How do you do,
So, shippers out there may remember that dreadful series, Twilight where the world waited for four books before Bella and Edward get married and do it. Of course, in the television world, Boy Meets World has us waiting for three seasons before Cory and Topanga became a couple and four more would arrive before they tied the knot. Mrs. Montgomery, of course, had us waiting through Anne of Green Gables, Anne of Avonlea, and Anne of the Island before we reach Anne's House of Dreams, a total of three novels to read through before we see the Anne and Gilbert ship finally set sail (four books, once Anne of Windy Poplars was published).
We also don't have to wait too long as the book begins with Anne returning from her days as a principal and Gilbert has just graduated his medical school years. So, the first set of chapters has the preparation for the wedding and the wedding ceremony to follow. Today, weddings are lavish and often commercialized (case in point is Kate Middleton's wedding a few years ago and The Middle lampshaded some of that commercialism, once). They have the standard of everyone gathering at a church or the courthouse, bride's family in one aisle and groom's in the other, the groom comes in, the father of the bride escorts the bride (or she walks down the aisle herself), and they say their vows before the clergyman or justice. Then they go to the reception where someone gets drunk, food is wolfed down, dancing is involved, then the bride tosses the bouquet, the groom tosses the garter, and then they make their grand exit, just some place to change and then it's off to the honeymoon (don't kid yourselves, only in movies and television shows do the bride and groom depart for the honeymoon in their wedding attire). That's 21st Century in the States. With Gilbert and Anne, we are seeing a 19th Century wedding in Canada.
The wedding is not done in the little white church or the little brown church in the vale, nor in a megachurch (since those things didn't even exist then). No, it's done at Green Gables, which is way cheaper than having it done in a church or in the court house. In fact, one should do the same and then there's enough money for more guests. The thing is also done on a smaller and more efficient setting with Minister Allan presiding, Anne comes down from the upper floor, and the birds provide the music in the yard for the reception. Anne doesn't seem to toss the bouquet here, since most of her friends are already married, but I am sure one can imagine it. The garter toss is also not mentioned, but since it was scandalous for a lady to show her ankles, then, I think Gilbert wouldn't even be able to remove it from her in the reception anyway (today, there are bridal gowns that have the hemlines go up to the knee, making it easier for the groom's probing hands to reach the garter). They still throw rice at the departing couple and Paul drives them to the station for their departure. The event is also a sad one for Marilla because Anne is leaving Green Gables forever (but I know one song that would have been of some help to her, if it was written back then, though I know she is not her real mom).
Now comes the part those who haven't read it yet may be wondering: once Anne and Gilbert are out of Green Gables, out of Avonlea, and in the new house at Glen St. Mary, do they do it? Well, I will say that Missus Montgomery is not going to describe the consummation of their marriage because they didn't put that down on paper then (mostly among the English and Americans, it seems less so in other cultures, which is ironic as English Literature seems fascinated with sex). People didn't believe the actions husbands and wives do in their bedrooms were supposed to be known, other than getting up in the morning or getting under the covers at night. It's the same puritanism that saw Ricky and Lucy sleep in two separate beds during the show run. Today, movies and books will have it even if the characters are not married, which ruins the mystery. I know it's quite natural and all, but can any reader out there honestly think of a reason to show it? Would any of them like their time in the intimate act known through the world? It can ruin lives, you know. If you believe what goes on between a husband and wife, or two lovers, in the privacy of their bedroom stays there, good for you, though I have to ask why should the same thing be suspended on fictional people? So, let's just assume they did the deed once they were married and move on without actually seeing it.
What we really want to see the titular house.
The house is in a resort called Four Winds, a reference to Four Winds of Heaven, and it is located in Glen St. Mary. A nice way to start out life in a new home: by the sea. They could wake up each morning and look out the window to see the ocean and hear the cry of seagulls, plus behold the light house close by. When Gilbert and Anne first arrive, Anne spots a girl near the gates and inquires on her, but Gilbert doesn't see her. They instead go into the house and are greeted by Doctor Dave and his wife. The chapter "Captain Jim", where Gilbert first introduces Anne as his wife (the moment most women seem to have their hearts skip a beat on such introductions), is the chapter that introduces Captain Jim, the keeper of the light house near by.
Captain Jim is not anything like Captain Hook or Long John Silver, more like Mr. Crabs from Spongebob Squarepants in human form, sans the love of money, combined with the Captain McCallister from The Simpsons. That is ironic considering that he says there are McAllisters in the country (not including Kevin). Captain Jim tells great stories, some including his passage at sea. Through Captain Jim, we hear of Cornelia Bryant, and of how a schoolmaster brought his wife to Four Winds once. This makes Anne glad to not be the first bride to come to that house.
