This one by LM Montgomery did not age well

Submitted by Bookanista t3_1249dak in books

I first read Kilmeny of the Orchard when I was 10-12 and it seemed like the most romantic book at the time. However, I re-read it and it hasn’t aged well for me.

It begins with a man named Eric. Handsome, filthy rich, wholesome, poetic, good, kind, charming, smart, et cetera and so on. He hasn’t found any woman to please him, though. Mr. Perfect is picky.

He goes to fill in teaching for a friend who gets sick and he wanders around and finds a beautiful hopefully 18 year old girl in a meadow playing a violin. Unfortunately, she >!cannot speak, so she writes lengthy responses to his conversation on a portable chalkboard!< The squicky part is that this man talks a LOT about how young, innocent, and childlike this girl he’s meeting in the meadow is. Ew! He literally says he watches her grow from “exquisite childhood” to “exquisite womanhood.”

They fall in love but >!she will NOT marry him if she can’t talk!< Illogical!

Eric is in Despair, but then one day a sinister evil Italian orphan boy >!tries to axe murder him, and the shock gives Kilmeny her voice back!<

I get that it’s in a fairytale style but it’s a little too borderline yikes for me. One of the major themes is also that Italians, even if you have nurtured them in your Bosoms, are not to be trusted.

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4LostSoulsinaBowl t1_jdz0560 wrote

Expecting 21st century societal norms in books not written in the 21st century always seemed weird to me.

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Ceekay151 t1_jdzog5u wrote

I agree...Society changes over time & we can't turn the clocks back to undo those outdated societal norms - we can only move forward, hopefully with lessons learned.

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Shadow_Lass38 t1_jdykf0f wrote

Bigotry toward minority groups was sadly common in those days. It's an Italian organ grinder who tries to kidnap Phronsie in The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew.

It was very common then for women that age to marry older men. Since women were supposed to be married and raise children, they needed to be young and healthy, but, if they wanted to live well and have a nice home and clothing and send their kids to good schools they had to marry an older man who was "established" in business and could make a good salary. Ten and fifteen year age gaps were not uncommon.

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KingMyrddinEmrys t1_jdysfdu wrote

Those age gaps are still not uncommon.

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PerpetuallyLurking t1_jdyz1zw wrote

Yeah, but more of them are both 30+ spouses on their first marriage now too.

It’s less the age gap itself I’m worried about and more the legality of child marriage in “developed” parts of the world still on the books.

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Felaguin t1_je0pu0c wrote

My grandfather used to “baby”sit my grandmother when he was in college (pre-Depression) but they didn’t date until years and years later after he became a practicing MD and she had her own job. About 13 years age difference between them so not really untoward, particularly in those days. She was about 21 by the time they got married so she was an adult and her own woman.

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AlonnaReese t1_je0lamp wrote

See Laura Ingalls Wilder as an example. She was 15 when she began dating her future husband at 25.

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Bookanista OP t1_je0wvqx wrote

One weird thing was that I can’t quite figure out how old the >!murderous!< Italian boy is supposed to be. He’s unambiguously called “boy” but he’s described almost physically like an adult.

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Shadow_Lass38 t1_je0y1z1 wrote

African American men were not the only minorities to be referred to by the demeaning "boy": there were Asian "houseboys," for example, who could be in their 50s or 60s and older than their employers.

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Bookanista OP t1_je0ymey wrote

Good point. I was having a hard time understanding how sexily (???) he’s described with other words she calls him.

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gnatsaredancing t1_jdz7ros wrote

Your description sounds like the problem lies more with you than the story really. You can't apply today's standards to a century old story. All it does is demonstrate your inability to grasp context and learn how views change over time.

You talk about Eric as he's got a skeezy Tinder profile when really Eric's circumstance and family history cause him to be very pragmatic in the selection of a wife.

