Book to Film: L. M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables (2016)

As a general rule, I don't really approve of remaking classic films. But a second, or fourth, or nineteenth filmed adaptation of a book is not the same thing as a remake, and so when I heard that there was to be a new film of my book, Anne of Green Gables, I was not one of the Megan Follows devotees who bewailed that the 1985 series was untouchable. Because, excellent as that series is (at least, the first one) having multiple adaptations available sends you back to the source material. All on-screen Annes are imitations of the Platonic Ideal Anne found in the pages of L.M.Montgomery's novels. And as far as I'm concerned, the more Anne the better.

All the previous versions of Anne that I have seen have aged Anne up a bit, or a lot, from her original eleven years. Megan Follows' Anne (1985) started out as thirteen, Anne Shirley's Anne Shirley (1934) was fourteen, and although I've only seen the sequel to the BBC version from the '70s, it looks like Kim Braden would have been at least in her late teens. Both contemporary-set webseries Green Gables Fables and Project Green Gables started her story at the age of seventeen. But Ella Ballentine was closer to Anne's real age, and reminds us that she was in fact only a child, and yet she'd already been through so much. She is a resilient, loving little soul who has used her vivid imagination to survive a turbulent childhood and bring what comfort she can to others; we see her trying to cheer up other children in the orphanage and on the train to Prince Edward Island. When she speaks of her hardships, her matter-of-fact tone breaks the listeners' hearts, both in-universe and out, that nothing strikes her as unusual in living with guardians who she was sure meant to be good to her, or never having had a friend.  After such an existence, she revels in life in the countryside, and although Matthew and Marilla don't know what to make of her joy at such (to them) commonplace things as the scent of lilac, the flight of seagulls, they come to see their world as for the first time. This bright-eyed little girl with the fancy turn of phrase is both strange and endearing,

Of course, if Anne is the right age, so are Diana and her schoolmates, and so is Gilbert Blythe (13). He is very definitely a mischievous schoolboy and not a romantic hero. But this is Anne of Green Gables before it becomes a love story; its focus is on family and belonging, and a celebration of simple wonders. Diana is a true kindred spirit; the film shows us a little bit more of what draws her and Anne together, their love of fairy-tales and make-believe. Mrs Rachel Lynde provides a light comic touch. "Now, you know me, I'm not one to interfere..." Marilla Cuthbert is well-drawn, played by Sara Botsford, striking the right balance between severity and soft-heartedness. Martin Sheen's Matthew, was not quite Matthew Cuthbert as we know him. He's lovable, quiet and sweet, but not shy so much as introverted.

This film doesn't cover the whole book, but only Anne's first year at Green Gables. Still, it's better to take its time over the first half and do it well than to rush the entire book into a two-hour movie. It ends with a slight deviation from the original story, in order to have a satisfying conclusion part-way through, while still potentially leaving it open to a sequel.

And if this team does not make a sequel, there will be more of Miss Shirley to come next year on Netflix, with a new series simply entitled Anne. Watch this space.

The Gum Thief, Douglas Coupland

I wanted to fall in love again, I realised. Not with a man. I’m far too lazy and selfish right now to arrange my life around another person’s. I’m too fond of going where I want, doing what I want, when I want, acting on the spur of the moment without having to be accountable to someone else. No, what I wanted was to fall in love with a story. To discover something brand-new that grabs me by the brain and imagination and takes me entirely by surprise. Something that would mean my life would not be quite the same after having read it.

Seeing Douglas Coupland’s The Gum Thief in the library, I wondered if, perhaps, this might be The One. I had vague memories of my friend Anna recommending Mr Coupland - possibly JPod - and Girlfriend In A Coma has been on my to-read-maybe-one-day list for so long I can’t even remember why any more. My friend Anna is very clever and a bit nerdy but in such a way to make it cool, and she likes Neil Gaiman and has purple hair. If she recommended Coupland, maybe I would like him too. Anyway, I’d give him a try. The blurb on the back hooked me: “Bethany discovers Roger’s notebook and finds that he’s writing diary entries pretending to be her - and weirdly, he’s getting it right.”

