Reviews for Before Green Gables: The Prequel to Anne of Green Gables

The average rating for Before Green Gables: The Prequel to Anne of Green Gables based on 2 reviews is 1.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2008-09-16 00:00:00 Richard Santos My actual rating 1/2 star I love the whole Anne of Green Gables series by L.M. (Lucy Maude) Montgomery. I have read them all so many times I practically have them memorized, so I was very interested in exploring Anne's earlier life. I was very disappointed. One thing I love about the original books is the innocence of the writing. Anne of Green Gables was originally published in 1908. Now they are historical fiction, but were written as contemporary fiction. It is obvious that this book was written by a 21st century mind, trying (not very successfully, at times) to go back in time. I am not an expert on late 19th century Canadian life, other than my countless readings of the Anne books, but there were some things I knew would never have happened the way they are described in the book. For example, Bertha Shirley (Anne's mother) mentioned to an acquaintance that she feared she may have consumption, the disease that killed her mother. The other woman asks Bertha when she had her last "you know what". I do not see this happening, it would have been considered too indelicate to discuss with even close friends. At another point Walter Shirley, hoping that infant Anne would be spared the devastating fever that was sweeping through the town, remembered that "he had heard that breast-feeding infants gave them an immunity from disease". I actually screamed "whatever!" at the book when I read this sentence. For one thing, the study of immunology was basically non-existent at the time. Pasteur didn't do the bulk of his work on immunology until the 1870's. The only actual date in any of the Anne books is in Rilla of Ingleside World War I begins, this was in 1914. Anne arrived in Avonlea when she was eleven. If you do that math that makes her 49 at the beginning of the war. Do the math again and figure out that Anne was born in 1865. So there is no way that Walter could have heard this! Not to mention that "breast-feeding" was also not a topic that would be discussed in polite company. Even Gilbert Blythe never mentioned breast-feeding and he was a doctor! At times it felt like Mrs. Wilson had never even read the original Anne of Green Gables books! To suggest that Anne prefers the sea or anything to trees is a serious misrepresentation of Anne's personality. In "Anne's House of Dreams" after Gilbert tells Anne that he has rented a house right on the shore she scarcely even notices, instead questions him more about the house itself. Then she says, and this is a direct quote: "But Gilbert… You haven't yet mentioned one very important thing. Are there trees about this house?" Gilbert replies "Heaps of them, oh, dryad!" Then he describes in detail the trees around the house. She tells him: "Oh, I'm so glad! I couldn't live where there were no trees'something vital in me would starve." These are NOT the words of a girl that resented living in a forested area and longed, instead, for the sea. There is also no indication in any of the books that Anne had previous knowledge, much less a deep abiding love for Prince Edward Island prior to arriving at the Cuthbert's. I also found it farfetched that there were so many people in Anne's life, older Thomas daughter, neighbor lady, egg man and two school teachers, plus the midwife whom Anne loved and lost. It made no sense that the "Word Man" and the teacher would not adopt Anne as the Thomas family was looking for a place for her to go. I know that Anne and I are kindred spirits and I instinctively feel that Anne didn't get her insistence of spelling Anne with an "e" second hand. The only exception would be if Mrs. Thomas, who knew Anne's parents had mentioned to her that her mother insisted on spelling Anne with an "e". If Anne had a cat with the same name as her arch-enemy/friend/husband don't you think she would have at least mentioned it?! Ok, I know this one is a bit nit-picky but it bothered me. Also are we really supposed to believe that Anne never got into any "scrapes" prior to arriving on Marilla's doorstep? Anne getting into scrapes is as much a part of her as red hair. Speaking of which; hair that is "orange" will never, ever deepen to auburn, which Anne's eventually did, even if it was just slightly. It was a pretty good story, it just wasn't about the real Anne Shirley in so many ways. This Anne was an imposter and I was highly disappointed. Much better to stick to the books written by Lucy Maud Montgomery.

Review # 2 was written on 2018-07-15 00:00:00 Norman Cohan I have always absolutely adored L.M. Montgomery as an author (and even though Montgomery's Anne Shirley is perhaps as a literary character not quite as dear and as close to my heart and soul as for example her Emily of New Moon, Jane of Lantern Hill and The Story Girl, still both the Anne of Green Gables series and Anne herself do rank amongst my personal all time favourites). Therefore, I have, ever since the 2008 publication of Budge Wilson's Before Green Gables waffled between on the one hand desiring (and perhaps even desperately needing) to read this imagined prequel and on the other hand not being all that keen on even trying (as I could neither imagine Budge Wilson even remotely capturing the sweet and utter magic of L.M. Montgomery's text, her narrative nor considering if one reads between the lines of Anne of Green Gables that Anne's life before she was adopted by Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert was pretty sad and painful, did I really want to read a disillusioning sob-fest of a novel that wallowed and revelled in misery after misery). And after now having finally read Before Green Gables, I do have to admit that sadly almost ALL of my trepidations regarding it were (and remain) very much and disappointedly justified and true. For one, Budge Wilson (in her striving to make Anne Shirley appear as extraordinary and special) has in my opinion rendered her into something of a freak (into a prematurely adult-like child and so precocious and often removed from reality that she, that Budge Wilson's Anne at least to and for me no longer even feels and appears as all that much like a kindred spirit anymore). And for two that Before Green Gables is (and just as I had feared and dreaded) so chock full of one tragedy after another (death, destruction, alcoholism, domestic violence, neglect, you name it), that even though L.M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables and its sequels indeed are both dark and light, both pleasant and sad and as such are meant to be read and enjoyed by both children and adults, in my opinion, with Budge Wilson's Before Green Gables, the majority of the featured thematics and content are really so very much saddening, at times even bordering on the viciously horrifying and actually decidedly and according to my tastes pretty much entirely adult or at least young adult oriented in content and scope (therefore of course not all that child friendly anymore either, and often even, in my opinion, rather massively off-putting and infuriating so to speak, leaving a sickening pit in one's stomach and not much that is in any way joyful).