The Books: “Emily of New Moon” (L.M. Montgomery)

Daily Book Excerpt: YA/Children’s books:

055323370X.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpgEmily of New Moon – by L.M. Montgomery Excerpt 4!!

I always loved this particular chapter, for some reason. I wished I could crawl in between the lines of the page and join Emily, Ilse, and Teddy around Cousin Jimmy’s fire. So Teddy has come into the story. Emily and Ilse befriend Teddy – a boy in their class – and he has a mother who is, uhm, somewhat ODD, to say the least. She hovers over Teddy. Her entire life is her son. Again, this characterization is evidence that Lucy Maud knew exactly where she was going in this series … because the climax with Teddy’s mother does not occur until Book 3 – but the seeds of it are in place. Marvelous. This is why it’s so wonderful to read these books over and over again. You see, with each reading, how good Lucy Maud really IS. “Oh, look … foreshadowing there …” But it’s subtle. She never beats you over the head with it – it’s just that she had carefully plotted out the journeys of these people – so she knew where she was going, and she knew how to set them up. So the payoff in that last book is HUGE. Teddy’s mother is one of Lucy Maud’s most tragic and irritating creations. She’s a martyr – and yet … her martyrdom causes her soul to shrivel, for her to lose her sense of humanity … She does something so evil (eventually) – and yeah, I would call it evil – that Emily’s life is nearly ruined forever. She has that kind of power … and she uses it. From the very beginning, when Ilse and Emily befriend Teddy – and she peeks out the windows at them playing in the yard … she knows. She knows that these two girls will grow into 2 women who conceivably could take her son away from her. Her own tragedy that befell her has caused her to go mad. Her connection to her son is unnatural. And Teddy feels it – even then – as a young boy. He knows his mother is not like other mothers. He loves her … but there are times when her hovering presence makes him feel suffocated.

Oh, and then – also – there is the foreshadowing of Teddy’s “call” to her.

And Ilse is, I believe, one of Lucy Maud’s most WILD creations. Ilse lives by her own rules. Always and forever. She can be quite scandalous. But that is just who she is. When Emily meets her, Ilse is neglected horribly by her father – and her mother disappeared. It is believed (only this story is kept from Emily) that Ilse’s mother ran off with another man. And her father has become so bitter – and Ilse reminds him of happier days – so he literally could barely care less what Ilse does. Ilse dresses in rags. She doesn’t go to school. Or, she does when she FEELS like it. And she makes statements like, “No. I don’t believe in God” – completely scandalizing everyone.

But then comes the autumn (this is the excerpt I’m posting today) – and Cousin Jimmy has to boil the pigs potatoes. There’s a whole chapter about this ritual … I just think Lucy Maud creates such a vivid LIVING picture here. I just want to be there.

There’s reality in it – and yet – it’s magical too. The way life sometimes is when you’re a kid.


Excerpt from Emily of New Moon – by L.M. Montgomery

Emily was sure no built-in boiler could have the charm of the big pot. She helped Cousin Jimmy fill it full of potatoes after she came from school; then, when supper was over, Cousin Jimmy lighted the fire under it and puttered about it all the evening. Sometimes he poked the fire — Emily loved that part of the performance — sending glorious streams of rosy sparks upward into the darkness; sometimes he stirred the potatoes with a long pole, looking, with his queer, forked grey beard and belted “jumper”, just like some old gnome or troll of northland story mixing the contents of a magical caldron; and sometimes he sat beside Emily on the grey granite boulder near the pot and recited his poetry for her. Emily liked this bet of all, for Cousin Jimmy’s poetry was surprisingly good – at least in spots – and Cousin Jimmy had “fit audience though few” in this slender little maiden with her pale eager face and rapt eyes.

They were an odd couple and they were perfectly happy together. Blair Water people thought Cousin Jimmy a failure and a mental weakling. But he swelt in an ideal world of which none of them knew anything. He had recited his poems a hundred times thus, as he boiled the pigs’ potatoes; the ghosts of a score of autumns haunted the clump of spruces for him. He was an odd, ridiculous figure enough, bent and wrinkled and unkempt, gesticulating awkwardly as he recited. But it was his hour; he was no longer “simple Jimmy Murray” but a prince in his own realm. For a little while he was strong and young and splendid and beautiful, accredited master of song to a listening, enraptured world. None of his prosperous, sensible Blair Water neighbours ever lived through such an hour. He would not have exchanged places with one of them. Emily, listening to him, felt vaguely that if it had not been for that unlucky push into the New Moon well, this queer little man beside her might have stood in the presence of kings.

