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Emily Starr was born with the desire to write. As an orphan living on Fazenda Lua Nova, writing helped her face difficult and lonely times. But now all her friends are going to high school in nearby Shrewsbury, and her old-fashioned, tyrannical Aunt Elizabeth will only let her go if she promises to stop writing! Still, this is the first step on Emily's climb to success. Once in town, Emily's activities spark the Shrewsbury gossip. But Emily and her friends are confident – Ilse is a born artist, Teddy is ready to be a great artist, and roguish Perry has the makings of a brilliant lawyer. When Emily publishes her poems and writes for the town newspaper, success seems to be on the way – and with it the first whispers of romance. Then Emily receives a fabulous opportunity and must decide if she wants to change her life forever.
MY THOUGHTS:
We leave our intense young heroine writing a contract for herself, to climb the Alpine Path of literary success and write her humble name on the pinnacle. This part of Emily's story takes her from age 14 to 17, as she attends high school and has a good run at pursuing her dream of writing at the same time.
Her three best friends are joining her at Shrewsbury High School. Dr. Burnley will do anything for Ilse at this stage, Teddy's possessive mother loosens her apron strings just a little, and Perry pays his own way by doing odd jobs.
Aunt Elizabeth is still imposing and proud enough to lead a lifestyle that seems ridiculously backward from anyone else. But for Elizabeth Murray, the refusal to evolve with the times is merely preserving something precious with great inherent value and class. And all the floor sanding, kerosene lamps, and old-fashioned recipes are a lot of fun to read. It's set in the early years of the 20th century, when a pair of girls might knock on a random door and request a meal and beds for the night. (For this is something that Emily and Ilse actually do during this story.)
Ilse is as vibrant and angry as ever, and continues to get away with murder. She slaps her landlady and doesn't get evicted. She breaks the vase in the principal's office and is not expelled. All this inconsequential rage makes her seem completely spoiled, except for Montgomery's hints that Ilse can't get the one thing she really wants. It's never directly mentioned in this book, but I think the clues are plentiful enough for anyone but the most oblivious readers to read between the lines and guess what it is. What's more, her volatile outbursts are undoubtedly keeping what Ilse wants from her. She is a very interesting secondary heroine.
Much of the plot revolves around Emily's friction with her Aunt Ruth, whose house she stays at to be close to the school. (As Shrewsbury is situated just 7 miles or 11 kilometers from New Moon, Emily certainly would not have needed to sail with Aunt Ruth if the events had taken place in modern times.)
A stern and disapproving manner is Ruth's standard. Their motto is to assume that a person is cunning and cunning until proven otherwise. She is too critical to the point where she pushes Emily to be as bad as she thinks she is. And their closed-minded prejudices seem set in stone. The narrator calls her "a stupid, stubborn barnyard chicken trying to raise a lark." However, Montgomery offers glimpses of Aunt Ruth's point of view. Set in her ways for years, she is making a huge sacrifice by opening her home to someone else. The question is will these two agree on anything?
There are a few other incidents of Emily's second sight in action. Not enough to make it ordinary, but just enough to keep the wow factor going. Instead of celebrating it as a rare and distinctive gift, Emily swings to the opposite extreme and cringes at the thought of some anonymous, frightening power lending her body and mind to work from time to time. However, since incidents always produce positive results, we readers are led to conclude that it must be a benign power.
Emily has her fair share of admiring males. The family clan is behind mild cousin Andrew, although he doesn't tick Emily's boxes. And the dynamic Perry Miller's brilliant ability to overcome his own obstacles will never be enough for the Murrays (including Emily) to cancel their Stovepipe Town origins. Her oldest friend, Dean Priest, lurks with amorous intentions that Emily never realizes, despite his uncanny talent for penetrating others' hidden motivations. Unfortunately, his favorite candidate is Teddy Kent, whose jealous and domineering mother probably poses the biggest obstacles of all.
Emily's deeply spiritual nature stands out to me this time. Being outdoors is a reliable tonic for her, and she confesses that she loves things as much as people. (I'm a bit like that, too.) But the solace she draws from the natural elements, considering herself one with the wind, the trees, and the flowers, makes her a complete nature mystic as well as just a budding writer.
Emily faces many ups and downs in her ambition to be a published author. Aunt Elizabeth prohibits the writing of fiction during the Shrewsbury High years, with Mr. Carpenter's approval. There is some good writing advice in these pages, courtesy of Mr. Carpenter. He advises that she is very prodigal with words, and that she should never risk losing her Canadian flavor. And Emily takes seriously her opinion that any writer should always seek to heal and never harm with their pen.
Finally, Cousin Jimmy deserves a mention as possibly the most discreet and insightful person in the entire book. Although most people in his life consider him a simple man-child, he is the person whose opinions ring truest to me, with the possible exception of Mr. Carpenter. But since Jimmy is much less grumpy than Mr. C, he has my vote for best mentor character. Sometimes I start humming 'Fool on the Hill' by the Beatles when I think about him, because he's cousin Jimmy Murray.
These books are a delight to read, so let's conclude, Emily's mission.
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