Of course, when you go looking to spontaneously fall in love and be taken by surprise, you’re doomed to failure. The Gum Thief is entertaining and voices many truths about Life, The Universe and Everything™ - especially if you’re stuck in a dead-end job in retail - but ultimately, I did not connect emotionally with the book. When reading, the pages passed quickly, with multiple narrators and short chapters to keep interest, but I didn’t feel a great urge to return to it when I’d put it down. The book’s tone was subdued. Roger is in his forties divorced and disillusioned, while Bethany is a twenty four year old goth living at home with her mother, with vague plans of visiting Europe with her new boyfriend, but no real plans for the future. I could identify with Roger’s and Bethany’s observations in their working life in a Staples superstore, and I liked the characters well enough, but somehow I felt distanced from their world.

As well as Roger’s and Bethany’s diaries and letters to each other - interspersed with the occasional letter from Bethany’s mother and other Staples employees, many chapters of The Gum Thief are chapters from Roger’s attempt at a novel: Glove Pond. Unfortunately, this novel is bad. Deliberately bad writing - at least deliberate on Coupland’s part - full of dry dialogue, telling-not-showing, faux-intellectual ponderings on life and creative but not quite successful imagery. And when so much of a book is full of bad writing and pretentiousness, even as a literary device, the lingering impression I take away from reading the book is - bad writing and pretentiousness. Glove Pond colours The Gum Thief - or perhaps I should say it sucks out all the colour, leaving a white and grey, cold and somewhat empty-feeling novel.

Or, conversely, maybe the fictional-within-fiction Glove Pond helps to draw attention to what colour does exist in Roger’s and Bethany’s apparently bleak, dull lives. It makes the chapters written by them interesting by comparison. Time will tell which of these contradictory impressions of The Gum Thief is stronger in my mind.

The Girl From Away trilogy, Claire Mowat

There are some people who are, as Anne Shirley would put it, true "kindred spirits." These are the people you can travel with, go for coffee or even lunch with, and completely ignore each other while you are both engrossed in books. Most people would probably think this weird and unsociable, but my closest friends understand completely. I've known my best friend, Judith, for as long as I can remember, and like me she is a complete bookworm. We've been on holiday and on day trips up and down the country, but our favourite finds when shopping are the bookshops, from big chain stores to teeny-tiny second-hand shops. So when she recently went on holiday to Canada, it is only natural that the souvenirs she brought back for me included books. The Girl From Away trilogy was a tatty old ex-library book with stamps, old-fashioned ticket pocket and the opening times of the local swimming pool still visible in light pencil. I love a book that's picked up some history along the way, and especially one that has crossed the Atlantic.

The Girl From Away

The Girl From Away introduces Andrea, a teenage Toronto girl who pays an unwilling visit to Anderson's Arm, a small fishing community in Newfoundland, while having to come to terms with her mother's remarriage. Andrea spends the Christmas holidays with her aunt Pearl and cousins - her uncle Cyril is away working on an oil tanker, and though they remain cheerful, Pearl and her children are clearly anxious about him. The Girl From Away is a lovely portrait of a small community, where everybody knows everyone else and pulls together in a crisis. The setting came vividly to life, and felt identifiably Canadian. The three-in-one edition of the book was published in 2002, but I recognised the stories as being originally written earlier, in the 1990s. There were details that felt old-fashioned, but yet not so much so that they were strange to me. Most noticable was the personal cassette player that was Andrea's birthday present, and the story itself was reminiscent of the books I read when I was a child.

The French Isles

Book two of the trilogy sees Andrea back with her cousins, aunt and uncle - now safely home. A trip to collect Uncle Cyril's fishing boat finds Cyril, Andrea and the Cousins at St Pierre and Miquelon, islands which are located near Newfoundland but are actually French. Not French Canadian; owned by France. Andrea takes a job working at a bed-and-breakfast hotel, and befriends the owner's son, Philippe. After the drama which led Andrea and her family to St Pierre, the story is fairly gentle and uneventful, with a little hint of a youthful romance. It does help if you have a working knowledge of the French language, as there is a lot of dialogue which is left untranslated.

