The Red Queen, Philippa Gregory

I was lent The White Queen and The Red Queen by a colleague, and although they work well as stand-alone novels, I think they work best when read as a pair. After following the changing fortunes and loyalties of the House of York during the Wars of the Roses, it is interesting to witness the same era from the point of view of the enemy; the house of Tudor and of Lancaster. Through her Lancastrian characters, Gregory offers alternative interpretations of events and the motivations of the players. Those people we've come to know as friends, now become enemies, traitors, whose actions and motives become suspicious when seen from a distance.

We first meet Margaret Beaufort, the narrator and titular Red Queen, as a very young child. Margaret is a precocious child, strongly religious and very self-assured, convinced that God is calling her to be a nun. Her mother, however has other plans. Margaret is to marry into the Tudor family and bear a possible heir to the throne. She is a lonely girl, married at the age of twelve, a widowed mother at thirteen, and it is made quite clear to her that she is unloved. Despite her certainty - bordering on arrogance - that she is destined for greatness, her mother makes it quite clear that the only thing that Margaret can do that is of any importance whatsoever, is to give birth to the King of England. So, once she has accepted her lot, that is what Margaret will do. Her son will be king; he must.

Philippa Gregory's novels are characterised by their depiction of strong women who have shaped history, but more often than not behind the scenes and neglected by historians. Both Margaret Beaufort and Elizabeth Woodville, the White Queen, are fiercely committed to their cause, ruthless and ambitious to the exclusion of all other concerns, sometimes more than the men. But while Elizabeth was fiery, driven by her love of her family and her need for vengeance on those who have harmed her and hers, Margaret's nature is cold and sometimes cruel. She is driven by her certainty that the throne is hers by right and that any means are justified by the end: not just for her good, or for the good of her house or even the country, but because it is divine will. I found Margaret to be an interesting, but unlikeable person, and once again I just wanted to cry, "Stop! How can it possibly be worth all the bloodshed?"

The White Queen, Philippa Gregory

Your house's emblem should not be the white rose but the old sign of eternity [...] the snake which eats itself. The sons of York will destroy each other, one brother destroying another, uncles devouring nephews, fathers beheading sons. They are a house which has to have blood and they will shed their own if they have no other enemy.

It was interesting to read Philippa Gregory's The White Queen last week, in the run-up to the wedding of Prince William to Catherine Middleton. The White Queen also opens with a royal wedding between King Edward IV York, to Elizabeth Woodville, a beautiful young widow of the opposing house of Lancaster.

Not for Edward and Elizabeth is there a carriage ride watched by billions, months of hype, houses draped in flags and bunting and a Knit Your Own Royal Wedding book published especially for the occasion. Edward and Elizabeth's marriage takes place in haste and in secrecy before the latest battle in the War of the Roses, before a handful of witnesses. After the event, Elizabeth's brother casts doubt on the validity of the marriage, witnessed by three women and a young boy, and warns her that it would be easy for the King to claim that he had never been legally married and prove it all to be a ploy to get Elizabeth into his bed.

Ms Gregory demonstrates this marriage to be a whole-family affair. There is not just a new queen, but her whole family becomes embroiled in politics at a very turbulent time. Philippa Gregory shows a different side to the story from that of the history books, focusing on the role of the women behind the scenes. From the moment of her marriage, Elizabeth has to keep her wits about her at all times, as she gets mixed up in a world of scheming and treachery, obsessive ambition and murder, in a seemingly endless cycle of revenge. Elizabeth describes how her rival, Margaret of Anjou, "will not accept her defeat, she will plot and scheme for her son, just as Edward told me, that I must plot and scheme for ours. She will never stop until she is back in England and the battle is drawn up again. She will never stop until her husband is dead, her son is dead, and she has no one left to put on the throne. This is what it means to be Queen of England in this country today." But once Margaret of Anjou has ceased to be a threat, new claimants for the throne rise. As described in the quote at the top of the page, when there are no threats to Edward's rule from outside his house, his own brothers turn against him and each other, and with each betrayal, Elizabeth vows vengeance. The book paints a bitter picture of how unforgiveness destroys and is never satisfied.

