LM Montgomery and Canadian Culture

Patricia Morley is professor emerita of English and Canadian Studies at
Concordia University and an avid outdoor recreationist. She is also the
author of The Mountain Is Moving: Japanese Women’s Lives, Kurlek, and
Margaret Laurence: The Long Journey Hom

The late–20th-century fascination with L.M. Montgomery and her feisty
heroines continues unabated, as evidenced by L.M. Montgomery and
Canadian Culture. This book of essays by writers from Canada and across
the globe moves to new ground by affirming Montgomery’s importance to
Canada’s cultural development. Facets of the thesis embrace
regionalism, canon formation, and cross-cultural influences. Feminist,
biographical, and historical approaches crop up.

Margaret Atwood weighs in with “Revisiting Anne,” reflections
prompted by seeing the musical. For the Japanese, Atwood reflects, the
attraction must be the success of a girl who breaks taboos and defies
convention. There is also a dark side to the orphan’s story and to
Marilla’s background, one that links Montgomery’s series to Dickens
and the Brontes.

Other essays examine Montgomery’s work in relation to contemporary
conditions and ongoing changes such as the women’s movement and the
“end of innocence” precipitated by World War I. Governor General
Adrienne Clarkson contributes a foreword that credits Montgomery’s
fiction with giving her “a profound understanding of what Canada
is.” L.M. Montgomery and Canadian Culture follows a spate of
“Anne” commentary but manages to contribute something substantial
and fresh.