Last Summer in Louisbourg

Andrea is now fifteen and is vacationing in Cape Breton for the summer job to die for! She is childminding at the Fortress of Louisbourg, a job which involves dressing up in period costume and doing a fair bit of historical re-enactment. While working, she is offered a bit part in a film which is shot on location.  Again, Mowat sets the scene beautifully, and I envied Andrea her summer job. It was amusing to see how quickly the novelty of working on a movie set wore off, however, and Andrea came across as rather a sulky teenager, anxious that her costume makes her look silly, and objecting when extra filming spoiled her day's plans. I was a bit disappointed not to see the Newfoundland family this time around, or to hear anything else of Philippe, but there were some great new characters introduced: landlady Jackie and Andrea's verbose roommate Justine, as well as the cast and crew of the film, and Andrea discovers a family secret.

The Girl From Away trilogy is a lovely, easy holiday read ideal for girls aged about 9-12 years old.

Anne of Ingleside, L. M. Montgomery

Seven years has passed since the end of Anne's House of Dreams. Anne Blythe, née Shirley, is about thirty four years old, mother to five children: Jem, Walter, twins Nan and Di, and Shirley, with a sixth on the way. (Rilla.) Anne of Ingleside chronicles the adventures of the whole Blythe family across a span of six years.

Despite its title, this isn't really Anne's story any more. After a lovely nostalgic few chapters on vacation in Avonlea, where she revisits her old haunts and relives old memories with her best friend Diana, Anne fades somewhat into the background, where she is more "Mrs Doctor, dear," wise and respected wife and mother, than the impetuous girl of old.

Anne of Ingleside is the most anecdotal book of the whole series, with chapters focusing in on one family member at a time. There are enough children to ensure that there is only room for one case of matchmaking, one cantankerous, pessimistic old lady and one stream of gossip about people we don't know, but it also means that I don't really get to know any of the younger Blythes as people, except perhaps Walter. Shirley, the youngest son, doesn't get any attention at all.

I wrote in my review of Anne's House of Dreams that it ended on a melancholy note. Although the stories told in Ingleside are entertaining enough, I sense a bitter undercurrent to many of the stories. When the narrative returns to Anne's perspective in the end of the novel, she doesn't seem like the same person at all, consumed with jealousy of Gilbert's old flame, the spiteful Christine. She fears that Gilbert has fallen out of love with her and become complacent, their marriage a comfortable old habit after fifteen years.

Although Anne and Gilbert's love story has a happy ending, this is not the only troubling moment of Ingleside. In the aforementioned gossip chapter, allusions are made to a really nasty incident at the funeral of an unpleasant man. Di Blythe, aged ten, after two ill-judged friendships, vows not to trust anyone any more, because they'll only let her down. Then, finally, a throwaway line not only foreshadows a future tragedy, but tells it outright. If House of Dreams ended wistfully, Ingleside leaves me feeling like I've been kicked in the stomach. Just a  sentence or two from an omniscient narrator, in the middle of a tender scene of Anne looking in on her sleeping children, then the last page is a stunned blur.

Don't get me wrong, Anne of Ingleside is an enjoyable read, but the magic of the earlier books is missing. Reading Ingleside I could sense Montgomery's darker state of mind at the time of writing, and her weariness with the Anne series.

Anne's House of Dreams

After three years of waiting, Anne finally fulfils all her friends's prophecies and marries Gilbert Blythe. Gilbert is now qualified as a doctor and has taken a position sixty miles from their home town of Avonlea. The newlyweds move to a tiny village called Glen St Mary which overlooks the Four Winds Harbour, and set up their "house of dreams" in a tiny cottage with a beautiful seaview. If you think of the Anne series primarily as a romance, it makes a nice change to see the couple after the wedding, and the ups and downs of "happily ever after."