The White Queen is set earlier than Gregory's usual era (The Tudors) and I confess I have little memory of my history lessons before the resolution of the war covered in this novel - see the first episode of Blackadder to see how that might or might not have turned out. I also found it a little confusing for the sheer number of people named Edward and Richard, and the different names and titles of other characters. But once I got my head around who was who, I was fascinated by the twists and turns, the to-and--fro of the houses' fortunes, culminating in the disappearance of Elizabeth's sons to King Edward, well-known as "the Princes in the Tower." Being a historical novel based upon real people, it is difficult to work out how much of the story is true and how much is speculation, although Gregory's note at the back explains some of her decisions for the direction of the plot. With conflicting theories and sources available to her, Gregory had to choose her own theories about the most likely truth, although she does not provide any definite answer.

Philippa Gregory has written a companion novel: The Red Queen, from the perspective of the "other side:" Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry Tudor.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Suzanne Collins

Contains spoilers

Since I first heard of the book, one question bothered me: What is a mockingjay? In case I'm not alone in be plagued by little details, I will answer this now. I guessed that it was a bird, a hybrid species. In fact it is the offspring of a female mockingbird and a male jabberjay - a genetically altered species developed by the Capitol with the ability to repeat speech, used for spying purposes. By the time of The Hunger Games, the jabberjay has more or less died out, but the mockingjay lives on, unable to imitate speech but with a skill for repeating song. When she volunteered for the Games, Katniss was given a brooch in the shape of the mockingjay, and it came to be a secret symbol of the rebellion against the Capitol. Katniss is rescued from the second round of the Hunger Games by rebels and taken to District 13, hitherto believed to have been utterly destroyed in the last uprising. She is elected as their mockingjay personified: a mascot, a spokesperson for those fighting against President Snow and the Capitol, the face of the revolution.

For the second time, Katniss Everdeen has survived the death trap set by the Gamemakers to silence the dissentors against the Capitol's regime. But her freedom has come at a terrible cost. Now Panem is openly at war, and Peeta is held captive by President Snow.

When I read The Hunger Games I was fascinated by the history of Panem, and wondered to myself how the world evolved into this nightmare. In Mockingjay, I came to think early on that we were being shown. Katniss opens by being furious at the District 13 rebels, hating them, and my first thoughts were, "these are the good guys. These are the Capitol's enemy. And they've rescued you." But Katniss has moved from being the Capitol's pawn to that of the District 13 rebels. Her hometown has been destroyed and she is heartsick, feeling helpless. She is not leading the rebellion, she is simply being used. This is not the simple but decent lifestyle of the Smoke in Uglies, but a ruthless army who will do whatever it takes to overthrow the government. Collins does not shy away from the messiness of war, and the fact that whatever side you are on, you will get your hands dirty. This is not a clean fantasy war with insignificant casualies (and maybe the odd tragedy of a fallen brother or friend thrown in for good measure.) This is brutal, calculated, and horrible. The deaths are relentless, with beloved characters mentioned in a sentence as having died off the page. Yet the magnitude of the slaughter does not desensitise you, but overwhelms you with the senseless waste of life. We are left under the impression that Panem (once North America) is all that is left of humanity. (Whatever happened to the rest of the world? We are not told.) The war becomes a massacre. District 12 has been - not decimated, because only about 10% of the population has been left alive. This war could truly be the end of the human race.

The fantasy genre is full of uneven battles that you just know the good guys will win, eventually. Usually, overthrowing an evil government is portrayed as part of the hero's day's work. But in Mockingjay there are no heroes, and though you know that the Capitol must be defeated, the odds are not in our protagonists' favour and we really feel the near-impossibility of their task and what it will cost them.

The Lord of the Rings: J.R.R. Tolkien

There is no other book quite like The Lord of the Rings.

Before 2001, it was, to me, one of those great big books everyone had on their shelves but that very few people actually read. Like the complete works of William Shakespeare, or War and Peace. It was something everyone was going to read, "one day," except for one or two of the brighter sparks who had actually read it and just couldn't quite explain why it was so good.

Among my fellow-geeks, it is a point of some shame that I never actually read LotR before seeing the film. I was aware that there was a film, and that my dad was excited to go to see it. I was sixteen and in year 11, the class chosen by the teachers to book a special viewing of the film on the day of release, which also happened to be the last day of the Christmas term.

I wasn't really interested in "fantasy." I enjoyed Harry Potter, occasionally revisited The Chronicles , and had laughed at a couple of Discworld books, though I didn't quite "get" them. Still, after seeing the trailer, before the first Harry Potter movie, I thought that there were worse ways of spending an afternoon...

