Anne of the Island (by Lucy Maud Montgomery)

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I thoroughly enjoyed rereading ‘Anne of Green Gables’ a couple of months ago, and the first sequel, ‘Anne of Avonlea’ in June. So in the past few days I’ve reread the third book in the series, ‘Anne of the Island’, which I haven’t read since 2006. However, I must have read it more than once as a teenager or young adult, as much of the story was still familiar to me. 

This book, which was published in 1925, covers the four years of Anne’s university degree at the fictional Redmond college. She’s delayed her entry because Marilla’s eyesight is going. But Mrs Lynde is going to move in, so Anne is free to go. She’s going to be joined by some of her closest friends, and is pleased that Gilbert Blythe will be there too, in the same year. They had a friendly rivalry at school - once they put aside their feud - and are good friends. But Gilbert wants more than friendship, and Anne is not interested…

There’s not a whole lot of plot to this book. We meet some new folk, and in the second year we see Anne and three of her friends installed in a wonderful house known as Patty’s Place. It’s owned by two women who have decided to travel the world. 

So we see a little into the domestic arrangements as Anne, Priscilla, Philippa and Stella move in together, along with an elderly aunt who is officially to look after them. They make their own house rules, and seem to have very few disagreements. Anne is adopted by a cat, who doesn’t much like the other two cats in the house, but they soon settle down. 

There are inevitable romantic threads. Diana, back in Avonlea, is engaged to Fred and their wedding takes up one of the later chapters. Anne bemoans getting older, and losing the fun of childhood and the closeness of her friendships. But she also loves learning, and studying, and the new people she meets. 

Philippa amuses them as she has a lot of young men interested in her. There are two, back in her home town, who are the main rivals for her affection but she can’t decide between them. Each has pros and cons. She’s determined to make a wise decision, and not to fall in love.  Until she meets someone who doesn’t meet any of her criteria in a husband, and finds herself falling for him…

On the other hand, we hear very little about either Stella or Priscilla. 

Anne has several proposals, none of them nearly as romantic as she had hoped. The most stressful one is from Gilbert, and she assures him that she cares for him as a friend, but no more. Then the handsome, highly romantic Roy appears in her life. He’s a few years older, he has every virtue, it appears, and is exactly how she had imagined her ‘handsome prince’. The two become something of an item, and everyone expects him to propose. Anne is pretty sure she will accept… and doesn’t understand why she’s not all that excited about it.

Anne also gets involved in a few other people’s romances, and tries to keep up with her schoolfriends every time she’s back in Avonlea. She’s shocked to learn that one of them is dying; this forces her to rethink her priorities, somewhat. 

In a sense this book is a series of anecdotes. Some of the people Anne meets are not mentioned again, or only in passing, once their story has been told. That’s somewhat the case for Stephen Iriving and his family, who had a happy ending to their stresses in the previous book, but have conveniently gone away for a long holiday, so they don’t appear again until towards the end. 

The writing is good, and on the whole I liked the pace. It’s a tad long-winded in places, but I’m quite good at skipping descriptions. And when I did read them, they’re quite interesting. Anne remains a likeable and three dimensional person, as are a handful of the other characters. Despite the book being now over a hundred years old, it's clear that people haven't changed, much at least on the inside. 

I very much liked catching up with the twins Davy and Dora who live with Marilla. Dora is very well-behaved and somewhat dull, while Davy gets up to mischief, asks awkward questions, and is passionate in his likes and dislikes. I do appreciate the way that the author shows him as considerably more interesting than his sister. 

The end of the book includes a scene which I would have known was coming even if I hadn’t remembered the event from previous readings. It’s inevitable, but very well done, and I found it both poignant and moving. 

As with the others in the series, this is character-based, and so probably not of interest to those who prefers action books, or novels driven by a plot. But I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoyed the earlier books in the series. Having said that, the first book was really intended for teens - and about teenage Anne. This one would probably not be so interesting to younger teens; Anne turns 20 and many of her issues are unlikely to appeal to anyone younger than around fifteen.  

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