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L.M. Montgomery's Complete Journals: The Ontario Years, 1922-1925 | Lucy Maud Montgomery

Well, discussion questions didn‘t happen yesterday after my marathon weekend, so here we are on Monday!

Vol. 5 includes the Pickering lawsuit and lots of legal wrangling with Page, dissention and division over Church Union, and Ewan‘s reoccurring mental health episodes. It takes us through the end of LMM‘s time in Leaskdale, ending with Ewan accepting a call to Norval & Union—meaning an uprooting for LMM from a place & home she grew to love.⤵️

lauraisntwilder, TheAromaofBooks

BarbaraJean While there were some delightful interludes about LMM‘s cats, her garden, and books she was reading, along with some sweet anecdotes about Stuart and Chester, this volume was certainly thematically heavier than previous volumes. By the end, LMM‘s sadness over leaving Leaskdale felt surprising to me. It did remind me anew of her deep attachment to place (foreshadowing Pat of Silver Bush!). ⤵️ 1w

BarbaraJean How did this volume of the journals land for you? Did you find it enjoyable, heavy, thought-provoking, heartbreaking… all of the above?

What stands out to you: what was most interesting, what will stay with you?

Was there anything surprising to you about these years in LMM‘s life?

#KindredSpiritsBuddyRead #LMMJournals 1w

TheAromaofBooks There was soooo much going on in this section!! I have to say that I was somewhat surprised by how reluctant LMM was to leave Leaksdale, and even Zephyr (!!!), which also made me think about how she tells us that this journal is a place for her to complain - while I definitely think she had some VERY hard years, I do wonder if we are getting the negative-focus from her journals, when she is feeling her most tired and discouraged. 7d

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TheAromaofBooks I loved the account of their trip to Mammoth Caves!! I have been there myself, so that made it extra interesting to me. She also drove through towns in Indiana and Ohio that I have visited (I have family in Warsaw, IN), so that section felt more personal to me. And I did laugh at the story of her losing all their money - except she actually had it the entire time. I am consistently impressed by her ability to sketch a situation so well. I am ⬇ 7d

TheAromaofBooks (cont'd) sure she was an absolutely delightful correspondent. Her sense of humor pops out so unexpectedly sometimes.

Pg. 306 - The “crossword craze“ - I loved thinking about crosswords being in their infancy and everyone getting into them. With LMM's amazing vocabulary I'm sure she was very good at them.

I also really enjoyed the passage where she copied her relative's journal and then talked about the memories that it had brought her. Maybe ⬇ 7d

TheAromaofBooks (cont'd) because we were reading dates from 1925, I was suddenly struck during this section of journals at how LMM is almost exactly 100 years older than me, so not just that these things were happening exactly 100 years ago, but that she was my age (ish - I think we're actually 110 years apart lol) when they were happening. So this section where she is getting very nostalgic about her childhood and remembering specific but small happy moments ⬇ 7d

TheAromaofBooks (cont'd) really resonated with me. My life isn't nearly as hard as hers, but the drudgery of adulthood does wear you down sometimes, and it can be bittersweet to look back on those more carefree days when all your dreams were still real possibilities. (Said as someone who actually has a fabulous life that I love haha)

Okay, pg. 390, I want this book!!! “How We Ran the Farm“ sounds AMAZING.

This is super random, but on pg 392 there is a footnote⬇ 7d

TheAromaofBooks (cont'd) where the editor claims that LMM “omits a word“ from her sentence. The sentence is “I must suffer the pangs of deferred but candidly confessed curiosity for a season“ and the editor thinks there is a word missing after deferred. But it seems to be quite clear that what is being deferred is not a missing word like “pleasure“ but the curiosity. What do you all think? I only bring it up because I felt mildly indignant for LMM's sake 😂 7d

TheAromaofBooks I am really going on and on, but I have gotten SO into these journals, way more than I ever thought I would. Even when they are sad and difficult I look forward to reading them! LMM is such a fantastic writer that even her descriptions of the mundane engage me. It was VERY hard to read about Ewan's mental health issues, and to see LMM beginning to develop mental health problems of her own - the beginnings of self-medication and the repetition of ⬇ 7d

TheAromaofBooks (cont'd) things like, “I just need to live long enough to make sure my children are taken care of“ - so sad!!!

The entire church union thing made basically 0% sense to me, like why anyone thought this was a good idea, what they were trying to accomplish, why they were voting on it, why everyone hung out in their old church for another 3 months AFTER voting on it (I assume because of financial reasons but still) - it all just seemed like an ⬇ 7d

TheAromaofBooks (cont'd) absolute nightmare, and, as LMM pointed out, not a good reflection of the God they all claimed to serve. 😑

And those Pickerings!!!!!!!!