... or another afternoon...

...or four afternoons in total! In the end, I ran out of excuses to watch The Fellowship of the Ring in the cinema, and I wanted to know what happened next. Unwilling to wait a whole year to find out what happened next, I fetched down Dad's monster illustrated hardback of the novel, and decided to read on.

I confess, I found it hard-going. It was wordy. Very wordy. My eyes skimmed over whole chunks, barely taking it in, and I was disappointed that the whole first half of The Two Towers dealt with the characters who were not Frodo and Sam, whose quest I was most interested in. Ditto The Return of the King. Still, I plodded on until I found myself bawling my eyes out at the Grey Havens. I wanted a happy-ever-after, but it was bittersweet. And I cried.

A year passed and soon it was time to prepare for The Two Towers film. I decided to read the book again, to remind myself of the story, and I took in more detail this time. I was horrified by Denethor's end, thrilled by Eowyn's speech to the head Nazgul, and fell rather in love with Faramir. But still, they came secondary to the hobbits.

Re-reading the books became a tradition until about 2005, when I was in the second year at university. I lived and breathed The Lord of the Rings. It inspired me to write my first novel - a rather juvenile fairy-tale fantasy quest about a fallen star - but mine, the first full-length novel I could claim to complete. I even read the Silmarillion. A shared interest helped me to make new friends (and alas an enemy, a rival.) It became so much more than just a novel, even of the epic variety.

But then, life got in the way, and I almost forgot about LotR until winter came around at the end of last year. I decided it was time to revisit my neglected friend, and to really savour the novel, by reading just one chapter a night before I went to bed. I was older, (theoretically) wiser, and I wondered what I would get out of it on this reading.

Alas, I didn't keep notes, so I'll have to just summarize.

I hadn't been reading fantasy very often lately, except the odd Discworld, which didn't count as it dealt with the mundane, day-to-day existance, which happened to be in a fantasy world. And I was re-reading the Chronicles of Narnia, which were essentially children's books.

I confess, the first chapter or two I felt a bit difficult to draw me back in, thanks to having to get back into the old frame of mind. Just for a chapter or two. But I found it easier to read, the chapters decent lengths when before I had regarded them as long-winded. Also, there were more action and events than I remembered - not too much "getting there." ("The Council of Elrond" is the exception.)

Among the fellowiship, I looked at Boromir differently this time around. I had been used to thinking of him as, if not quite a villain, as the dodgy, untrustworthy member of the party. This time I viewed him as I think he was intended, seeing his strengths as well as his weakness. He was a strong, loyal, noble man, brave in battle and good-hearted. He wanted to do what was best for his people - and that was how the Ring ensnared him.

When the Fellowship separated, however, I found my attention and interest following different characters. I had previously regarded the Rohan story, in particular, as just an obstacle along the way to the grand finale. This time I found it fascinating: the history of this nation of courageous men and women. I felt for Eowyn, a beautiful, horribly frustrated young woman, who knows she could be so much more if only she was given the chance.

Faramir, still, is my favourite character, and I wish that we got to see more of him. This is where I am most angry at the film adaptation, (that and Frodo sending Sam away at Cirith Ungol) because though quiet and thoughtful, he is a strong-willed man of integrity. The film turns him into a weaker, doubtful version of his brother, just trying to win approval from his father. I am glad, however, that in the extended DVD of the movie, we get to see a glimpse of his romance with Eowyn. That is a beautiful moment, and so much more romantic, I think, than the fairy-tale romance of Aragorn and Arwen.

Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli are the characters I can care too little about. Aragorn is well-written, but I think, despite his moments of doubt, he is a character too high up to empathise with. Similarly the Elf, Legolas, is too perfect. (In the days of old, I could tell a fellow lover of the story - whether it be book or film - from a casual viewer by asking who their favourite character was. If they said "Legolas," there was one reason, and that was for Orlando Bloom in a blond wig. But poor bloke, he did get some of the corniest lines in the film.)

The Lord of the Rings is gripping, I think, for the heroes who really would rather not be heroes at all. The Shire embodies all that is comforting and homey, and the Hobbits find themselves swept up in this great adventure, full of danger and the threat of death at every corner. To a certain extent they do put themselves forward (at the Council of Elrond) but really, it is shown that they could do nothing else. And it is a story which pushes them to the edge of endurance, constantly testing them, where all they can control is "what to do with the time that is given to them." The hobbits are not heroes, or kings, or rulers, or anyone important, yet it is their actions which determine the future of the world.