A character from this time period speaking about innocence and childlikeness has nothing to do with the sexual deviancy you seem to read into it. That's all you, not the story, character or time period. These qualities were admired, not lusted after. Parents still admire those qualities today and it's mostly cultural paranoia that has changed people's view on this kind of phrasing.

Along the same lines, age gapped relationships have been very common throughout history because they brought the most benefit to both parties. And most of the time, marriage was very much an arrangement of convenience or necessity. Couples needed each other and only the desperate would settle for a partner that brought them little advantage.

Which is exactly why Kilmeny doesn't want to marry him without her voice. She feels the inconvenience of her muteness outweighs her usefulness as a spouse and as such doesn't want him to marry her. There's a lot of romance plots where one partner either feels like they're not good enough or vice versa attempts to hide their deficiencies (poverty, debt, criminal history etc.) until the marriage is settled.

If you insist on ignoring context and meaning because you're too busy applying your standards on characters that don't live in your world, you're not going to get much out of your reading.

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bellefleurdelacour98 t1_je0rhbo wrote

> Your description sounds like the problem lies more with you than the story really

Welp nope, the story sounds every bit as creepy as it is. I don't give books passing marks or cut them slack just because they're old. It's very important to address books by today's standards and criticize them. Expecting today's people to react favorably to very problematic plot points (we literally have a pedophile here in the story) is absurd. Critiquing a book by today's standard is the healthiest thing to do, not shutting up people and telling them it's ThEiR pRoBlEm lmao

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gnatsaredancing t1_je0zj9a wrote

>I don't give books passing marks or cut them slack just because they're old

Weird but okay.

>It's very important to address books by today's standards and criticize them.

So you can feel smug by doing something silly and irrelevant?

>Expecting today's people to react favorably to very problematic plot points

That's not at all the expectation. But it's good to cultivate reading comprehension by means of judging stories in a context where they make sense. You might as well stop reading if your intent is to intentionally fail to understand books so you can misrepresent the stories.

>(we literally have a pedophile here in the story) is absurd

Because that helps prevent ridiculous statements like this one that do nothing but demonstrate your failure to understand the definition of the word and the context of the book causing you to misapply the word.

>Critiquing a book by today's standard is the healthiest thing to do,

Considering how many problems with that way of thinking you managed to demonstrate in a single paragraph, I'd say that's a laughable statement at best.

You're basically advocating intentionally misunderstanding and misrepresenting stories for no clear gain.

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Bookanista OP t1_jdzaa0q wrote

The problem isn’t the “age gap.” Their age gap is only 6 years or so. What I think is creepy is how the main character explicitly refers to Kilmeny as a child repeatedly, doesn’t want her to learn/experience the world before they marry, loves her total lack of knowledge etc. His kiss is what makes her a woman and so forth. It is true that “childlike wonderment” was prized in women but that doesn’t make it less of a creepy story to me.

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gnatsaredancing t1_jdzdqqd wrote

I get that but you think of it in in modern terms. A perv who wants children.

Life was hard throughout most of history. When so many people suffer, innocence is a wonderful quality. An innocent is unaware of the suffering. An innocent doesn't suffer. Even just seeing an innocent can soften the harshness of the world for a short while as you see life through their eyes.

To be able to keep someone childlike and innocent was a great gift and achievement. It essentially means you were able to spare them the suffering of the world. And not at all in some creepy pop culture lolita adult acting like a child way.

Sexuality is one of the gateways to losing innocence because while sex and intimacy and love can be wonderful, it's also the gateway to heartbreak. To learning the ways of sexual manipulation. Of romantic betrayal and so on. The turning from boy or girl to man or woman. A loss of illusion and protected innocence and a gaining of greater understanding of the world.

A young woman could be seen as innocent and childlike while at the same time being competent and lustful (but inexperienced). It has nothing to do with modern views on such phrases.

Eric kissing Kilmeny isn't a sleazy abuse. It's just a turning point from one phase of life to another. You're just hung up on how we see those words instead of what they actually mean in the context of the story.

