Having a few (more than a few) outstanding reviews to catch up with for the Classics Club, I thought why not put a couple together? For that matter, I have two Canadian books to review, Kilmeny of the Orchard by L.M. Montgomery and The Curve of Time by M. Wylie Blanchett, so why not put them together for Canada Day?
Well, I only got the idea on July 1st, so that’s the answer to that question. Why not, indeed.
Still, no reason why I can’t review them in July and say I’m just extending the celebration for the month.
Though quite different, these books have more in common than happening to geographically bookend Canada, with PEI on the East Coast, and BC on the West Coast. One a romantic fiction, one a real-life adventure, both are by great Canadian authors, with distinct natural settings, and an uplifting outlook on life.
Kilmeny of the Orchard, L.M. Montgomery
As a short novel entailing a magical summer encounter in a Prince Edward Island orchard, Kilmeny of the Orchard reminded me of Montgomery’s short story style.
It follows a young graduate, Eric, who is filling in for a teaching term on Prince Edward Island. One evening, he wanders into a seemingly abandoned orchard and hears enchanting music wafting to him on the twilit air. The beautiful young woman playing the violin turns out to be Kilmeny. But Kilmeny can’t speak, has been essentially raised in isolation by her aunt and uncle, and there is a sad history surrounding her mother that casts its looming shadow over her life.
Despite this, Eric and Kilmeny continue to meet and communicate throughout the summer, steadily and surely falling in love. But she has never told her aunt and uncle that she’s been meeting someone in the orchard. And breaking the news to her guardians may not be the only obstacle that will keep them apart.
This novel seems soaked in summer sunshine and heavy blossom-scented air. It’s a story where a boy meets a girl, they have problems which aren’t too weird, fall in love, and live happily ever after. The elements are quite Montgomerian, including magical music, dramatic family histories echoing down through generations, feuds, and of course a crisis provoking resolution. There is even as close to a villain as I think I’ve ever read in one of her novels.
I really enjoyed the lightness and wholesomeness of this read at the beginning of summer. That said, I don’t know if I would revisit it. It is a bit too gossamer in substance.
It was a wind that sang of many things, but what it sang to each listener was only what was in that listener’s heart…It sang of the dreams of youth that may never be quite fulfilled, but are well worth the dreaming for all that.
L.M. Montgomery, Kilmeny of the Orchard
The Curve of Time, M. Wylie Blanchet
A young widow taking her children (and their dog) on a twenty-five-foot yacht and spending months of the summer out on the ocean along the coasts of British Columbia in the 1920s and 30s? This is the memoir of M. Wylie Blanchet, published in 1961, just months before she died unexpectedly of heart-failure while typing her next book.
Taking incidents and encounters as they came throughout the summers, Blanchet weaves a story of a free and adventurous mode of life that is almost incredible. Recalling near misses with bears, cougars, storms, treacherous shoals, and perhaps spirits lingering in abandoned villages and totems, Blanchet is always realistic and yet reaches further to grasp a kind of mystic quality to life.
I thoroughly enjoyed her writing style and voice, which exudes competence without precluding wonder at the unknown. Her humour and patience come through as she makes the best of situations and wrangles her children, many of whom are quite the characters themselves.
Through her writing, I’ve seen the coast of British Columbia, though I have yet to go there in person. The landscapes are sublime and awe-inspiring, yet even at the time being changed with logging and other industries.
Still, there was enough uninhabited land you could retreat from society and build your own cabin with an extensive library, as one man they encountered did. That same seclusion could spell death if civilization couldn’t be reached for critical intervention, as another account shows.
There’s a wild glory in this memoir, which, Blanchet in her Preface states, “is neither a story nor a log…just an account of many long sunny summer months, during many years…Time did not exist; or if it did, it did not matter, and perhaps it was not always sunny.”
This book made me feel a bit like Ratty in The Wind in the Willows, hearing the call of the seafaring life. Maybe I’ll have to start by making it to BC.
The sky was clear, the stars were out… I settled down to a routine–up on the deck forward, sound with the pike pole…let out rope if necessary. Back to the after-deck, sound…pull in slack. My hands dripped luminous jewels from their finger-tips–jewels that exploded in soft flashes as they hit the sea. The whole disturbed anchor rope looked like a shining serpent, writhing off into the twinkling void.
M. Wylie Blanchet, The Curve of Time
These have been my twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh Classics Club book reviews! Check out the rest of my list here.
Fictitiously Yours 