Kilmeny of the Orchard. The last Montgomery novel that I needed to read. It kind of leaves me with a slightly bittersweet feeling. (Thankfully, I think I still have about half of the short story books.)
Eric spends a couple of months in a small town as a substitue teacher, where he meets and falls in love with Kilmeny, a beautiful violin player. Typical for Montgomery, Kilmeny also falls in love with Eric. (Shocker!) Only problem with the situation is that Kilmeny can’t speak -Â has never been able to speak -Â even though a voice specialist has found nothing wrong with the girl. When asked, Kilmeny refuses to marry Eric because of the fact that she’s dumb – she feels as if she would be an unsuitable wife for anyone because of it.
This was a typical Montgomery book. Sweet and cute, but not one of my favourites. There were a few things that made me a little annoyed when reading it – and I know that part of it was probably how people viewed things in that time period, but . . . For one, the fact that people were shocked that someone wanted to marry a girl who couldn’t speak. Everyone thought she wouldn’t be a proper wife for Eric, only because of her inability to speak. The other thing that bothered me about this was that Kilmeny’s family was convinced that she could not speak because of something her mother did before Kilmeny was born. When her mother was pregnant, she refused to speak to people, and thus, that refusal to speak was passed on to Kilmeny.
Other than those two things, I enjoyed it. I wish Eric had a bit more depth, but I had been expecting that, after a friendly warning from the lovely Rachel (whom I just spent the most fabulous weekend with, where we surrounded ourselves with all miniseries/movies/television shows relating to British actors). I also wish Neil had been in it a little bit more because he was positively horrid, and it would have been nice to explore him at little bit more.
Man, I love Montgomery and for some reason I do not read her. I really should try because I have liked everything I have read by her in the past. Any plans to read her journals?
Kailana
March 5th, 2007 at 11:42 pm
Yes, I’m definitely going to read her journals. I’m actually quite looking forward to them, but am unsure when I’ll get around to it. Originally, I had been planning on reading them after I finished all her other books, but I like haunting used book stores for her stuff, and it’s getting harder and harder to find what I don’t have. So I may end up bumping them up in the queue.
Courtney
March 6th, 2007 at 8:04 am
you will be hard pressed to find her journals in used bookstores, Peanut.
melrose plant
March 7th, 2007 at 10:40 pm
I know that. I meant I was going to read these while I haunted used book stores in search of the short stories. Speaking of which, though, Attick Books had a couple of volumes of her journals. It just wasn’t in the period of time when I thought I would read them, thus I did not pick them up. Alas.
Courtney
March 8th, 2007 at 7:50 am
Kilmeny is one of those books I like to read when I want things to be simple.
Just a warning: I’ve only read the first two of the journals and they can be very depressing to read at times so don’t read them when you feel that way. (I made that mistake thus the warning…)
Lisa
March 8th, 2007 at 9:50 pm
Ooooh, thanks for the warning, Lisa. I’ll keep that in mind.
Courtney
March 8th, 2007 at 10:05 pm
I’ve read this book, and i really like it, even though some people hate it. i admit its not my fave from l.m.m, but some of the writing is darn good. and I love the descriptions of kilmeny’s beauty, even i think they’re a bit out of place. They just sound so poetical. Still, she shouldn’t have stuck them in the book itself. It gets kind of… weird, and irritating to read 2 entire pages about how gorgeous a girl is.
Eric is such a crappy hero. He’s shallow and idiotic. I can’t stand him. I seriously expected better from l.m.m, after reading TBC and drooling over Barney–in spite of his yucky name.
Ginnie
October 16th, 2007 at 8:09 pm