maud-heroine

[maud-heroine]

“I used to dislike being sensitive. I thought it made me weak. But take away that single trait, and you take away the very essence of who I am. You take away my conscience, my ability to empathize, my intuition, my creativity, my deep appreciation for the little things, my vivid inner life, my deep awareness of others’ pain, and my passion for it all.”

— Unknown

#quotes

[maud-heroine]

Get you someone who looks at you like Heidi looks at bread.

#heidi girl of the alps #johanna spyri

[maud-heroine]

"There is such a place as fairyland - but only children can find the way to it. And they do not know that it is fairyland until they have grown so old that they forget the way. One bitter day, when they seek it and cannot find it, they realize what they have lost; and that is the tragedy of life. On that day the gates of Eden are shut behind them and the age of gold is over. Henceforth they must dwell in the common light of common day. Only a few, who remain children at heart, can ever find that fair, lost path again; and blessed are they above mortals. They, and only they, can bring us tidings from that dear country where we once sojourned and from which we must evermore be exiles. The world calls them its singers and poets and artists and story-tellers; but they are just people who have never forgotten the way to fairyland."

The Story Girl

please drop your favorite lm montgomery quote below! 👇

#lm montgomery #the story girl #more than a quote actually but you get it

[maud-heroine]

no matter the struggles there is always ao3 in bed

[maud-heroine]

Harvest Mouse by Dean Mason.

[maud-heroine]

I am SO curious what you think of specific LMM short stories - namely, The Waking of Helen, The Doctor's Sweetheart, and The Growing Up of Cornelia - but also just all of them bc there is so much going on in literally all of them (not even counting the insanity that is tannis of the flats). apologies if you've talked ab them before but I am intrigued as to if you've read them/have thoughts

Thanks for this ask, I find it really interesting! I also find it very appropriate for this kilmeny shebang, because I think kilmeny provides a very good illustration for this.

I don't think I've read all of LM Montgomery's short stories, although I know I've hit a good chunk of them, so that in and of itself tells you something. There are some I really, really love and that I think are LM Montgomery at her best (The Quarantine at Alexander Abraham's), but I find a lot of them to be LM Montgomery at her worst. Some of them encapsulate LM Montgomery's strengths in a really potent, concise way; a lot of them emphasize her weaknesses in parallel.

Because I haven't read a lot of them since I was a teen, I mostly have dim memories of the ones I liked, or of ones where I was like hmmm...that's funny, or the ones that I liked but now looking back am like hmm...that's funny. I used to love the Growing up of Cornelia quite a bit, but now I squint at it for obvious reasons. I LOOOOOOOOOOOOVED the fake dating one because I thought it was hilarious (this spinster lies to the town about having someone courting her, someone she completely fabricates - only for a man who happens to fit the description to a tee show up in a sheer shenanigan of fate). The Strike at Putney is my sister's favorite (the women of a church go on strike to combat sexism).

So overall, there are some jewels in in the mix. The form of a short story is such that in some ways, you have to strip writing and storytelling down to its bare elements. As such, I think the form of a short story is particularly well-suited to demonstrating Maud's strength of humor. When they're good, they're good.

However, as referenced, that often means when they're bad, they're bad. Some are technically well-written but gross in plotline (these are the ones that tend to be the ones I liked as a child, but as an adult..); a lot are both disturbing and imo pretty poorly written, much like a certain novel we've been discussing lately. We have Tannis (YIKES), the Education of Betty (YIKES), and others which kind of pull back the curtain on Maud.

LM Montgomery was no angel, and even beyond aspects of her you'd expect historically, she was just...kind of mean. I remember reading a letter of hers where she visited some equivalent of a girl scout troop and frankly talked about how she couldn't imagine any of the girls finding husbands because they were so plain and ugly. You see it pop up in her books, but it pops up a lot in her short stories as well. In the end, to answer your question in a general sense, I feel like overall the short stories have more kilmeny's than anne's.

Regarding the specific stories, I'd have to reread them. We did discuss the Growing Up of Cornelia on here a while back - I used to LOVE that one, but now as an adult I'm like more errrr. It is interesting to me because Sidney is the Dean Priest figure that ever haunts LMM's work. As for The Waking of Helen, iirc this is @mzannthropy's favorite! Unlike Kilmeny, it actually commits to its premise and so I think it works. I'm not really familiar with the Doctor's Sweetheart - I looked it up and nothing rang a bell.

For my favorite short stories (You didn't ask, but I shall answer anyway) - here are the ones that I remember even years later:

The Quarantine at Alexander Abraham's: iconic, in a word. endlessly quotable. A spinster woman who hates men quarantined with a confirmed bachelor who hates women? Much like the blue castle, this takes a basic fanfic trope (for tbc, 'where is my wife;' for this, quarantined together) and so successfully executes it you're left with your jaw on the floor.

The Strike at Putney: this is a sister's favorite, and I can see why. Women of the church learn that a missionary will not be allowed to occupy the pulpit to speak because she's a woman, and so they go on strike. It's also a emphasized critique of the undervaluing of women's work.

The Materializing of Cecil: GOD I REMEMBER LOVING THIS ONE. This unmarried woman is embarrassed to be unmarried at forty and so flagrantly invents a lover to her sewing circle - only for a man who fits the description to SHOW UP. It's hilarious. However, as a content warning, I reread it to find there is less than fantastic description of a Chinese man near the end.

The Little Brown Book of Miss Emily: guess what? this one is in first person, and that person is ANNE. 😱 this one...it's sad, but it always stayed with me. I have read quite a few lmm stories and forgotten most, but not this one. Also, its final line is beautiful to me.