Anne's House of Dreams comes as a welcome return to the cosy, familiar Anneishness that makes the series more than just a friend but a "kindred spirit." We don't get to see much of our old friends - Marilla, Rachel Lynde and Diana - but when we do they are just as alive as ever. In Windy Willows, I realised retrospectively that the Avonlea scenes weren't quite alive, the characters described as from a distance but not captured upon the page. Though three years have passed, it picks up where Island left off, and I think it wouldn't do any harm to skip Windy Willows altogether.

It could have been all to easy to find Anne's new home to be a poor imitation of the old one, but Glen St Mary and Four Winds have their own, very distinct, feel. In Avonlea, "although [Anne] had lived in sight of the sea, it had not entered intimately into her life. In Four Winds it surrounded her and called to her constsantly." With Montgomery's word-perfect descriptions, I could almost hear the crash of the waves in the background, smell the salt in the air and feel the coolness of a sea breeze. Four Winds Harbour is a busy port, with fishermen constantly coming and going, guarded over by the lighthouse and its faithful keeper, Captain Jim Boyd. I loved Captain Jim immediately, an old sailor, rough in appearance and speech, but a true gentleman, a captivating storyteller and a hero.

Anne's House of Dreams is situated rather out of the way, just outside the village itself, and as such there are not too many new characters, meaning that each one is properly fleshed out, and that there is more of a continuous plot in this book than in its predecessors. Beside Captain Jim, we meet the stubborn and outspoken Marshall Elliot and Miss Cornelia  Bryant. If you're a Methodist or worse, a man, don't expect Miss Cornelia to have a good word for you. From tactlessness to tantrums to dying at an inopportune moment, Miss Cornelia's catchphrase is, "isn't that like a man?"

And then there is Leslie Moore. Leslie forms a strange, hostile friendship with Anne, but although Anne knows they could be "kindred spirits," there is a barrier between them. Leslie's life is like the photo-negative of Anne's, for while Anne is perfectly happy (even with her red hair) with a wonderful husband and joyful life, Leslie has experienced tragedy after tragedy, ending up trapped in a loveless marriage. The barrier between the women comes down later, but at such a cost!

Although marketed as children's books, it is clear that this is no longer a kids' series. Anne's House of Dreams is full of adult themes - unhappy marriage and the moral dilemma of whether a doctor's duty is worth heaping more suffering onto a life already full of pain. And Anne and Gilbert suffer such a heartbreak that changes their lives forever. Afterwards, "there was something in the smile that had never been in Anne's smile before and would never be absent from it again." This marks a turning-point in the tone of the series. Sorrow has touched upon a care-free, happy-go-lucky world. There can be no going back from that. The end of the book depicts Anne and Gilbert leaving their House of Dreams for a bigger house, better for raising a family in, but it happens so suddenly, in the space of a few pages, that neither the reader nor Anne is quite resigned to it. Although Anne will grow to love her new home, at the time of leaving the House of Dreams, and this volume, she hasn't yet done so, and I found it quite a melancholy note to end on.

Anne of the Island, L. M. Montgomery




Anne of the Island is the third book in L. M. Montgomery's classic series about the imaginative redhead, and in many ways the end of "part one" of Anne's story. This is the book about Anne Shirley's college years, the last book about Anne the girl and the beginning of Anne the woman. It is also the last part of the story in which the community of Avonlea features prominently, and even now, despite the book's title, a good half of the the book's events don't even take place on Prince Edward Island, but in Kingsport, which is based upon Halifax, Nova Scotia. Even when the story is in Avonlea, I found it wasn't quite the Avonlea I knew.