Cornelia visits the Blythes in September, after their arrival. One thing that happens in the introduction is that Cornelia has a low brow opinion on Methodists, especially their ministers. This is still a time when religion played a dominate role in a community and churches basically became something of an elk club. Sometimes, it basically affected opinions of you on which church you went to. Those that did not go to church were considered heathens and often were kept at bay by the rest, only keeping talk out of politeness or for commerce reasons. Being a Catholic, myself, I am sure I would have been an outsider to the Glen St. Mary community, which is mostly Presbyterian and Methodist, though they would have a reason to call on me once in a while. At the same time, Cornelia talks of the minister being such a nice guy without any back bone or talking crazy about getting people to step out of their comfort zone. Cornelia reveals that she doesn't stand men either, only Anne's husband, Dr. Dave, and Captain Jim, the latter she claims never gets mad.
For the most part, the book's plot becomes mostly Anne sitting in on gossip with the women of the town who tell her of some story involving another here and there, which is just what was done in Anne of the Island (at least, we don't have anymore of that "Jog along, black mare" rubbish). Yet the girl that Anne saw appears suddenly in chapter ten. It turns out her name is Leslie Moore, wife of Dick Moore. The backstory is quickly revealed that Leslie was married young to Dick Moore, practically still hitting puberty, and she found her husband to be something of a tyrant. I guess one can say that she is sorry she ever got married cause the humor is off her now. So, she became a wife at age sixteen to a man who had disappeared for some time and comes back during the story, completely changed. Dick Moore (yeah, go ahead with the play on words) had gone off to Cuba on a trip, as he was a sailor also. Then he disappeared and everyone thought he died while in Cuba until Captain Jim returned with a bearded man who looked like Dick Moore, only he was a little demented. Leslie identified him as her husband, especially once that beard was shaved off.
Such is the story of the Moores. She went from cowing under this guy to being nurse to a big baby. In the meantime, Anne does befriend her, though the beauty the woman has is enough to bring up a humorous moment between her and Gilbert. Anne is still conscious of her hair color and hearing of Gilbert admire Leslie's golden one is enough to get her upset. She even turns down his gentle talk and tells him to admire it on his own (looks like Gilbert might wind up sleeping on the couch). After that, Anne and Gilbert interact more with the Glen residents that they decide to spend their first Christmas there instead of going to Green Gables. So, Marilla, Rachel Lynde, and the twins go up to them, which a new experience for Marilla who had never gone beyond her home before. This is not unusual when one thinks of the 1890s. Back then, most people never left their states (in the US), some didn't even leave the county they grew up in, as traveling was expensive. The idea of someone traveling often and setting to another location is brand new and it was just coming into practice in the last years of the 19th Century. New Years comes and it is suggested that Anne write a book on Captain Jim. She debates on that and finally gets to it, eventually.
I mentioned how we don't see any sex in the book because of the Victorian belief of what goes on in the bedroom ought to stay there, and it stays that way through the book. Then, all of a sudden, Anne has just given birth to a boy. However, the baby sadly dies. Another character comes in, Susan Baker, a spinster lady who refers to Anne as "Mrs. Doctor dear". For a 21st reader, this seems condescending, but it was honorific for it as the lady couldn't simply call her Anne and Mrs. Blythe seemed too ordinary to her. The death of Anne's baby is a personal event for Missus Montgomery who also lost her first child upon birth. In this time, babies did die after birth and there were no medical devices around aid with the baby's life upon leaving the mother. If the baby didn't cry even after all that spanking, it was a sign it was dead. Today, better birthing practices have come that can ensure a baby will live, even prematurely. Birth is a dangerous time for the mothers, too. Even in the 1890s, women still died from childbirth, as the process was painful and done for centuries without drugs to numb the pain (some cultures even train women to stifle their moans or pains while in childbirth, so I heard) and arteries sometimes got cut or the womb itself, causing the mother to bleed to death. Once more, medical practices have improved to allow the birthing to be done in a safe manner.
Though the first baby dies, do not fret for Anne becomes a mother again near the end of the book, once more with a boy, and this time the babe will live. They name him James Matthew after two old men Anne knew, though the sequels would call him by his childhood pet name of Jem (and this was before Harper Lee named the eldest of the Finch children in her book. Makes one wonder if she read Anne's House of Dreams). Susan Baker then becomes attached to the Blythes and will be there to help in raising the children who will show up in the sequels.
