Thursday, July 3, 2008

Book Review: Anne of Green Gables



Last week I finished Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery. As mentioned before I have watched the 1985 movie about a million times. I'm so glad I finally got around to reading the book. The book is abit different from the movie, but knowing that most movies are not as good as their books I was surprised that the movie did a pretty good job of being true to the book.

I won't recap the book because really if you haven't read the book or seen the movie where have you been for the last 20 years?? The main difference that stands out in my mind is the death of Matthew. In the movie he dies because of old age and hard work. In the book he dies of a heart attack after learning all his money is gone (bank collapse).

The book cover to the left is the original cover from the first edition, which was published in June 1908.

Although I've loved the movie for many years I've learned some new things from Wikipedia:
  • There are 8 books in the series (Anne's age in the book listed on Wikipedia)
  • Movies about the book were made as early as 1919
  • There is a new TV mini-series coming out next year
  • There was a cartoon about Anne in 2000, and a Japanese anime TV series back in 1979

Knowing that I'm a fan of the show, when my parents took a vacation of the eastern provinces a couple of years ago they brought me back a bottle of Raspberry Cordial from the PEI. You can be sure I'll be reading the rest of the series when I finish with the rest of my summer reading. I need to get started on my books for the Southern Reading Challenge.

I am the only one, or did anyone else have a crush on Gilbert Blythe's character in Jr. high school?

1 comment:

adrielle said...

Hi!!

I just read AoGG recently as well. I thought I would try to get to the rest of the series, but after a while everything got so sickly sweet and she could do no wrong, everyone loved her etc, that I gave up on it. I like a little more conflict and reality in my literature.
As for Gilbert Blythe, ooohhh yeah, I had the crush as well; although, it may have been more on Jonathan Crombie (the actor) than the actual character. Yum