When my daughter was born, we knew what we wanted to name her–and I knew what the spelling had to be: Anne with an “e.” I didn’t even know why I felt so certain that the ”e” had to be there–and then this year I reread Anne of Green Gables and it all came back to me. I loved that book, read it a ton of times as a kid, and of course Anne insists that her name is ugly without the “e” at the end.
Because of Lucy Maud Montgomery, the author of Anne of Green Gables, my daughter spells her name a certain way. That’s power.
In general, authors of novels aren’t seen as particularly powerful. Brilliant, yes. Entertaining, insightful, thought-provoking–but not powerful. But I just visited Prince Edward Island, and let me tell you: that L.M. Montgomery was one powerful woman.
I’m sure PEI is a beloved home to many. It’s beautiful and green (at least it was at the end of August) and you only have to read any of the Anne books to get a sense of how wonderful the scenery is there. But there’s not a ton to see there. We took a packed bus tour of the whole island, and I’ll tell you what we saw: potato fields, golf courses, a preserves company, and the Anne of Green Gables house.
Did I mention the potato fields and golf courses? Because there were a lot of those.
Were the tourists who were thronging to the Island there to SEE those golf courses and potato fields? No, of course not: they were flocking to see the Anne of Green Gables house, to wander the hallways that Anne wandered, to peek into her bedroom, gaze at her pantry, stroll through her stable, shop at her store and have a cup of coffee at her cafe.
Okay, Anne never had a store or a cafe. But then again, she never had a house, either. As I pointed out continually to my family, Anne is a fictional character. She never lived anywhere except in the pages of a book. (My daughter kept shushing me when I said this out loud, afraid I’d hurt someone’s feelings by denying Anne’s reality.) The house hundreds of people were touring didn’t even belong to L. M. Montgomery. It belonged to a distant relative of hers but is believed to be the inspiration for the house in the novel. So someone brilliant undertook its renovation and decorated it to match the description in the book.
This is the hundred year anniversary of the publication of Anne of Green Gables and our tour guide said that there were record numbers of visitors to the house. But I got the sense it’s pretty busy every summer, all summer long. People made the journey because they loved the book.
Anne of Green Gables is the kind of book that means something to you. When my Anne was reading the book, I saw her suddenly drop it. She came running to me, threw her arms around me and sobbed into my shirt. ”Matthew’s dead!” she cried. I knew exactly how she felt: I had cried at the same point in the book each and every time I read it. We cried together and then laughed at ourselves for crying and then cried some more.
Of course, that’s the real power of books–making people care about something. Although creating an entire tourist trade for a region isn’t exactly wimpy.
Tags: Canada, Prince Edward Island
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I love this! Someday I’m going to go, when my small girl has read the books and is ready. My husband is a Matthew, and he teases me that his name was his lucky charm with me.
How many books about “reality” and “truth” in a purely gritty sense inspire this adoration? Sweetness is good.
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