Litsy

Rilla of Ingleside (Special Collector's) | Lucy Maud Montgomery

It‘s been a whirlwind week/weekend, but I made time today to finish my #reread of this wonderful book on audio. I had forgotten just how solemn and sad the entire story is. It is truly a novel of WWI on the Canadian home front with all of the stress and grief that includes. Yet, it also has those signature moments of pure beauty and humor that LMM writes so wonderfully. I loved revisiting this story.

#KindredSpiritsBuddyRead #WWI #audiobook

BarbaraJean

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xicanti

Honey and Pepper | A.J. Demas

Casey‘s ailment is a pancreatitis resurgence. The vet‘s office gave him excellent care and he‘s already doing much better, but he‘ll have to make some changes that‘ll be tough for my parents. They want to feed him all the bacon and peanut butter, and they CANNOT.

Little dude‘s promised to serve as reading buddy while I finish HONEY AND PEPPER today. I saw myself devouring it in one sitting, but I just didn‘t have enough reading time yesterday.

AmyG That little face. ❤️ 3d

Ruthiella ❤️🐶❤️🐶❤️ 3d

dabbe Oh, sweet Casey, it‘s so hard to resist that precious face! Hoping for all the willpower your parents can muster! 🖤🐾🖤 2d

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xicanti @AmyG @Ruthiella his squishy little face brings me so much joy. 2d

xicanti @dabbe his dad‘s gonna be the tough one there. He thinks Casey should get a little bit of everything he himself eats, unless it‘s spicy. Casey‘s grown accustomed to it. Now, he faces a future of low-fat, easily-digestible dog foods. 2d

dabbe @xicanti Poor men: both Casey and his papa. That also sounds like the same food plan I should be on! 🤩 2d

tpixie He‘s beautiful. I hope both he and your dad adapt well. 2d

xicanti @tpixie there‘ll definitely be an adjustment period for them both. 2d

tpixie @xicanti 💙🦋💙 2d

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LitsyEvents

Emily of New Moon | Lucy Maud Montgomery

repost for @BarbaraJean:

Hello #KindredSpiritsBuddyRead-ers! I‘m looking at a tentative schedule for the next few months:
Beautiful Joe by Marshall Saunders (2 weeks)
Journals Vol. 5 (2 weeks)
Emily of New Moon (3 weeks)
Story of an African Farm by Olive Schreiner (3 weeks)
Journals Vol. 5 (3 weeks)
Emily Climbs (3 weeks)
“The Lay of the Brown Rosary” & Aurora Leigh by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (4 weeks)

THAT takes us to mid-October

LitsyEvents More info on the original post:
https://www.litsy.com/web/post/2863918 3d

36 likes1 comment

BarbaraJean

Rilla of Ingleside: A Virago Modern Classic | L. M. Montgomery

“Miss Oliver dear, you are all tired out and unstrung—just you go upstairs and lie down and I will bring you up a cup of hot tea and a bite of toast and very soon you will not want to slam doors or swear.“
“Susan, you're a good soul—a very pearl of Susans! But, Susan, it would be such a relief—to say just one soft, low, little tiny d—“

😂 😂 I‘m with Miss Oliver on this one…
#KindredSpiritsBuddyRead #LMMReread

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BarbaraJean

Rilla of Ingleside: A Virago Modern Classic | L. M. Montgomery

#KindredSpiritsBuddyRead #LMMReread

Is there anything else you‘d like to discuss from Rilla of Ingleside?
Was there anything that bothered or frustrated you about the book?
Do you have any favorite passages or scenes you‘d like to share?

Daisey, lauraisntwilder, CSeydel, TheAromaofBooks

lauraisntwilder This is Rilla's book, I know that, but it still makes me sad how little of Anne and Avonlea we get. At one point, Anne mentions not being able to do anything and almost said, "Go write something!" out loud. There's one, very brief, mention of Diana, and Marilla has died between books with no fanfare. Is Rachel Lynde also dead? And did Davy Keith end up in the war? What happened to all our friends?? 3d

BarbaraJean @lauraisntwilder I felt that, too. The little comment about Marilla made me SO sad! As you said, it's Rilla's book--and I think it also reflects how relationships changed for LMM as she grew up, got married, and moved away. But no mention of Davy is so puzzling. There is a brief mention of other boys going off to war--children of Anne's childhood and college friends. But no Davy. It's odd. I know LMM was tired of Anne by this point, but still! 11h

BarbaraJean One scene I'd forgotten that REALLY bothered me this time was little Bruce Meredith and the “sacrifice“ he makes about Stripey. I was HORRIFIED. LMM often uses children's mistaken ideas as a way to critique established religion, but I couldn't fathom what narrative purpose there could have been with that scene. I loved Bruce's earlier spot-on take about making the Kaiser into a good man, but the Stripey scene just canceled it all out for me. 11h

BarbaraJean But then, on the other hand--Dog Monday. 😭 😭 😭 11h

lauraisntwilder Pets had it rough in this one!! Poor Stripey! 😭 8h

17 likes5 comments

BarbaraJean

Rilla of Ingleside: A Virago Modern Classic | L. M. Montgomery

#KindredSpiritsBuddyRead #LMMReread

On this umpteenth re-read for me, what struck me as new (more than just the “new” passages that I discovered had been excised from my old faithful Bantam paperback!!), was seeing so much of LMM‘s WWI experience on the page.