The book's ending has a thoroughly different feel to it than the film. The film has probably the more "obvious" ending. After the big finale, the destruction of the One Ring, the Return of the King movie finishes by tidying up the loose ends: Aragorn becomes king, various characters get married, the hobbits go home and pick up their old lives - but Frodo cannot settle in Middle-Earth and leaves on the Grey Ships with the Elves.

In the book, of course, there is "The Scouring of the Shire." The hobbits arrive home to find that Saruman has taken over Bag End and is in the process of trashing the Shire and making the hobbits' lives miserable with "a little mischief in a mean way." The battle to overthrow him and restore the Shire to its former beauty, after the War of the Ring, seems a small skirmish, easily won and over pretty quickly. One could argue it is anticlimatic - which is probably why it was omitted from the film, and I bear no grudges against Peter Jackson et al for making that decision. After all, a film is different from a book and requires different narrative techniques. Nonetheless, I think it is an important episode. It is quite distressing to find that, after seemingly ridding the world of a great evil, the Hobbits return home to find it even affecting their homeland, a place that seemed pretty much untouchable. The other crucial point is that it shows just how far the four hobbits have come in the past year - especially when compared with the hobbits who have stayed at home, sat back and watched it all going on around them.

It was a matter of great regret that I came to the end of The Lord of the Rings last night, leaving me feeling quite bereft. The end result of the novel gives the impression of just skimming the surface of a much deeper story, and an entire world that it would be quite easy to get lost in. Knowing just how much thought and editing went into the process of completing the novel, it's not really that surprising.

Now the problem remains: just what can I read to follow on from that?

Unseen Academicals and Monstrous Regiment, Terry Pratchett

Having no interest in football, and the Wizards subseries of the Discworld books not being one of my favourites, I managed not to read Pratchett's latest novel, Unseen Academicals until this week. Coincidentally, it happened to be the weekend of the Saints v Pompey (Southampton versus Portsmouth football clubs) match. It was quite eerie to be reading about how (I paraphrase) it is easier to hate the football teams closest in proximity than those based further away, while the radio news reported the numbers of police in force - some on horseback! - at the game to try to prevent violence! It was easy to get muddled between reality and the book at that point.

I needn't have worried about this book, however. You don't need to be in on the joke or have football expertise to appreciate Pratchett's commentary, although perhaps it helps if you are aware of the football culture in England. Pratchett cleverly wove Romeo and Juliet into the context of professional football context, with Romeo (or Trev Likely) as a reluctant footballer, son of a footballing legend and Juliet as beautiful-but-fick WAG (an acronym I personally hate in the singular but struggled to construct the sentence in a way to make it work as it should be used, in plural) who goes into modelling. I was surprised to find myself warming to Juliet and Trev. I live in a culture where footballers and their wives/girlfriends are at once idolised and savaged, that it was refreshing to find them shown as, if there is such a thing, well-rounded stereotypes.

Being a bit of a Vetinari fangirl, I was pleased to see plenty of Ankh-Morpork's Tyrant, pulling the strings of everything that went on in the novel, as he does so well. It was also good to see Glenda, head of the Night Kitchen at the Unseen University, standing up to him, and barging into the Oblong Office without so much as an invitation. (But she had a pie.)

In Unseen Academicals Pratchett reveals hitherto unrecognised (by me, at least, to this extent) powers in touching not only the funny-bone but the heart. This is thanks to the character of Nutt. Nutt is (possibly) a goblin, from Uberwald, very polite (if stilted and not always quite sure of the right things to say) seeking to earn "worth." Someone who begins as a rather comic character develops into something deeper. His inner battles are heart-rending and, again, evoke sympathy for a character you wouldn't expect.

Before Unseen Academicals, I read The Monstrous Regiment, a Discworld novel that other people dismissed as "not being up to Pterry's usual standard." Trusting their opinions, I had never got around to reading that one, but when I did, it turned out to be not at all what I was expecting. Somehow I found it very powerful, and I find myself, a few days on, stopping and musing on the book in a deeper way than I expect from a Discworld novel. Thinking deeply about what, I'm not entirely sure. Monstrous Regiment has been accused of being not-too-subtle propaganda against war, or something like, but that wasn't what I took out of it. While reading it, I laughed aloud a lot, as each member of the regiment disclosed a secret, and when the officer, Lieutenant Blouse, declares that he is the only one who can be convincing as a woman.