Frankly, even today we can easily write about a 60 year old with a childlike sense of innocence as they take joy in imagining shapes in the clouds. The meaning of the words hasn't changed that much except for people who are dead set on interpreting them one way only without a care for context.

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vivahermione t1_je3i2kn wrote

>Sexuality is one of the gateways to losing innocence because while sex and intimacy and love can be wonderful, it's also the gateway to heartbreak. To learning the ways of sexual manipulation. Of romantic betrayal and so on. The turning from boy or girl to man or woman. A loss of illusion and protected innocence and a gaining of greater understanding of the world.

That's interesting. I always assumed sex for young women was taboo back then due to the risk of pregnancy out of wedlock, and not necessarily from any concern for the woman's emotional state. But I like your reasoning better.

Death of a loved one was also a gateway to losing innocence. This shows up in Montgomery's novel The Golden Road. When Beverley's cousin passes away, the rest of the cousins >!start thinking about their adult futures and go their separate ways.!<

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gnatsaredancing t1_je3xzis wrote

>That's interesting. I always assumed sex for young women was taboo back then due to the risk of pregnancy out of wedlock, and not necessarily from any concern for the woman's emotional state. But I like your reasoning better.

That was also part of it. Unsurprisingly the whole thing is rather multifaceted.

Your Montgomery example is a good example if what I meant. Innocence is easily lost and often under painful circumstances. Which is also why it's valued and people desire to protect it.

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Bookanista OP t1_je0w6px wrote

I didn’t say he was a “sleazy abuser,” though. I said the story as a whole was “borderline yikes.”

And the reasons Kilmeny was kept sheltered/innocent are disturbing and not at all admirable. The major family theory for her inability to speak and be in the world is >!that she had to suffer for the sin of her mother being stubborn and refusing to forgive someone!<

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gnatsaredancing t1_je0ypjd wrote

>I didn’t say he was a “sleazy abuser,” though. I said the story as a whole was “borderline yikes.”

The only reason you seem to be doing that is that you have zero sense of context though.

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Figerally t1_jdzcfsl wrote

If you substitute childlike for innocence does that make it better? That was also a sought after trait of that time.

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HeroIsAGirlsName t1_je0a403 wrote

I thought your post was funny OP and I'm not sure why everyone is getting so upset when you are just sharing your observations about the book without trying to cancel or boycott it in any way. It was clearly written in a lighthearted tone and I'm sorry people are missing that. There's a review site called SmartBitchesTrashyBooks, which your style reminds me of. I think you might enjoy it and honestly I would read longer book reviews from you, if that was something you were interested in producing.

While it's unreasonable to expect books from previous time periods to conform to modern social norms, it's as unreasonable IMO to shame modern readers who decide that the book is outdated and even perhaps write a lighthearted post making fun of it.

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Bookanista OP t1_je22ldz wrote

I love that review site! ❤️ And yes, this was meant as a lightheaded poke at one of my childhood favorites. 😁

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bellefleurdelacour98 t1_je0rnka wrote

> livello 3HeroIsAGirlsName · 2 h faI thought your post was funny OP and I'm not sure why everyone is getting so upset

Because god forbid women call out the sexism and creepyness in books eye roll standard reddit behaviour

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HeroIsAGirlsName t1_je0t5gm wrote

It's funny how when people talk about women's issues suddenly everyone starts to nitpick over the most trivial shit imaginable to derail the discussion. Would people be this bothered about historical accuracy if the topic was more neutral?

And I would argue that it does matter in the modern day, especially for children's books, because people should be able to make an informed choice about whether or not they want to sit down with their kids and explain the context.

Edited for clarity.