If you‘ve been reading LMM‘s journals, what did you notice in Rilla of Ingleside that echoed LMM‘s thoughts and experiences during WWI?

Daisey, lauraisntwilder, CSeydel, TheAromaofBooks

lauraisntwilder The journals added so much! I've only read this one other time, in 2023, but I enjoyed it more this time. LMM's terror over the war news makes so much sense in a household with so many young men of "fighting age." It must have been therapeutic for her, to give meaning to those awful years. 3d

lauraisntwilder Specifically, I saw Susan as a sort of stand-in for LMM. She puts her faith in Kitchener and studies maps and waits for news. LMM doesn't quite let us see Susan's moments of weakness though, which is one of the main reasons her journals were so important to her. Her own moments were written out, so she made Susan cook and knit. 3d

BarbaraJean @lauraisntwilder I saw SO many echoes of LMM's WWI entries! There were references to people, places, and battles that I remembered reading & finding tedious in LMM's journals. 😂 I hadn't thought about Susan as an LMM stand-in, but I think you're right! The way the anticipation/dread of the news arriving overshadowed the whole household felt like it was lifted directly from LMM's journals, and Susan really embodied that. 11h

Daisey I haven‘t been reading the journals, but I definitely got more of the daily WWI experience aspect this time just having more knowledge myself of events mentioned. I had forgotten just how much that was the entire focus of the story. 6h

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BarbaraJean

Rilla of Ingleside: A Virago Modern Classic | L. M. Montgomery

#KindredSpiritsBuddyRead #LMMReread

“No, I don‘t like you and I never will but for all that I‘m going to make a decent, upstanding infant of you. …If I can‘t love you I mean to be proud of you at least.”

Rilla ambitiously takes on the care of an infant—a “war-baby”—in spite of the fact she does NOT like babies.

What did you think of this storyline?
How does Jims contribute to Rilla‘s own growth?

Daisey, lauraisntwilder, CSeydel, TheAromaofBooks

lauraisntwilder I think it's a nice part of the book even if it does remind me of those dolls high schoolers have to take care of to scare them out of teen pregnancy, except Jims is a real baby! It does make Rilla grow up, but so does everything else going on. It also says a lot about Gilbert, who clearly thinks young Rilla is too flighty. 3d

BarbaraJean @lauraisntwilder 😂 I love the high school parallel! I found this storyline kind of random before--there are enough other things going on that grow Rilla up that throwing a baby in there seemed unnecessary (other than making her “motherly“ 🙄). But I was impressed this time around how LMM gave Rilla such an aversion to babies and didn't have her quickly fall in love with Jims! That felt like a nice counterbalance, and keeps Rilla from being ⬇ 11h

BarbaraJean (Cont'd) ...a stereotype: the girl who aspires to being wife and mother. We're told Rilla has no ambitions, and it's refreshing that the narrative doesn't flatten her into wifehood by default. Yes, she longs for Ken to return from the war and marry her, but LMM deepens Rilla beyond the default female roles of the time even as Rilla grows into those roles, if that makes sense. Somehow the way LMM handles the Jims narrative is part of that. 11h

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BarbaraJean

Rilla of Ingleside: A Virago Modern Classic | L. M. Montgomery

Posting #KindredSpiritsBuddyRead Qs early—I have a very long day tomorrow!

LMM weaves in a number of female characters who contrast with Rilla—in age, in maturity, in personality—and who together offer a full, rich picture of women on the “home front” in WWI.

What did you think of the way women‘s roles were portrayed in the novel?
Which characters besides Rilla were you most drawn to?
Which attitudes toward the war did you most resonate with?

Daisey, lauraisntwilder, CSeydel, TheAromaofBooks

BarbaraJean I haven't much liked Susan in previous books, and I LOVED her here. She grew on me the way Rachel Lynde did! I love Susan's spirit and her intense interest in the war news. And the way she chases off old Whiskers-on-the-moon after his presumptuous proposal. 😂 Speaking of whom, I was conflicted about the book's portrayal of pacifism. Mr. Pryor was AWFUL, and I hated him being the only voice that didn't seem to toe the party line, so to speak. ⬇ 10h

BarbaraJean (Cont'd) His infamous prayer that their soldiers would repent from iniquity and murder was “abominable,“ as Norman Douglas said! But the various comments that he was a traitor and that he was rooting for the Germans--because he was a pacifist--were equally terrible. Those parts read like wartime propaganda. But then there was some nuance in various other comments, from Miss Oliver, to Gilbert, to Rev. Meredith. Thus my conflict. 10h

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