But the more powerful parts of the book, for me, came in the back stories of some of the soldiers in the Regiment, of which we are given just enough information to make it feel a lot darker than Pratchett's usual style. In Doctor Who, the most shocking and powerful stories are the ones where the aliens are incidental and that the humans are the monsters. Some of the soldiers are running to find something, or someone, while others are running away. And it is not from vampires, or assassins, or such villains that they are running, but the Working School, a place of horror that is darker than the usual monsters of fantasy due to its containing none. The characters are eccentric and amusing, but they are damaged, damaged by other human beings, and that is what remains after the book is finished and the covers are closed.

Rilla of Ingleside, L M Montgomery

Contains spoilers!

Again, I'm writing about a book by L M Montgomery that isn't the obvious one, though getting closer each time, working backwards.

Rilla of Ingleside is the final book in the Anne of Green Gables sequence, but it is very different in tone from the first. I would go as far as to say that, contrary to popular belief, and the way it is now marketed, this is not a children's book at all, but a young adult novel. Clearly when the books were first published, there were not the distinctions we now have of a book being for "children" or "adults."

It is also a book that is sadly overlooked. If not exactly out of print in this country, certainly you can't buy it in the shops any more. As far as Puffin Classics are concerned, the series ends with Anne of Ingleside, with an unsettling foreboding of what is to come. Probably the casual fan, who's read the first book or two and seen the films would not know that Rilla or her prequel, Rainbow Valley even exist, and might well be shocked to read it. I'm currently losing myself in the book as I am trying to adapt it for a screenplay. I think it would work as a stand-alone drama, and, knowing I'd love to see it brought to life and not trusting anyone else to do it well - especially Kevin Sullivan who made the perfect first film of Anne, imperfect Sequel and travesty of a continuing story, realised the job is for me.

As a child I read all of the books, borrowing them from the library, but took in little. Reading Rilla, I think I got as far as finding out all the names of the Blythe children - being horrified that Anne would call her son Shirley! - and that Marilla had died off-stage, but only really cared about Anne. I'd taken the time to get to know her from her child but was still at the stage where grown ups were "boring" and their troubles far from my understanding. I don't know whether I skimmed the book without taking anything else in, not understanding the politics, caring for the gossip or understanding the historical context, or gave up after a few chapters.

I rediscovered the book when I was no younger than twenty, read it from dusk til dawn, and howled pretty much from start to finish.

Rilla is a coming-of-age story. It is a war story - the only Canadian account of World War 1 from the women's perspective (correct me if I'm wrong.) To me, it hits hard as a tragedy.

Bertha Marilla Blythe is Anne and Gilbert's youngest daughter. She is fifteen, empty-headed, vain but lovable. Her novel shows her growing in maturity, bringing up an orphaned war-baby, battling joys and sorrows, friendships, parties and love. She is the last child left living at home through the turbulance of war, and it is through her eyes that we see the effect of war on those who are left behind.

For my A-Levels I studied for a year poetry, novels, diaries and non-fiction all written during or about the First World War, until it was coming out of my ears. My impression of that literature is that almost all the things we read were one of two extremes: Naive, idealistic patriotism, which in retrospect seemed hideously and tragically outdated when compared with the tales of horror and madness and incompetence - two views that seemed irreconcilable. There were those who knew - Wilfred Owen with "Dulce et Decorum Est" - and those who never did - Rupert Brooke with "The Soldier."

I would put Rilla onto the syllabus. Montgomery's view of war is not quite either of these. Certainly she was no pacifist. The only pacifist in the story is a stubborn, contrary, ranting church elder who makes himself ridiculous, and is often accused of being on the side of the Germans. (When adapting Whiskers-on-the-Moon I have to make it clear that it is he who is objectionable, not the fact of being a pacifist. My views are not the same as Susan's, for example, though I can no longer call myself an absolute pacifist I don't want to cause offence by implying what I don't mean. At the same time, I don't want to change the characters or the views from the author's intention. I've always pictured Whiskers as rather a Mr Collins-type figure, as portrayed in the 1995 BBC Pride and Prejudice.)