#definetly reading the quarantine at alexander abraham's #thank youuu #lm montgomery #reading recs

[maud-heroine]

honestly guys i cant recommend books enough. like imagine if posts were much longer and also good

[maud-heroine]

ANNE OF GREEN GABLES (1985) dir. Kevin Sullivan

#anne of green gables

[maud-heroine]

Calling all LM Montgomery blogs! I need help. Anyone has sugestions on which collection contains the best Maud short stories? I've been wanting to get some for a while but not sure where to start and I want to read them on physical. Haven't read the road to yesterday/TBAQ yet either because I was keeping it for the future but maybe its time...

I appreciate individual short stories recommendations if I don't end up finding any collection I'm interested in.

#lm montgomery

[maud-heroine]

Milkmaid with Goats

By Hans Dahl

#art

[maud-heroine]

The apprentice becomes the master.

The Entombment: Caravaggio (1602-3) & Simone Peterzano, his teacher (c. 1583)

#art #catholicism

[maud-heroine]

Thanks to amazon I just found out Chronicle Books are releasing AOGG in their Handwritten Classics editions! They are almost deluxe editions that come with letters that appear in the novel. I believe the most famous one is the Pride and Prejudice edition. I can't remember for the life of me if Anne has any letters in the first volume of her series, but the description reads:

As you read, you will find pockets throughout containing replicas of 13 items from the story recreated with charming handwriting and loving attention to historical detail. Discover the notes passed between Anne and her bosom friend Diana in the Avonlea schoolhouse. From the masterful calligraphy to the painstaking attention to historical detail, and from the hand-folding of the letters, to the quality of the materials-each book is an object made by fans for fans. This edition offers an immersive experience of the story and makes for a truly lovely gift and keepsake.

This must be so fun to read! Amazon says it comes out October 24th of this year.

#anne of green gables #beautiful books #chronicle books #lm montgomery

[maud-heroine]

#anne of green gables

[maud-heroine]

i learned about this 17th century engraving depicting Jesus Christ wearing a crown of thorns is called "With a Thread".

The design turns out to be an image created with the help of ONE SINGLE LINE, which twists in a spiral.

All face details and light and shadow transitions are created from thickening this line. The author of the work is the French artist Claude Mellan.

To the artist's contemporaries, his engraving method remained a mystery, and no one was able to repeat it.

Follow my Twitter/X Account for more: www.x.com/noparkingtv

#catholicism

[maud-heroine]

Bianca Stone, from What Is Otherwise Infinite: Poems; “Psychodynamic motivational speech”

[Text ID: “Would you / put my whole, wounded body in your / own, if I asked you?”]

#poetry

[maud-heroine]

What I can't cope with, OK, is L.M. Montgomery's use of bedrooms as a site of both autonomy and belonging. When Emily arrives at New Moon, she has to share the bed with Aunt Elizabeth and feels she is in bed with a griffon but when she moves into Juliet's old bedroom in the "lookout" she is overcome with the sense of nearness to her mother as well as having true space and freedom for the first time at New Moon. Later, she loses a lot of this sense of place and independence moving into Aunt Ruth's spare room where she doesn't have to share a bed, but can't even choose the pictures hanging on the walls - at the same time she loses her freedom to write fiction. Jane hates her bedroom at 60 Gay Street, finding it "hostile and vindictive" - in many ways just like Grandmother Kennedy, but at Lantern Hill, her father lets her choose everything that goes into her bedroom and she is allowed self expression. Her friends give her gifts to furnish it, as emblems of their love for her. Like Jane, Valancy has no control over the furnishings in her room, from the painted floor to the tacky artwork to the dingy and unwelcoming furniture, but she's so constrained that her only rebellion is to throw the jar of potpourri out the window because she's "sick of the fragrance of dead things". To have a sense of self, she imagines a magnificent castle as an escape and is delighted to find Barney's house is just as good a place to be who she wants to be - free from her family, making her own choices. Anne, upon marking the first anniversary of coming to Green Gables, reflects on the garrett room and finds it "as if all the dreams, sleeping and waking, of its vivid occupant had taken a visible although unmaterial form and had tapestried the bare room with splendid filmy tissues of rainbow and moonshine." Before Green Gables her life was probably a mix of dormitories and makeshift beds in attics that she couldn't change, in versions of her life with no freedom or affection. THEIR BEDROOMS ARE SYMBOLS FOR THEIR LIVES OK. When their rooms are controlled by others, their inner/emotional/creative lives are constrained. When they have their own rooms, they have autonomoy, they choose furniture, they have freedom, they have themselves, they have love, they have me gnawing armchairs about it.

Also funny that both Valancy and Emily are tormented at various times by inescapable portraits of queens - I do wonder if LM had one in her home that no one would let her take down.

#lm montgomery

[maud-heroine]

Seeing the trailer for Millie Bobby Brown's new movie makes me wonder if I've ever actually seen or heard of the "knight rescues damsel from dragon" trope played completely straight before, or if that's something of a dead unicorn trope.

I realize there's the classic "Saint George and the Dragon," but even in that case the princess was never bodily in any danger, it was the kingdom and the lands which were beset and the princess acted more as a diplomat hiring him on behalf of her country.

Perhaps the trope originator is the Greek myth of Perseus and Andromeda? You have the princess chained up to be offered to a (sea) dragon for the purpose of a ritual sacrifice, so it's not like the dragon really "kidnapped" her, and it's missing any mention of a tower, but it ticks more boxes than any I can think of