Lucy Maud Montgomery: The Gift of Wings [Paperback]

 

 

Create your own review

A very well-written, extremely interesting and in-depth look at the life of Lucy Maud. The author obviously did an enormous amount of research for this book. Anyone planning to read Lucy Maud's journals should read this first to have a better understanding of the events she talks about in them.
However, I can't say I exactly 'enjoyed' the book. Reading about Lucy's troubles, especially in her later years, absolutely broke my heart.

I love Lucy Maud Montgomery's books. I have read almost all of them now, and before I found this biography I often wondered at the story behind the books. This book satisfied my curiosity, and then some. I found it utterly fascinating, and quite impossible to put down.

Mary Henley Rubio is the foremost expert on this beloved Canadian author. She edited Montgomery's journals before they were published, and has spent over twenty years researching her life. This research includes many dozens of interviews, most of them back in the eighties, with people who knew Lucy Maud personally, such as her maids, or with people who knew people who knew her personally. Rubio certainly left no stone unturned in her quest to create a complete picture of the author's life.

She mentions early in this biography that while editing Montgomery's journals, she soon arrived at the conclusion that they were only part of the story. In the journals, Montgomery told the story of her life as she wanted it to be remembered. She left much of the most embarrassing, painful, or personal details out, because she always intended her journals to be published. Therefore Rubio has tried, and I believe succeeded, in finding all the missing pieces to Montgomery's life, all the details that were absent from her journals, which often don't talk much about herself at all, but about the events around her.

As I have said, I found this biography hard to put down. Rubio is an excellent writer and she weaves the story of Montgomery's life in such a highly readable and engaging way. Her writing is never sensational or disrespectful; rather, she takes a compassionate and understanding tone towards Montgomery and those she knew. Really top notch writing.

While the early parts of the book detailing Maud's childhood and youth on the beautiful Prince Edward Island were very enjoyable to read, as the story of her life moved on, it became less enjoyable to read, although perhaps more compelling. Montgomery suffered much in her life. After World War I, her writing, seen as too idealistic, fell out of critical and academic favour, which was crushing to her. Her oldest son was a scoundrel through and through; her husband suffered debilitating bouts of severe depression; and perhaps worst, both she and her husband, who trusted their doctors, became sadly dependent over the years to a myriad of prescription drugs. Rubio proposes the idea that these barbiturates and bromides, many of which are known to be poison today and banned, could have been Montgomery's ultimate downfall.

Although the last twenty years of Montgomery's life form a deeply tragic narrative, the portrait of the woman herself that we are given here is always inspiring. To the very end of her life, Montgomery kept writing her cheerful and pleasant stories. She believed in the power of the imagination to transport us from our dreary lives to a happier plane of existence, and this is what she tried to do with her books. She refused to give into the trend of the times and make her books depressing and realistic; she wanted to give her readers a refreshing break from the real world, and focus mostly on the positive aspects of humanity. And of course, on the beauty of nature, which was always one of Montgomery's deepest passions.

All in all, for anyone who is remotely interested in Montgomery's writing, this biography is a fascinating and engaging read. I can't imagine that there is another biography out there that even comes close to this one. Highly recommended.

Lucy Maud Montgomery: The Gift of WingsI am beginning to think I m alone in my few carps about this book, which I am almost finished. I do wish Rubio had had a better editor- the repetitions, inconsistencies, gaps in logic and somewhat inflammatory and discordant judgments, have left me ready to reread the book with a blue pencil, just out of annoyance that a work so close to meeting its hype has easily correctable flaws. Don t know who I d send them to; but the book is still a good read and very enlightening to someone nourished by L M Montgomery' s recognitions and sensibilities back in the 50s. And I have no problem believing, as Rubio frequently states she does, that Maud exhibited an outwardly happy active childhood while covering a deep set grief due to loss of her parents (one through death, one through abandonment); her vicious grandfather s undermining attacks, and the need to outwardly conform. She learned a rugged self discipline that damaged her ability to ever feel safe and happy. She lived an exemplary, dutiful and very generous outward life, and her inner life, mostly unshared, isolated her and destroyed her spirit. How many among us are completely congruent and don t harbour secret thoughts different from our social behaviours? She was way more articulate than most in writing out her feelings. As such, I believe that Rubio was a tad hard on her subject, perhaps in the interest of being objective, or even, having spent so many years in intimate contact, that dislike of failings grew. No doubt that Maud was ascerbic, a common quality among the people she was raised by, but she obviously won many hearts so she can t have been too hateful.

And speaking of people she was raised by, As a Maritimer,I took exception to Rubio s arch pronouncement that the Maritimes are closer to the US Eastern Seaboard than other parts of Canada. Where did she get that from?!Lucy Maud Montgomery: The Gift of Wings

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review

› See all 3 customer reviews on Amazon.ca

 

Search Customer Reviews
Only search this product's reviews

Search Listmania!