 As a child, the only Anne books I owned were the first two: Green Gables and Avonlea, which I read over and over again. My mother had an old copy of Anne of the Island, so I was quite familiar with it, but less so. It comes as a shock that the community that seems more vivid than my own hometown in my memories, should be as I imagine it for such a brief time in the series - only two books out of the eight. Some characters have moved away, such as Reverend Allan and his wife - did they really appear so briefly? I knew them so well! Rachel Lynde, the town gossip, is still around but now living at Green Gables itself! Although this was due to happen at the end of Avonlea, it seems strange for her not to be down the road, but in the house itself, helping to bring up the twins. Anne's "bosom friend" Diana is engaged to be married, and for the first time, Anne has to face the death of her own school friend, Ruby Gillis, the bright, flirtatious girl who was always a little shallow and tiresome, but who made up a four with Anne, Diana and Jane Andrews on many an occasion. "Everything is changing - or going to change," said Diana sadly. "I have a feeling that things will never be the same again."

Not that there is much time to be melancholy, with Anne's whirlwind life at Redmond College, full of fun and friendships. She is reunited with two girls from Queen's Academy, Priscilla and Stella (who, alas, I can't really tell apart) and befriends the outrageous but adorable, frivolous and fun-loving Philippa Gordon. After a year living in boarding-houses, the girls rent a cottage of their own, a cute little house called Patty's Place, in a road full of grand mansions. Many pleasures of this book come from the simple domesticity of four girls and Phil's young-at-heart aunt Jamesina "Jimsie" making their house a home, and there is a lovely chapter in which Anne gets to visit the little yellow house where she was born.



And as well as her female friends, Anne - no longer the skinny ginger kid, - receives proposal after proposal, each less romantic than the last, before she is swept off her feet by the story-book hero Royal Gardner, who seems to be the man of her dreams. Personally, I can't stand the man. He is too suave, too smooth, and knows all the right things to say to an idealistic soul which has been nurtured on romantic literature, but he has no personality. All his grand gestures come across as studied and fake, and it comes as a great relief when Anne comes to her senses. But it's not until it appears to be too late that Anne realises what everyone else has known for years, to whom her heart really belongs.

Anne of Avonlea, L. M. Montgomery

At sixteen and a half, Anne Shirley has finished her own schooling at Queen's Academy, and is preparing to return to Avonlea school, this time as its teacher. Though much changed from the talkative eleven-year-old adopted by Matthew and Marilla, Anne is still full of dreams and ideals, and always on the lookout for "kindred spirits." There are several newcomers to Avonlea, from the prosaic, grouchy Mr Harrison who moves in next door with his parrot, to poetic Paul Irving, kindred spirit and Anne's favourite pupil - if teachers had favourites, which of course they don't. And Marilla, who a few years ago no one would have foreseen raising one child, has taken in two more, six-year-old twins Davy and Dora Keith. As reflected in the title, the setting of the story spreads from the grounds of Green Gables, the school and surrounding woodland, to the whole village, and we get to know more of its inhabitants. As well as the next generation of Avonlea schoolchildren, we get to see more of the elder residents of the village when Anne, Gilbert and some of their other friends set up the Village Improvement Society, and through this we get to better know assorted friends-and-relations: Andrewses, Sloanes, Pyes and more. I've read this book more times than I can remember, and still can't work out who's who in Avonlea, but it's clear that Mrs Montgomery knew them all.

While just as episodic as Green Gables, the stories told in Avonlea are slightly more grown-up in theme and perhaps overall a little more sedate. Anne at sixteen to eighteen years of age seems a good deal older than I am at twenty five! Yet she is not yet cured of landing herself in embarrassing situations, such as falling through the roof of a neighbour's duck-house, and smothering her nose in red dye instead of freckle lotion before a surprise visit from a distinguished authoress. More childish amusement comes from the Keith twins, or rather Davy who always "wants to know" - Dora might as well be a porcelain doll for all the personality she is given. Paul Irving, too, is clearly intended to be a kindred spirit, though I find him a rather soppy character for a ten-year-old boy, despite Anne's and the author's protests that he is as manly as all the other boys in his class. Clearly Paul is supposed to be a reflection of Anne, with his make-believe and quirky little thoughts, but I couldn't believe in him. To me he seemed like a prototype of Walter Blythe from the later books, but Walter is more fleshed-out and his struggles make him come alive. Paul's difficulty in eating a whole dish of porridge doesn't quite work as a character flaw.

