I'm crazy about Montgomery's books, but I've realised lately that it's more than enjoying them. I grew up with Montgomery. As a kid, my best friend and I would meet at the library and devour them and share "chummy" laughs over them, and so now I have this psychological dependence on them because she was my childhood favourite author. That being said, it's kind of disillusioning rereading them and finding all these things to criticise. After Anne and Emily, I'm beginning to see a formula going on. With Anne and Emily, it was successful but after those really vibrant girl characters, Pat is very bland. During the first book (there's only two in this series, Pat of Silver Bush and this one) she was so insipid that when she started having those outrageous boyfriends at the end (which was a really stupid addition to the story) I wondered what they saw in her. She doesn't do anything well except for love things, but Montgomery somehow doesn't make that characteristic work in this book.
Back to the formulas, Pat was a bit of a washed out Emily. Whereas Anne and Emily have almost exactly the same story but are as different as night and day, Pat and Emily have almost nothing in common but somehow Pat contrives to be a foil to Emily. Also, the character of David, the shell-shocked widow, is strongly reminiscent of that creep, Dean Priest in Emily. Someone who's intellectual and stimulating but also cynical and bitter and twisted. Pat's story is very much a home story, which I did enjoy. It's got that wholesome family feel within it, where all the stories centre around the family unit. But unlike Anne and Emily, nothing much seems to happy. It's very insular, and I guess that's in character with Pat who absolutely adores her home, but it doesn't add much for interest. A couple of silly 'love affairs' as Montgomery calls them, within that warm family backdrop, but I really don't like Montgomery's 'love affairs'. They're trashy. She's a great writer and has great pathos with nature and I always think Canada is one of the most beautiful places in the world though I haven't been there, but those silly, shallow little flirtations (which, in Anne, were recognised as flirtations) downgrade her. Sometimes when I'm exasperated, I think she might almost have been a precursor of Mills and Boons. But the story: Pat Gardiner is as much in love with her home as she ever was, so nothing suits her better than staying home and being the homemaker now her mother is an invalid. They get a new hired man (Tillytuck, who's a pretty cool character, bold as brass and quite suits the ambience) her sister "Cuddles" grows up and becomes the beautiful Rae (more on her later) and boys hang around with their tongues out over the Gardiner girls but thankfully, Montgomery squeezes them into small, insignificant paragraphs. Not much happens, just the patterns of town life, except at the end, Pat and David get engaged, break the engagement and the house burns down and she marries another man named Hilary. My nitpicks? Cuddles is a horrible character. I don't know what Montgomery was trying to get with her, but she's shallow and vain and all she thinks about is beaus. Kind of another Ruby Gillis, but Montgomery never tried to pass her off as anything but a social butterfly, unlike Cuddles who's supposed to be quite intelligent but just doesn't pass muster. Cuddles, or Rae, as she grows up to be, only calms down and learns to be sensible after she gets engaged, and after that she becomes a great sister. Secondly, David and Pat? Hello, Dean and Emily much? Only muted down, like everything else. Thankfully we don't see too much of him. But Montgomery is wayy too obvious about Jingle (or Hilary), the one Pat really ends up with in the last chapter or so of the book. Her childhood friend (with the most ridiculous name in history) who's a brilliant architect and has been her rejected suitor for years because of course, she's too clueless to realise she will end up with him even though the readers have known it for years and believe me, you don't hold your breath waiting for it. Her house burns down and everything she loves is gone, and her life is a living hell and Jingle pops up and wants to whisk her away to the house he's built especially for her in goodness knows where, I think it was Vancouver, and everyone's happy ever after. I kind of expected something like a fire to happen because I knew somehow she'd have to stop worshipping it and start worshipping Jingle instead. You may think all this criticism means I don't like it, but I don't despise it. It's okay for a nice, quiet, calm read if you're not looking for literature and can ignore all those 'romantic' contrivances. There were some really effective bits, like Judy's death that touched some chord deep, deep inside you that you doubted this book would reach. Much like Bet's death in the first book, who was Pat's childhood best friend, and that made me cry, but I couldn't cry over Judy, it was different. Also, the deviation from the normal 'happily ever after', because Sid, Pat's favourite brother is entrapped into marrying her worst enemy, snipey May Binnie, who is like Anne's Josie Pye. It's a sobering thought that he'll never get out of it, and to see the family living in one house and all the ruckus because of his petty, selfish wife... It really stood out for me. Apparently Montgomery put more of herself into this book than Anne or Emily (in which case her imagination is better than her life, or she's more boring than her characters, or both) and it makes you wonder... Lastly, I really love Hilary the architect. Ever since I've read all that stuff about the mood of houses, I've had a great appreciation for the way houses are built and how they look, because they really have a personality to them. I live on a really hodge-podge street in terms of architecture, and there's some boring stuff and there's some really beautiful homes that look so at one with their surroundings. But the Lonely House here is just the Disappointed House in Emily recycled and done up less pleasingly. LITERARY MERIT: *** 1/2 ENJOYMENT: ****
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