{"id":5346,"date":"2006-09-21T07:35:20","date_gmt":"2006-09-21T11:35:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=5346"},"modified":"2026-03-15T09:28:32","modified_gmt":"2026-03-15T13:28:32","slug":"the-books-kilmeny-of-the-orchard-l-m-montgomery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=5346","title":{"rendered":"The Books: \u201cKilmeny Of The Orchard\u201d (L.M. Montgomery)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Daily Book Excerpt: YA\/Children’s books:<\/p>\n

\"th_10029%20KILMENY%20OF%20THE%20ORCHARD.jpg\"Kilmeny of the Orchard<\/a>\"\"<\/i> by L.M. Montgomery.<\/p>\n

This book is ridiculous. Doesn’t mean I haven’t read it a bunch of times – because some of the writing (the nature writing in particular) – is good – and also, it’s Lucy Maud – so I’ve read all of her books multiple times – but the premise is ridiculous, the very REALITY of the book is ridiculous – it’s like you have to blind your eyes to REALITY in order to accept this book.<\/p>\n

Here are some of the themes:<\/p>\n

— Looks are all that matter. Kilmeny is described as literally the most beautiful girl in the world. Therefore: she is good. Anyone with a physical deformity of any kind should be ashamed of themselves – because basically that means that they have something ugly in their souls.<\/p>\n

— If you have foreign blood in you (meaning: anything other than Scotch or British) – you are not to be trusted.<\/p>\n

— You must believe in deus ex machinae. Kilmeny has not spoken for most of her life (for no apparent reason) – and at the very moment when she needs to – out comes her voice!!!<\/p>\n

— Oh and if you’re mute? You should be ashamed and hide yourself away from the world And if you’re a person who falls in love with a mute, then you must treat it as the biggest tragedy that has ever befallen you.<\/p>\n

I mean, I guess it was a different time – yadda yadda – more provincial, there was more open prejudice against, you know, evil people like … ITALIANS … but for the most part, I am not confronted with the fact that Lucy Maud wrote her books at the beginning of the 20th century – her stuff still reads well, it’s not sentimental or treacly – but this one? I read it and I want to bust in on all the morons living their stupid provincial racist lives and say, “Okay, guys, here’s the deal, mkay? Just because he is half-Italian does not automatically mean that he is more prone to murder. That’s the first thing. Second of all: who gives a crap that she’s mute? Why does she have to never leave her farm in shame? Why are you all bummed out that she’s mute? And lastly: Kilmeny is obviously meant to be a supermodel or something. Dude: STOP obsessing on how beautiful she is. She’s not PERFECT, just because she’s a babealicious babealolio. Let her be HUMAN, how ’bout that? Stop being so focused on her beauty.”<\/p>\n

So the story is: Eric Marshall is a 24 year old schoolteacher – and Lucy Maud makes some vague reference to the fact that he has been having a hard time recently. Maybe living a wild life? Running away from the expectations of his father? So he comes to this small sleepy town, and boards with someone, and teaches – and is basically all wrapped up in himself. Until one day – on a walk – he comes across THE MOST BEAUTIFUL GIRL IN THE WORLD, standing in the woods. I think 2 pages are given to describing every nook and cranny of Kilmeny’s stupid beauty. We hear about the flush on the cheek, the teeny lovable dimple, the long lashes, the creamy skin, the long black hair … it goes on and on and on.<\/p>\n

Lucy Maud makes Kilmeny’s beauty a fetish. It’s bizarre. She never really comes to life.<\/p>\n

But anyway – blah blah – turns out Kilmeny never leaves her house – she sits there day in day out because she is mute, and this is the most shameful thing in the world. But – she can HEAR. She just can’t speak. Nobody can understand why. She has a little slate around her neck and writes what she wants to say on that. You get the sense that there are some deep psychological issues with this babealicious babealoliio. She lives with her very strict aunt and uncle – her mother is dead. There are many many romantic and dramatic secrets in Kilmeny’s past. And poor Eric just wants to be her friend. Yeah, right, Eric. You just want to be her friend. WhatEVS. Get a life, Eric.<\/p>\n

Oh, and Kilmeny has a half-brother or something like that – and he has Italian blood in him (cue evil music) – and Eric has an immediate revulsion to him. But it just comes off as racist or stupid the way Lucy Maud writes it. It’s not anything in his CHARACTER that causes the revulsion. It is the FOREIGN-NESS of him.<\/p>\n

Get over it, Lucy. Sheesh. Big world outside of Canada with all kinds of races and peoples living good lives. Get over your damn Scotch Presbyterian self. Also: are you aware that some people who are babealicious babealolios actually have ugly mean little souls? Outer beauty is NOT everything. Stop making a fetish of it. Kilmeny could very well be a bitch on wheels – her beauty has nothing to do with her inner self.<\/p>\n

Anyway, I do like the writing in this excerpt. Eric goes to speak with Kilmeny’s strict aunt and uncle (whom he has never met) – basically to ask permission to hang out with Kilmeny. I just like the description of this old-timey room. Lucy Maud is able to make me go back in time in such excerpts.<\/p>\n

Oh, and Eric is good-looking. And he knows it. He’s a metrosexual in 1910. I dislike Eric, too. He’s a shallow looks-obsessed pretty boy.<\/p>\n


\nExcerpt from Kilmeny of the Orchard<\/a>\"\"<\/i> by L.M. Montgomery. <\/b><\/p>\n

Eric walked into the parlour and sat down as bidden. He found himself in the most old-fahioned room he had ever seen. The solidly made chairs and tables, of some wood grown dark and polished with age, made even Mrs. Williamson’s “parlour set” of horsehair seem extravagantly modern by contrast. The painted floor was covered with round braided rugs. On the centre table was a lamp, a Bible, and some theological volumes contemporary with the square-runged furniture. The walls, wainscoted half way up in wood and covered for the rest of it with a dark, diamond-patterned paper, were hung with faded engravings, mostly of clerical-looking bewigged personages in gowns and bands.<\/p>\n

But over the high, undecorated black mantel-piece, in a ruddy glow of sunset light striking through the window, hung one which caught and held Eric’s attention to the exclusion of everything else. It was the enlarged “crayon” photograph of a young girl, and, in spite of the crudity of the execution, it was easily the centre of interest in the room.<\/p>\n

Eric at once guessed that this must be the picture of Margaret Gordon, for, although quite unlike Kilmeny’s sensitive, spirited face in general, there was a subtle, unmistakable resemblance about brow and chin.<\/p>\n

The pictured face was a very handsome one, suggestive of velvety dark eyes and vivid colouring; but it was its expression rather than its beauty which fascinated Eric. Never had he seen a countenance indicative of more intense and stubborn will power. Margaret Gordon was dead and buried; the picture was a cheap and inartistic production in an impossible frame of gilt and plush; yet the vitality in that face dominated its surroundings still. What then must have been the power of such a personality in life?<\/p>\n

Eric realized that this woman could and would have done whatsoever she willed, unflinchingly and unrelentingly. She could stamp her desire on everything and everybody about her, moulding them to her wish and will, in their own despite and in defiance of all the resistance they might make. Many things in Kilmeny’s upbringing and temperament became clear to him.<\/p>\n

“If that woman had told me I was ugly I should have believed her,” he thought. “Ay, even though I had a mirror to contradict her. I should never have dreamed of disputing or questioning anything she might have said. The strange power in her face is almost uncanny, peering out as it does from a mask of beauty and youthful curves. Pride and stubbornness are its salient characteristics. Well, Kilmeny does not at all resemble her mother in expression and only very slightly in feature.”<\/p>\n