After Many Days
I’ve almost read all of L.M. Montgomery’s short story books! Only two more to go - Christmas with Anne (which is sitting on my bookshelf waiting patiently for December to come along), and At the Altar, which I’m waiting to find on BookMooch. This is very exciting for me. It’s also exciting that this is my tenth book for the Canadian Book Challenge, which means I’m almost done that as well.
For the most part, this collection of short stories included stories where the protagonists met someone important in their lives after a long separation - whether due to a family feud, a lovers quarrel, or because one of the characters moved away. And for the most part, these stories were adorable and completely heart-warming.
As always, there are ones that stood out to me more than others - in this case it was Between the Hill and the Valley and Elizabeth’s Child.
In Elizabeth’s Child, Elizabeth had married a man whom her family did not approve of, and moved out west. One of her brothers, Paul, took it extremely hard, and refused to talk to Elizabeth, or even acknowledge the fact that Elizabeth was his sister. Many years have past, and now Elizabeth’s husband is dead, and she is not doing too well financially. When Elizabeth’s daughter, Worth, now in her teens, visits the rest of Elizabeth’s siblings, she and Paul strike up an unlikely friendship. Worth, manages to win his heart, and because he can’t bear the thought of Worth going back to her mother and never seeing her again, he invites the sister he refused to speak to back home to live with him, where he would be able to provide for her whole family.
Between the Hill and the Valley is the story of a man, Jeff, who has been in love with Sara most of his life. He always thought he was unworthy of her, so didn’t mention anything to her until after her father has died and he has discovered that Sara will have to move away. I think the reason I enjoyed this story so much is because in Jeff, I found a kindred spirit. There is always a joy in finding that one sentence in a book that really speaks to you, that describes you perfectly, that you can completely relate to, even if it was written about another character. And Montgomery always has a way of phrasing things that make them seem like they were written just for you.
They pitied him for the lonely life he must lead alone there at the Valley Farm, with only a deaf old housekeeper as a companion, for it did not occur to the Bayside people in general that a couple of shaggy dogs could be called companions, and they did not know that books make very excellent comrades for people who know how to treat them.
“… books make very excellent comrades for people who know how to treat them.” Ah yes, that spoke volumes to me, and that sentence alone made this a wonderful collection of stories. (Isn’t it wonderful when you find a little gem like that?)
This is my fifth book for the
Against The Odds is my third book for the Canadian Book Challenge (and probably my first of two or three LMM books for said challenge). I hate to say it, but this really was my least favourite of Montgomery’s short story books that I’ve read thus far. It wasn’t that it was bad - some of the stories I enjoyed, some of them gave me a warm and fuzzy feeling, but none of them really stood out. Thinking back on those which were in the book, I only remember what a few of them were about. Overall, this book did very little for me, sadly.
This collection was edited by Rea Wilmshurst. Apparantely, all of these stories are all more of the darker side of Montgomery’s writing, and aside from a couple of chapters in her well-loved books I would totally agree with that. However, all in all they were definitely more charming than creepy (especially compared to my other RIP reads). They do have elements of RIP-challenge-worthy stuff: ghosts, witches, murderers… but they also had amusing drunks, cute love stories, and whatnot, so it’s a little all over the place. And nothing is really truly scary, as to be expected from Montgomery.