Warning: the review below contains a considerable amount of
spoilers, even though I do try to leave the reader with some
suspense. Proceed with caution.
Anne's House of Dreams is the fifth book in the series
Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery. In this book,
Anne finally married Gilbert, now a doctor, and they spent the first two
years of their marriage in a little house in Four Winds Harbor, 60 miles
from Green Gables. The house, called by Anne as their "House of
Dreams", was rather small and isolated, but the new couple had
many sweet and some sad moments there, with the birth of two children,
the first one dead soon after birth. Their few neighbors, such as the
retired sailor Captain Jim, capable old maid Miss Cornelia (who latter
married), and an unfortunate woman named Leslie Moore, became their
lifelong friends in time. Oh, and don't leave out the housemaid Susan.
Compared with other books in the series, this one is sweeter than many
of the rest (except maybe Rainbow Valley), and it has a
relatively tightly-knit plot, in contrast to many others that mainly
consist of a large number of "odds and ends", so you may well like it even if you find some other books in the series boring, although the other books also have
their merits.
The novel started with Anne's wedding in Green Gables, where many
familiar faces were revisited, such as Marilla, Mrs. Lynde, Davy and
Dora (not little children anymore), Diana, Jane, Phil, the Echo Lodge
people (including Anne's favorite student Paul), and Mr. Allan. The
people at Patty's Place sent the china dogs Gog and Magog there to Anne
as a wedding present, which presided over in Anne's family throughout the
rest of the series. After the wedding they drove to their house of
dreams and soon met all the neighbors mentioned above. Gilbert
began his doctor practice there, and soon became a very popular and busy
one, while Anne stayed home as a full-time housewife and a dear friend
of their neighbors. Their marriage went on exceedingly well; they
hardly ever quarreled during the whole two years. Time passed quickly
with many lovely and hilarious moments between Anne, Gilbert, Susan and
the neighbors, and a year later Anne had her first-born Joyce.
Unfortunately (well, maybe without that Anne's life will be a bit too
perfect), the "wee lady", whom everyone had looked forward
to, and who almost costed Anne's own life, proved to be too weak to
live. This disaster gave Anne much pain (arguably the most painful
event during her life till then), but it also helped her mature, and another year later the "stork" brought a healthy boy to her, named James Matthew Blythe, or "Jem"
in short, after Captain Jim and Matthew. The neighbors' lives also
changed considerably during that time: Captain Jim happily saw his
"life book" in print, and died peacefully after finishing
reading it, at the advanced age of 78; Miss Cornelia married Mr.
Marshall Elliott, whom she had long decided to marry but postponed the
marriage due to some of his hilarious stubbornness in politics; and
Leslie Moore faced a totally unexpected turn of fate, happily married
the man she truly loved, and had a whole new life before her. However,
as Anne's happiness overflowed, so was her beloved house of dreams,
therefore she had to move to a new larger house named
"Ingleside" in Glen St. Mary nearby, bought cheaply by
Gilbert. Anne shed many tears for parting with her little house of
dreams, but the farewell had to be said, after all.
Besides the ever-so-imaginative Anne and the busy doctor Gilbert, the
number of people appearing in this novel is relatively few: Susan,
Leslie, Captain Jim, Miss Cornelia and Owen Ford (who married Leslie at
the end), so the personality of every one of them is quite
well-developed. Susan seems to be an ordinary 40-year-old housemaid in
this book; her personality will be more fully portrayed in the following
books. Miss Cornelia was a middle-aged old maid, with a kind heart, a
capable hand, a sharp tongue and a great interest in gossip, much like
Mrs. Rachel Lynde back in Avonlea. She had a habitual prejudice against
men and Methodists (herself and most of the people here are
Presbyterians), constantly using phrases like "just like a man" and "man-like", so it always seemed a bit ironic when she
decided to marry a man at the end. Captain Jim was a retired sailor,
now working in the lighthouse on Four Winds Harbor. With a whole life
of adventures behind him, he was as frank and sincere as a child, and
could tell wonderful tales about his voyages and the beautiful history
of the "house of dreams"; he was not a rough man ---
he had an excellent temper and held much respect
for women, even though his grammer was far from perfect; he had a lover
in her youth, "lost Margaret", who was too early lost in the
sea forever, and he had kept being a bachelor for her ever since. These
qualities made him immensely popular among his neighbors, not only Anne,
but even the man-hater Miss Cornelia.
However, none of the people above concerned Anne as much as Leslie, who
was a 28-year-old women with rare beauty but a very unfortunate past, in
which she lost her beloved grandmother, brother and father during her poor
but originally happy childhood, had to marry at the age of 16 against
her wish because of poverty, and her husband Dick Moore turned out to be
an extremely unscrupulous man; he soon left her for a voyage, but
returned with intelligence and memory lost due to brain injury with
unknown cause, so Leslie actually had to take care of him and earn
both's bread, with no apparent hope before her. For a long time after
Anne's arrival, Leslie struggled between her love and her hostile envy
to Anne, until Anne's own sorrow helped her to conquer her envy. Later,
she fell in love with her summer boarder, journalist Owen Ford, who
wrote Captain Jim's "life-book" during the summer; but since
she was not free, both had to bear the bitterness of the impossible
love. Gilbert later suggested giving Dick Moore an operation which
might have him regain memory and intelligence; even though the cost was
high, and even though the unscrupulous Dick might change from a mere burden back into a nightmare for her if he regained intelligence, Leslie decided
to proceed. Maybe God wanted to reward her kindness, the operation had
a totally unexpected result, so Leslie finally got her share of
happiness at last, with no misgivings to mar it.
A notable change in this novel was the availability of telephones,
which caused some significant changes to the lifestyle of people both in
Avonlea and in Four Winds. Even though switches were scarce then
(which means a whole village usually shared a line), it is sort of
amazing how fast telephones became an almost indispensible part of life,
especially for the doctor who would probably be unable to practice when
living in such a remote place without those.
Overall, I find the novel a perfectly lovely and sweet one, which makes
it one of the best in the series. My only gripe is why did Anne become
a full-time housewife, when she had only a small house and few children
to look after then, Susan to help with the housework, and her B.A. degree and
literary talents lying around? Well, old novels are bound to be aged in
some aspects, after all, and anyway L.M. Montgomery was not as much of a
feminist as my another favorite author, Louisa May Alcott.
This book is available in Project Gutenberg, #544.