Still, Paul's presence in Avonlea brings about the last section of the novel, where it stops being so anecdotal and has an ongoing story. Anne befriends a charming old maid named Miss Lavendar Lewis, who lives alone in a quaint, fairy-like house with a young maid who she calls Charlotta the Fourth. Miss Lavendar seems to epitomise all that a child would think good about being grown-up and independent: having the freedom to do what you want, when you want, stay up all night and eat nothing but cake if you so desire! But Miss Lavendar has a history of romance with Paul Irving's father - who is now a widower. In the Anne books there are a lot of stories where Anne plays matchmaker or meddles in other people's relationships for better or worse, and in most cases I find these stories leave me cold. But the romance of Miss Lavendar and Stephen Irving is the first and the best, as we've spent plenty of time getting to know and love these characters and to wish them happiness. And although Anne is oblivious, or as good as, there are hints and suggestions of romance in her own not-too-distant future.

Anne of Green Gables, L. M. Montgomery

What better way to start a new year than to rediscover my favourite book of all time?

When old-fashioned, late-middle-aged brother and sister Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert send for an orphan boy to help on their farm at Green Gables, the last person they expect to meet is the precocious, imaginative redhead Anne Shirley. At eleven Anne has never been loved or wanted, but makes up for lost time by winning the hearts of the rural community of Avonlea, winning friends - and a few enemies - with her impulsive ways.

I first read this book at the age of about seven, and immediately Anne was a true "kindred spirit." Like me, she lived more in a dream world than the real one, making up stories left, right and centre, and being remarkably scatterbrained when it came to real life. I spent hours reading and rereading about her exploits until, looking back, it feels difficult to separate the book from my own childhood. L. M. Montgomery brings Avonlea, Prince Edward Island to life by furnishing it with a cast of lovable and believable characters. As well as the irrepressible Anne, there is Mrs Rachel Lynde, who made it her business to know everyone else's, shy and softhearted Matthew who wraps his sister around his little finger without seeming to try, and Marilla who isn't half as stern as she'd have you believe. There are countless ladies who are known only as Mrs [Husband's-name Surname] - a thing that confused me no end when I was small. Then, among the younger generation who I know better than many of my own primary school classmates: pretty, jolly Diana Barry, spiteful Josie Pye and her sister Gertie, airhead Ruby Gillis, sensible Jane Andrews, pompous Charlie Sloan, the rather nerdy Moody Spurgeon McPherson and of course the rascally Gilbert Blythe, who makes his debut in the book's most infamous scene by having a slate cracked over his head after making fun of Anne's red hair.

Anne of Green Gables is a light, episodic novel, the majority of the book taking place during Anne's first couple of years at Green Gables, showing her falling from scrape to scrape, and also experiencing simple delights with such pleasure that you can't help but feel her wonder: eating ice cream for the first time at a Sunday School picnic, making friends, exploring the great outdoors and inventing histories for every place. Anne really is a story to make you appreciate the little things, and to a small girl such as Anne, everything is the most important thing in the world.

You don't really notice Anne changing much, but as the novel progresses, she grows up naturally, her excitable speeches don't sound quite so precocious and gradually she comes to keep her excitable ways under control. Almost before you know it, Anne is fifteen and heading off to Queen's Academy to work for her teacher's certificate. Although she is still very much Anne, I can't help agreeing with Marilla as she laments the loss of the funny, melodramatic little girl Anne was.

"I just couldn't help thinking of the little girl you used to be, Anne. And I was wishing you could have stayed a little girl, even with all your queer ways. You're grown up now, and you're going away; and you look so tall and stylish and so - so - different altogether in that dress..."

As if to reassure the reader as much as Marilla, Anne quickly lets us know that:

"I'm not a bit changed - not really. I'm only just pruned down and branched out."

