Anne of Green Gables

I recall having watched this movie on TV a good few years ago, I must have been between 11 and 13. My mum had always told me of "Anne of Green Gables" and I was so excited to FINALLY get to watch it. Though, apart from Anne's red hair, her being adopted by a strict old lady and some stuff with a hot guy, I really cannot remember much else about the movie.

Alas, I had quite forgotten about dear Anne until I came across the book sitting on my cousin's bookshelf this year. And the darling that she is, she learnt me the book by L. M. Montgomery.

Thinking about the book now I am unable to quite bring my opinions into words, though I do know that I enjoyed it.

We first meet Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert and get a sort of feel for them and we then meet Anne. And she is a completely spritely young girl who seems wiser beyond her years.

We fall in love with this little girl and embark on her journey to becoming a young woman in this book. We experience all the lessons she learns along the way, the friends she makes, basically all the important events in her life which lead to the person she is to become, and not forgetting her infamous rivalry with the dashing Gilbert Blythe. We become engrossed in all these little bits and pieces of Anne's life and are eager to see what will happen next, and to know what will become of Anne Shirley...

I am a little disappointed when Anne seems to lose a bit of her bubbly personality as she gets older, but I came to realize that she is still the same Anne, just a bit more refined and with a more realistic view on life. At the end of the day, even the sparky Anne of Green Gables couldn't go by completely unscathed by life....

The most disappointing thing for me was the death of Matthew Cuthbert. I still wish he hadn't died. Even though he was a quiet character (that's probably why I felt a greater attachment to him), he was probably my favourite after Anne. He really had such a good and clean heart and I guess I just sympathized with him as I felt an understanding for and of him.

But death in a novel, like in life, is something you just have to eventually get over. And so though I still mourn him, I am able to deal with his loss and see how his death fitted into the greater scheme of the novel, and in particular, with the route Anne's life was to take...

All in all it was a good read.

I hadn't known that Anne of Green Gable's was the first book of a series previously, I was completely surprised when I found out. And now I have to read the rest! Even though I basically know what's going to happen (as I could not stop myself from reading the snippets of each book). So I am now patiently waiting for my dear cousin to get her hands on the rest of the books :)