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spotted-cat t1_je20mey wrote

Uh, no, I’m a woman and my problem with this shit is, honestly, its a by-product of toxic purity culture and gender essentialism. Like if it a 22-year-old guy is dating a 18-year-old woman people act as if he’s a child molester even though:

  1. The woman in question is legally an adult and the relationship is consensual.

  2. Scientific studies have disproved the theory that the human brain reaches full maturity at the age of 25. New studies suggest that the brain NEVER reaches full maturity regardless of age which is why boomers are……BOOMERS! Google it.

  3. The main complaint about this type of relationship is that there is a power imbalance between the man and woman in question which implies that: Women between the ages of 18-25 are dumber than a sack of rocks, easily manipulated, and therefore have no autonomy because her actions are being subconciously controlled by the man, who must be inherently abusive. Cause all men are, right? No matter who he is — he could be fucking Clark Kent and people would tear him to pieces.

Fyi, the Italian thing is because the majority of Italian immigrants to the US were Sicilians and Sicily was the birthplace of the Italian mafia.

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Bookanista OP t1_je229cn wrote

I never said he was a “child molester,” either. I said I find it “squicky” how much he rhapsodizes about how ignorant, innocent, unspoiled, and childlike Kilmeny is. No one is advocating for rewriting this book so they are ages 46 and 45.

And even if they did this book would still have the major flaw that the main characters are both too perfect in every way, which is boring.

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spotted-cat t1_je27h1f wrote

You ever watch The Big Bang Theory — its literally the same concept in a different context. And, believe me, you spend enough time with some guys like Sheldon Cooper and Howard Wolowitz you’ll appreciate naiveté, too. Or at least someone who isn’t a pretentious asshat. The dude in the book was a teacher — a professional know-it-all.

No offense intended to actual teachers.

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staffsargent t1_jdzi68e wrote

I mean, what do you want? Those books were written in a world that doesn't exist anymore. If you can't bear to read anything that doesn't fit with 21st century cultural standards, don't read old books.

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calliopeHB t1_jdywsrd wrote

I recommend besides her Emily books and Anne of Green Gables, of course, reading her personal journals. They are extremely interesting and show how dramatically society changed during that period. I checked them out from a university library.

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Loud_Stand t1_je00ew5 wrote

The comments are so condescending, obviously people realize these novels are a product of their time.OP said the story hasn’t aged well for THEM, this is their thoughts on something they read as a child that they look at differently now.I used to watch Grey’s anatomy when I was younger and I loved the relationship between the characters Meredith and Derek after I rewatched it last year I realized their relationship was a hot mess.People should be able to talk about how their thoughts have changed without being treated like they’re advocating for burning books.

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HeroIsAGirlsName t1_je0bbwc wrote

Yes, it's so weird. It's just a lighthearted recap of the events of the book and why they wouldn't fly in the modern day and everyone's acting like OP is trying to rouse a Twitter mob and cancel LM Montgomery.

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GossamerLens t1_jdzt3lj wrote

Yeah... The whole time period it was written in didn't age well. Thus why times have changed. For the times, the fact that she didn't want to immediately marry until she had a voice AND he respected her wishes at all seems quite positive and forward thinking.

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bellefleurdelacour98 t1_je0tde0 wrote

@ all the people ROYALLY missing the point: she isn't even saying it aged up badly from its publication, she's literally saying it's aged disgracefully from when she read it AS A CHILD. She has a completely different memory of the book from her childhood! And now, with added wisdom, she's not liking the book anymore and she's marveling at how as a child she didn't even notice most of the weird things in it. Happens all the time. Some of my favorite kids books turned out to be absolutely trash quality lmao.

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TrueLoveEditorial t1_je1t6sx wrote

I totally understand! When I read it as a teen, I felt mature (well, OK, I was parentified), so an older guy falling in love with me sounded thrilling. Now as a 40-something, when I look back, I can see how that would not have been OK.

My husband and I talked recently about how some Christian churches describe the husband and wife relationship as equivalent to parent and child, similar to God the Father and God the Son. That model leads to paternalism and patronization in the relationship, depriving wives of agency, like children.

