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

Daily Book Excerpt: YA/Children’s books:

Emily’s Quest – by L.M. Montgomery

Now the Emily books start getting really really sad. The whole unspoken unrequited love thing with Teddy really speaks to me – even though it’s frustrating to read it. I want to tell her to give up her pride – to make herself more available to him – to not make Teddy have to WORK so hard. But if she did any of those things, she would not be Emily. But more than that: the hope of her little book she wrote – having the hopes crushed by rejection letters – and then totally crushed by Dean. Dean, in his gentle way, goes right for the jugular – and basically says, “Stop hoping that you can DO anything with your writing, Emily.” Emily is grief-stricken. She has no Teddy. All she has is her writing. What would life be without her writing? How can she stop hoping? She burns up her book – and then almost immediately afterwards – regrets it. She can never get her book back (of course she doesn’t have a copy … this is 1914 or whatever – NOW she would have to erase it off her hard drive as well!) … and her sadness is so intense that she feels she must go outside, she must get OUT, she is trapped, a trapped creature – so she runs out into the hall, trips on something, falls down the stairs, and her foot is pierced by Laura’s sewing scissors which had been left on the landing. The injury is so serious that it is thought Emily will never walk again. She tries to recover. But everything is different now.

Anyhoo. Here’s an excerpt from this section. It’s all really bleak and sad. Great writing, though, as always. Oh – and this excerpt good because we had that big discussiong about the merits of Dean yesterday.

And, I don’t know … these books always feel, to me, like Lucy Maud’s most personal … and the darkness in them is a reflection of that. Lucy Maud had a sad life. Sometimes reading her journals (especially from about 1918 on) are unbearable. Her sadness is so huge, and she can’t express it. She must remain calm, and quiet … because her husband’s mental illness is a secret, and obviously stigmatized … and he would lose his livelihood if it “got out” that he was a nutjob. I often wonder if people in those towns knew about him … I am SURE they did. Lucy Maud can’t have been the only one. He was a reverend – which means he was a public figure. It’s not like he could just hang out in the house, and be all insane and stuff. He was out, about, visiting, heading committees, giving services, giving sermons … I wonder about the remembrances of others in that town (probably too late now to find out) … But Lucy Maud still bore that up all on her own. Thank God she was a famous woman, with her own money, and her own life … she was not reliant upon him for anything. It wasn’t a real marriage. She suffered in silence for, oh, 30 years? You want to tell her to share with someone, to talk about it, to not be ashamed … but if she did then she would not be Lucy Maud.

There are a lot of similarities in that situation to Emily’s. Not the FACTS of the situation … but the energy behind it.

Lucy Maud, when she lost her cousin Frede in the 1918 influenza epidemic – lost her only confidante. The only friend she had. Her kindred spirit. She probably could have talked to frede about this stuff … She could at least have not felt so alone. When Frede died, that was it for Lucy Maud, in terms of friends. She was a one-friend type of person, she could not have another.

At this point in Emily’s life – Ilse seems so far away, so … unreachable. She swoops into town on her vacations, she’s dressed insanely well but also really glamorously – with earrings, and silks … she parties hard, dances all night long, etc. She seems to be having FUN all the time … and so there is a barrier between Ilse and Emily. Emily now has this darkness within her … a loneliness, a sadness. She feels she MUST hide it … she can no longer confide in Ilse. (She probably COULD, come to think of it … Ilse is probably just as baffled by the distance between them as Emily is … but neither of them break the ice …) They are too distant.

It’s all just really sad.

Excerpt from Emily’s Quest – by L.M. Montgomery

From October to April Emily Starr lay in bed or on the sitting-room lounge watching the interminable windy drift of clouds over the long white hills or the passionless beauty of winter trees around quiet fields of snow, and wondering if she would ever walk again – or walk only as a pitiable cripple. There was some obscure injury to her back upon which the doctors could not agree. One said it was negligible and would right itself in time. Two others shook their heads and were afraid. But all were agreed about the foot. The scissors had made two cruel wounds – one by the ankle, one on the sole of the foot. Blood-poisoning set in. For days Emily hovered between life and death, then between the scarcely less terrible alternative of death and amputation. Aunt Elizabeth prevented that. When all the doctors agreed that it was the only way to save Emily’s life she said grimly that it was not the Lord’s will, as understood by the Murrays, that people’s limbs should be cut off. Nor could she be removed from this position. Laura’s tears and Cousin Jimmy’s pleadings and Dr. Burnley’s execrations and Dean Priest’s agreements budged her not a lot. Emily’s foot should not be cut off. Nor was it. When she recovered unmaimed Aunt Elizabeth was triumphant and Dr. Burnley confounded.

The danger of amputation was over, but the danger of lasting and bad lameness remained. Emily faced that all winter.

“If I only knew one way or the other,” she said to Dean. “If I knew, I could make up my mind to bear it – perhaps. But to lie here – wondering – wondering if I’ll ever be well.”

“You will be well,” said Dean savagely.

Emily did not know what she would have done without Dean that winter. He had given up his invariable winter trip and stayed in Blair Water that he might be near her. He spent the days with her, reading, talking, encouraging, sitting in the silence of perfect companionship. When he was with her Emily felt that she might even be able to face a lifetime of lameness. But in the long nights when everything was blotted out by pain she could not face it. Even when there was no pain her nights were often sleepless and very terrible when the wind wailed drearily about the old New Moon eaves or chased flying phantoms of snow over the hills. When she slept she dreamed, and in her dreams she was forever climbing stairs and could never get to the top of them, lured upward by an odd little whistle – two higher notes and a low one – that ever retreated as she climbed. It was better to lie awake than to have that terrible, recurrent dream. Oh, those bitter nights! Once Emily had not thought that the Bible verse declaring that there would be no night in heaven contained an attractive promise. No night? No soft twilight enkindled with stars? No white sacrament of moonlight? No mystery of velvet shadow and darkness? No ever-amazing miracle of dawn? Night was as beautiful as day and heaven would not be perfect without it.

But now in these dreary weeks of pain and dread she shared the hope of the Patmian seer. Night was a dreadful thing.

People said Emily Starr was very brave and patient and uncomplaining. But she did not seem so to herself. They did not know of the agonies of rebellion and despair and cowardice behind her outward calmness of Murray pride and reserve. Even Dean did not know – though perhaps he suspected.

She smiled gallantly when smiling was indicated, but she never laughed. Not even Dean could make her laugh, though he tried with all the powers of wit and humour at his command.

“My days of laughter are done,” Emily said to herself. And her days of creation as well. She could never write again. The “flash” never came. No rainbow spanned the gloom of that terrible winter. People came to see her continuously. She wished they would stay away. Especially Uncle Wallace and Aunt Ruth, who were sure she would never walk again and said so every time they came. Yet they were not so bad as the callers who were cheerfully certain she would be all right in time and did not believe a word of it themselves. She had never had any intimate friends except Dean and Ilse and Teddy. Ilse wrote weekly letters in which she rather too obviously tried to cheer Emily up. Teddy wrote once when he heard of her accident. The letter was very kind and tactful and sincerely sympathetic. Emily thought it was the letter any indifferent friendly acquaintance might have written and she did not answer it though he had asked her to let him know how she was getting on. No more letters came. There was nobody but Dean. He had never failed her – never would fail her. More and more as the interminable days of storm and gloom passed she turned to him. In that winter of pain she seemed to herself to grow so old and wise that they met on equal ground at last. Without him life was a bleak, grey desert devoid of colour or music. When he came the desert would – for a time at least – blossom like the rose of joy and a thousand flowerets of fancy and hope and illusion would fling their garlands over it.