Anne never gives up her vivid imagination, but channels it into her writing and English Literature studies, and she continues to fall in and out of trouble for several volumes to come.

Film: Anne of Green Gables (1985 adaptation)

Kevin Sullivan's adaptation of the first of L.M.Montgomery's classic novels is, in the words of Mary Poppins, "practically perfect in every way." Filmed on location on Prince Edward Island, the novel comes to life, filling in those scenes I couldn't quite visualise from reading the book, and rarely, if ever, "getting it wrong," where I had preconcieved ideas. Watching the film makes me want to catch the next flight to Canada - preferably P.E.Island - and hunt down my very own Gilbert Blythe.

The characters, too, are cast perfectly. Megan Follows is adorable as the precocious red-headed orphan - her eyes alive with wonder and curiosity and spirit, with such a sweet voice (and the pretty nose Anne is so proud of.) Jonathan Crombie as Gilbert Blythe - why, no one else could be Gilbert. In my DVD of the sequel two books, which we will come to at a later date, Gilbert looks like a lesser-known Austen hero - Edmund Bertram, perhaps, or Captain Wentworth - but Crombie stands out from the rest. Mischief, strength of character and decency are written all over his face - and one can see glimpses of the man he will grow up to be, Doctor Blythe, if Sullivan's series would allow it.

I could go on in this way describing every main character. Rachel Lynde - though she could be a little fatter - speaks in just the right voice with, what I, for lack of better knowledge, call a "scoldy Canadian accent," Shy Matthew, though he lacks the beard that does not match his hair, makes up for it letting his eyes, supplemented by a few words, say as much as Anne does with all her chatter. Marilla's outwardly stern demeanor is softened by a twinkle in her eye and the very same "something about her mouth which, if it had been ever so slightly developed, might have been considered indicative of a sense of humour" that Montgomery gave her.

As - despite the attempts of our local newspaper's theatre reviews to prove otherwise - there are only so many ways one can say "this was good, that was good," in one place, I will go onto those few things that bother me slightly about Sullivan's adaptation, that prove that he never was a little girl who was more than half Anne. And yes, this is a bit nit-picky, but one must be fussy if there's nothing greater to find fault with.

The romantic tension between Anne and Gilbert is given a little too much emphasis, which changes the feel of the film from how I approach the book. Yes, it is clear from the very beginning that Anne and Gilbert are made for each other - but Anne really is oblivious to the fact. There is a scene at the "ball" (in the book Anne and Diana attend a concert) when Anne claims that she has the power to make Gilbert do whatever she wants. See, the book Anne, 1. just hated Gilbert at this and refused to acknowledge his existance, 2. had no idea Gilbert liked her, and 3. wasn't the sort of girl who would abuse that power she had over a boy. Similarly, towards the end, Anne realises that Diana is "interested in Gilbert," but said nothing because she thought Anne was in love with him. Again - the girls aren't at that point in their lives. Ruby Gillis is "interested in boys," from an early age and is considered terribly fast and not very nice.

See, for me, Anne of Green Gables isn't a romance. It is a story of girlhood, a pre-romance, if you like. About a child finding her place in the world, getting in and out of scrapes and shaping her character. There are hints of romance to come towards the end of Anne of Avonlea, but that is the future. And though the references in Sullivan's film are subtle, they are not quite subtle enough stand out glaringly to me as a modern insertion.

Other than that, however, my only criticisms are tiny indeed: Sullivan's changing, or more likely missing the significance of, a very very minor character's name. Moody Spurgeon McPherson loses the McPherson and is given Spurgeon as a family name. But in the books, Anne reports that "Moody Spurgeon is going to be a minister. Mrs. Lynde says he couldn't be anything else with a name like that to live up to. " Moody and Spurgeon both being famous preachers, it seems the poor lad was destined for the clergy from birth. And indeed, I cannot think of Moody without Spurgeon nowadays, or Spurgeon without Moody, or either without McPherson.