As to Dick Moore, Gilbert decides to have a surgery done on his skull, though Anne goes against it and they have a disagreement over it, just so he could return to his normal self and not be demented any more. When he does this, it leads to a shocking discovery: that isn't Dick Moore but his cousin, George. It turns out, Dick actually died in Cuba from Yellow Fever and George has been impersonating him the whole time. So, there is the unfortunate implication of a woman who has been living in sin with a man who was pretending to be her dead husband (ring a bell?). At least it is not like in The Addams Family where a Nosferatu like character was sent to make all believe he was Uncle Fester and it turned out he was Fester. They both share a trait of having heterochromic eyes (each eye has a different color than the other). But, that proves okay because Leslie is in love with another man named Owen Ford. They court and quickly become engaged.
Owen Ford is introduced as a male counterpart to Anne, being that they are both writers, though he wants to write the Great Canadian Novel (sort of like someone wanting to write the Great American Novel). As it turns out, his sole purpose, other than to fall for Leslie and court her upon learning she was free, is to write a book about Captain Jim. At the end of the book, after seeing an advanced copy of Ford's book, Captain Jim "Crosses the bar" as they say, meaning he dies. Leslie also becomes friendly with Anne after the death of her first child, claiming that she understands her, which is something I tend to question. Anne had experienced sorrow her childhood, climaxing with the death of a guardian, and only this event is why Leslie is willing to consider her a kindred spirit? Where's that scope for the imagination?
As to Miss Cornelia, she also has a beau in form of Marshall Elliot who proposes and they agree to marry at the end of the book now that the Grits are in power (yeah, I find that amusing in my perspective) and he shaved off his beard that bothered her, because he didn't intend to do so until the Grit party comes to power. It took until the year 1896 before that happened. Miss Cornelia and Marshall Elliot getting hitched is a little out of the left field, and largely showing that Montgomery has a need to marry characters off. It's almost as though the only women allowed to remain single, even at old age, are Marilla Cuthbert and Susan Baker, neither of whom got a man by this point and it seems that they never will (Rachel Lynde is a widow and doesn't intend to remarry, either). Finally, Gilbert and Anne chose to leave the House of Dreams after being there for over a year (I guess the honeymoon is over) and they move to another house near Glen St. Mary. The Old Morgan House is where they move to as Gilbert will be close enough to his work. With that Anne's House of Dreams comes to a close.
Anne's House of Dreams is not as bad as Anne of Avonlea though not as good as Anne of Green Gables and just barely equals to Anne of the Island. The fresh new look that comes with Anne and Gilbert marrying and moving to Glen St. Mary gives the book a feel that we have gone from one room to another in the journey of life. With this, Anne and Gilbert are the main heroes of the book while everyone else seem to be passing through. Diana, Marilla, Rachel Lynde, the twins, Mr. Harrison, and David Irving have diminished as characters in this book, largely showing up when needed, while the new characters, Captain Jim, Miss Cornelia, Marshall Elliot, Owen Ford, Leslie Moore, and George show up for us to make acquaintances with. This does reflect on what happens when one moves away from the home that one has grown up with. Suddenly one is a stranger in a strange land and meeting some unfamiliar people.
The characters are the good parts of the book (and the chapters with the wedding are splendid and the childbirth provides sadness) but the rest hardly seem out of the ordinary. Once more, the same tropes of the Anne of Green Gables series is replayed with a spinster lady whose love has been delayed by some outside or inside obstacle, a wedding, a death of an old man, and a young girl who longs to escape the world. At least Montgomery still maintains the flair in her writings that made Anne of Green Gables enjoyable.
One thing to add is this book is turning a hundred years old this year as it was published in 1917. Book three, Anne of the Island, was published within months of the outbreak of World War I, while Anne's House of Dreams was written and published during it. So, both books do provoke a kind of nostalgic look back to pre-war Canada. I'd like to think that Montgomery was busy writing this book in 1916, which is twenty years after the events of the book. That certainly makes a good amount of time to develop some nostalgia for peace time. I can relate to that in my current time. It's been twenty years since I was to begin 6th Grade, another transitional phase in life where we get into World History, deep science, a level of math, and start to have all those sex ed moments (provided by a group of teenagers in the T.G.I.F.). It's also been twenty years since the same boy who sat through all that was bedazzled to see the sequel to Jurassic Park come on the screen, along with Star Wars Trilogy: Special Edition (before I became nostalgic for the unaltered versions), and started hearing that song from Titanic played around by many friends.
I am sure that for the faults, Anne's House of Dreams can be a fun book to read for couples, especially those who are entering twenty years of marriage and want to look back to simpler times: even if they were in smaller houses or apartments, had less of a disposable income, yet had less responsibilities to deal with and often more time to each other. Now, to any reader out there named Anne who has just married or are getting married, you will see that in ten or twenty years (God willing and the creek don't rise), but I do believe all those Annes out there -- even if that is not your name -- who has been married for decade would defiantly agree with this. Either way, you can tell me how much scope to the imagination there is in being newlywed.
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