Certainly at first, the young men of Glen St. Mary show excitement at the prospect of going to war, having a boys' own adventure. Jem, Anne Blythe's eldest son, even says "Hurrah!" That is at the beginning of the war. When he returns, at the end of the novel, he is changed. But the courage and sacrifice of the boys and men who fought in the war is never thrown into doubt.

Walter, the middle son, counters this jolly, naive excitement. He is the sensitive one, the dreamer of the family. He sees further than the other boys, past the glamour of the uniforms and the marching, to the blood, the pain and the heartbreak the four years of war are to bring.

It is Walter's journey that makes me call this book a tragedy, though that may be a misleading term. I'm not talking tragic antiheroes with their fatal flaw. All I'm saying is that this book makes me cry, and more, that it makes me hurt.

Walter Blythe does not join the army immediately. More: he resists. He despises himself because he cannot shake off the feeling that he must go - personified in his visions of the Pied Piper which make their first appearance in Rainbow Valley - but is afraid to. It is Walter's battles with his conscience that, for me, are at the heart of this book, the struggle for courage pitted against his love of the beauty of life and hatred of ugliness. When at last he enlists in the army, it is the book's great triumph, stronger (to me) than Rilla's commitment to bringing up baby Jims, or falling in love, or any growth in maturity.

Even if it were not foreboded as early on as in Anne of Ingleside, it is inevitable that Walter would be the one who is killed in battle. That, in itself is not what is so painful - favourite characters die in lots of books. It adds poignancy, regret, but the sorrow for the death of, say, Sirius Black, is clean. And Walter's story has closure. The chapter, "And so, goodnight," where Rilla - and we - read his final letter, written on the last night of his life, after "The Piper" appears in a premonition of his death, provides that.

"Rilla, the Piper will pipe me 'west' tomorrow. I feel sure of this. And Rilla, I'm not afraid. When you hear the news, remember that. I've won my own freedom here -- freedom from all fear. I shall never be afraid of anything again -- not of death -- nor of life, if after all I am to go on living."

The worst thing, the reason Rilla has such a painful effect to read is because of Anne. I first met her when I was seven or eight, and she was eleven. I write this as though she is a friend. Yes, I had imaginary friends as a kid. Yes, I cared about characters in books as though they were real. But Anne was more even than that. Anne was a part of me. I identified with her so closely I can't disconnect myself from her. I read that book dozens of times in my childhood. I knew it inside out. I knew her story, right up to her "happily ever after" at the end of Anne of the Island where she realised she loved Gilbert Blythe, had always loved him.

I didn't realise there was more.

Of course I knew there were other books. I'd even read some, if not taken in much detail. But the first three books were the ones in our house. They were the ones that were always there, constant friends. They were the books I grew up with.

Then, at seventeen I was fed a diet of World War 1. Spending a year in the company of Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon et al does funny things to you. It could desensitise you after a while. But it didn't me.

Like Anne, like Walter, I've a vivid imagination. I feel things. And to come back to Anne's world; safe, timeless little Avonlea, and find it drawn into time, (the introduction of a telephone in the fourth or fifth book in the series being the first clue to that) and more - to a time I grew to know so well, in so much horror and heartbreak - I hated Montgomery for wishing that onto Anne, my Anne.

And yet, it happened. Sweet, precocious, slightly annoying infants in the middle of the nineteenth century did grow up, have families, and have their families torn apart by war. They didn't deserve it. And no, they never would be the same again. No one who lived through those four years could possibly come through unchanged. Watching the BBC's recent My Family at War demonstrates that.

Rilla is a bittersweet book. It should find its way into the World War 1 canon, because it is such a detailed, poignant depiction of the effect of war on those who stayed behind. And for that I love it. But if I read it as the end of the story that began with a chapter entitled "Mrs Rachel Lynde is Surprised," I can barely recognise it. I can barely recognise myself. Reading Anne of Green Gables, I am an innocent little girl again, with a pigtail and, yes, even the straw hat, possibly not yet much troubled even by the bullies that were to sap my confidence for ten, twelve or more years. Reading Rilla, I am a literature student who has studied that module at A-Level. The A Level student devours Rilla. She always did have a bit of a dark side. The child is bewildered by it. I have yet to find a way to reconcile the two Katies, though I am the same person. I am yet to reconcile Anne of Green Gables to being the same series as Rilla of Ingleside.