred spirits," of which she has met a handful in each book. Neither these girls nor Anne would be considered my kindred spirits, but I understand the sentiment none-the-less, and it really is lovely.