Okay, I'll stop rambling now. Suffice to say, even though it was tough reading at times, I really enjoyed this journal a great deal, and admire LMM even more than I did before. 7d

TheAromaofBooks PS I really wish I could remember which biography so snidely dismissed LMM's mourning of Frede by implying that she was more upset when her cat died. The fact that years have gone by and she is still bringing up Frede and how much she misses her and how sad she still is about it (and has NOT brought up the cat btw) just really makes me annoyed with whichever biographer that was! I really am glad we are reading the full journals ourselves ⬇ 7d

TheAromaofBooks (cont'd) because I definitely feel like I have gotten a much different picture of LMM and various aspects of her life than I did from the biographies, especially regarding things like how important Frede was to her and LMM's relationship with Ewan (I feel like always shown as 100% negative in biographies, when I actually think that the two of them got along just fine when he wasn't in one of his terrible funks). So anyway. I do feel like it's ⬇ 7d

TheAromaofBooks (cont'd) been worthwhile.

And I'll really stop talking now 😂 7d

BarbaraJean @TheAromaofBooks I‘m sure you‘re right that we‘re getting a disproportionate amount of negativity in the journals. Especially knowing LMM used her journal as an outlet to “write it out” when she was down. I remember her letters to MacMillan as much more positive, but then I‘d imagine those were disproportionate in the other direction, with a more positive bias! None of these sources will give a purely balanced or unbiased view of LMM‘s life, but ⬇ 6d

BarbaraJean (Cont‘d)…like you, I love reading the complete journals for myself, without someone else‘s filter. I think the Mary Rubio bio made those snide remarks about LMM‘s grief. I pulled it off the shelf because I wanted to find & be indignant about it again, but I can‘t find where she makes the comparison. The cat in question was Good Luck, so we haven‘t gotten to the 40-page cat-mourning entry yet! But I completely agree—LMM‘s grief over Frede is still⬇ 6d

BarbaraJean (Cont‘d) …so evident throughout these pages, years & years after Frede‘s death. It‘s so unfair to say LMM was more upset about the cat.

Yes, that detailed description of the Mammoth Caves was fascinating! And how fun to read about places you‘re familiar with! That whole trip was so interesting to read about—I cracked up over them all trying hot dogs for the first time.

I found the actual reproduction of the relative‘s journal rather tedious ⬇ 6d

BarbaraJean (Cont‘d) …(I was glad there was just a sample of it!), but LMM‘s commentary, with all the memories it brought back for her, was so touching. I was struck by the 100-years-on phenomenon as well! I hadn‘t thought about correlating it to my own age—I‘ve actually been doing the math over and over to figure out how old LMM is at various points. It would be so much easier to just remember she‘s 104 years older than me. 😆 I hear you on relating to ⬇ (edited) 6d

BarbaraJean (Cont‘d)…LMM‘s nostalgia over childhood! I follow a nature photographer on FB who lives literally up the road from my childhood home in England…and I sink into that nostalgia whenever I see her photos. In the midst of adult responsibilities, there‘s something so attractive about the simplicity of childhood!

LMM is SUCH a good storyteller. I loved her story about how Dixie & Luck were following her to the Post Office and Luck got scared into the ⬇ 6d

BarbaraJean (Cont‘d) …bushes—and Dixie was “such a gentleman” to wait for Luck even though he loved going to the Post Office. LMM has such a knack for noticing moments like that and bringing them to life on the page—it takes her journals beyond just the mundane, for me.

I‘m with you on the p. 392 footnote!!! I interpreted that sentence the same way you did, and found it terribly presumptuous of the editor to claim there was a word missing! ⬇ 6d

BarbaraJean (Cont‘d) …The church union vote was super frustrating to me, too. I understand the impulse to say “we‘re not so different from each other, why don‘t our denominations join together”—which in itself is commendable—but how could they not see that the practical outworking of it would be a NIGHTMARE? There‘ve been deep divisions in churches I‘ve been at over petty things like the freaking color of the paint in the sanctuary (don‘t get me started). ⬇ 6d

BarbaraJean (Cont‘d)…How would trying to merge three different denominations with their own positions on theology, worship, etc. NOT create deep disagreements and differences, let alone exacerbate already-existing ones?!?

@TheAromaofBooks Also: no need to apologize for your rambles!! When I saw how many “conversation” notifications I had in Litsy, I thought: “Oh, good, Sarah must have commented about the LMM Journals!” 😁 6d

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