But Elizabeth had pushed him into the New Moon well and as a consequence he boiled pigs’ potatoes and recited to Emily — Emily, who wrote poetry too, and loved these evenings so much that she could not sleep after she went to bed until she had composed a minute description of them. The flash came almost every evening over something or other. The Wind Woman swooped or purred in the tossing boughs above them — Emily had never been so near to seeing her; the sharp air was full of the pleasant tang of the burning spruce cones Cousin Jimmy shovelled under the pot; Emily’s furry kitten, Mike II, frisked and scampered about like a small, charming demon of the night; the fire glowed with beautiful redness and allure through the gloom; there were nice whispery sounds everywhere; the “great big dark” lay spread around them full of mysteries that daylight never revealed; and over all a purple sky powdered with stars.

Ilse and Teddy came, too, on some evenings. Emily always knew when Teddy was coming, for when he reached the old orchard he whistled his “call” — the one he used just for her — a funny, dear little call, like three clear bird notes, the first just medium pitch, the second higher, the third dropping away into lowness and sweetness long-drawn-out — like the echoes in the Bugle Song that went clearer and further in their dying. That call always had an odd effect on Emily; it seemed to her that it fairly drew the heart out of her body — and she had to follow it. She thought Teddy could have whistled her clear across the world with those three magic notes. Whenever she heard it she ran quickly through the orchard and told Teddy whether Cousin Jimmy wanted him or not, because it was only on certain nights that Cousin Jimmy wanted anybody but her. He would never recite his poetry to Ilse or Teddy; but he told them fairy stories, and tales about the old dead-and-gone Murrays in the pond graveyard that were as queer, sometimes, as the fairy stories; and Ilse would recite too, doing better there than she ever did anywhere else; and sometimes Teddy lay sprawled out on the ground beside the big pot and drew pictures by the light of the fire — pictures of Cousin Jimmy stirring the potatoes — pictures of Ilse and Emily dancing hand in hand around it like two small witches, pictures of Mike’s cunning, little, whiskered face peering around the old boulder, pictures of weird, vague faces crowding in the darkness outside their enchanted circle. They had very wonderful evenings there, those four children.

“Oh, don’t you like the world at night, Ilse?” Emily once said rapturously.

Ilse glanced happily around her — poor little neglected Ilse, who found in Emily’s companionship what she had hungered for all her short life and who was, even now, being led by love into something of her rightful heritage.

“Yes,” she said. “And I always believe there is a God when I’m here like this.”

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7 Responses to The Books: “Emily of New Moon” (L.M. Montgomery)

  1. Erin says:

    At th point where she describes Teddy’s whistle I always stop and try to replicate it. Then I get all irritated about the sexual politics of a girl who goes when she is whistled for. Somehow that doesn’t seem like something a Murray would do.

  2. red says:

    Yes, but she is not ALL Murray!!! :)

    She’s got that poetic romantic Starr blood in her as well. The Murrays try to squash it out of her. Ha!

    Teddy is kind of a moron at times. He’s not my favorite of her male heroes. I like the male character in Blue Castle the best.

  3. charlene says:

    Yes, I can’t wait for The Blue Castle!! (Which I think is my absolute favorite LM, based on number of rereadings, though I think the Emily books are better… it’s the whole fairy-tale setup-and-ending that I love.)

    Just wanted to say that I love that you are posting so many excerpts from Emily! I totally have to go back and read these… it’s been too long.

  4. red says:

    charlene – You are most welcome. It’s been a huge pleasure for me.

    And yes – The Blue Castle is just … It’s one of the best escapist books I can think of. I can just LOSE myself in it.

    I love Valancy – and I love Barney (that’s his name, right??) And I love his house – and how she escapes her horrible family – It’s just a wonderful story.

  5. melissa says:

    coming around latish…

    This bit is where you realize that Emily’s art is not just a Starr trait – she is firmly as much in her father’s tradition as in her uncle’s. (I also love the bit in the third book where Emily bemoans the coming modernasation of the book. You feel is as much as she does from _here_, with this entracing fall tradition. I want to join in!)

    And, why does one boil pig’s potatoes, anyways?

  6. melissa says:

    coming around latish…

    This bit is where you realize that Emily’s art is not just a Starr trait – she is firmly as much in her father’s tradition as in her cousin’s. (I also love the bit in the third book where Emily bemoans the coming modernasation of the book. You feel is as much as she does from _here_, with this entracing fall tradition. I want to join in!)

    And, why does one boil pig’s potatoes, anyways?

  7. The Books: “Emily’s Quest” (L.M. Montgomery)

    Next book on the shelf … Emily’s Quest – by L.M. Montgomery The whole ‘furnishing of the Disappointed House’ section is fantastically written. It’s so domestic, so SPECIFIC – Lucy Maud gets into the decorating details with exquisite details ……

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