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itchydogblues t1_jdzsa53 wrote

hasn’t aged well for me

Nor will many of our current favorites in 100 years. That's how it goes.

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Bookanista OP t1_je21j76 wrote

Lots of LM Montgomery’s books age amazingly well. It’s why she’s still wildly popular. This is one of her rare Ls.

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anubis_cheerleader t1_je08wtz wrote

Op, I also didn't pick up on various things as a kid. What I wonder about is what ideas we may have internalized from values from another time period. Interesting topic.

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Equivalent_Reason894 t1_je34qln wrote

This comment resonates with me, as I read a ton of books my mother brought home after her mother died. So I was reading books from the early 20th century—Two Little Women, Pollyanna, Prudence of the Parsonage, Eight Cousins, Rose in Bloom—and I absorbed those ideals right before I read James Bond books, Rosemary’s Baby, Valley of the Dolls…is it any wonder I am a bit weird?!

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anubis_cheerleader t1_je36wxx wrote

Pollyanna was in my 6th grade classroom library, as was Little Women. I read lots of other things from that era, too.

I'm also a weirdo lol.

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montmarayroyal t1_jdyp1n5 wrote

I felt similarly about the Emily books. Anne for me, all the way!

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Bookanista OP t1_jdyt2od wrote

Haven’t re-read those since I was a kid! I remember them as more gothic.

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GoonDocks1632 t1_jdyus2w wrote

I thought Emily was more realistic than Anne - and the May/December "romance" is treated for what it is far better than with Kilmeny. Kilmeny creeped me out even in middle school.

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Daydreaming_Froggie t1_je0gk9p wrote

I prefer the Emily books tbh, but I was definitely creeped out by her being pursued by that older man who was literally old enough to be her dad.

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mandering t1_je1i46v wrote

Same! I reread the Emily series recently and had such a “wait, what” reaction to that relationship. I remember preferring Teddy, but that whole grooming situation flew over my preteen brain.

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rukioish t1_jdyrran wrote

Sounds quite nice though.

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Bookanista OP t1_jdytddr wrote

It’s one of those books that I’m happy I read, but it didn’t have that same magic to it as when I was a kid.

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yallscrazy t1_jdzsyb0 wrote

Only judge the past by the present if you want yours to be judged by the future.

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BethLP11 t1_jdyhb0s wrote

Yeah, I read that one. DEFINITELY not her best.

Also? "A Tangled Web" which had a lot I found interesting because it was written post-WWI? Ends with a character using the N-word in reference to a figurine. YIKES.

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Bookanista OP t1_jdyjs1w wrote

I just started that one and got the warning as well! Cringey! Like wtf, why was using that word necessary?

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ExoticSalamander4 t1_jdyv9rm wrote

It was published in 1931, wasn't it? Kinda hard to judge someone for diction choices made over 90 years ago. I wonder what derogatory but presently acceptable words we use will be regarded as terrible slurs in 2100.

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bellefleurdelacour98 t1_je0s39c wrote

Racism was still racism 90 years ago. By this logic we should justify the old people who are still racist now because they were born and grew in another era. If you're reading the book now, it's racist NOW and it was BACK THEN. End of story.

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ElegantVamp t1_jdz6ith wrote

....Because it was the 30s?

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bellefleurdelacour98 t1_je0rxzn wrote

yeah and the racism sucked. Why are people defending racism???

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dennyfader t1_je11cs3 wrote

Kids/teens in the mid-2000s would say "that's gay" all day long. They were not all homophobes, they were just saying a word that, in their world, was not a problem. I refuse to believe that every single person that said "gay" or "fag" in 2005 is a homophobe, because culture changes and context matters. It is so tremendously humbling to realize how much society can change in so little of a time... Hell, in 80-years, people might look back on those of us who eat meat as the lowest of the low, saying, "how could you defend someone who ate MEAT? The body of a LIVING creature!" It would be unfathomable to them to even consider it. I get your perspective, that racism is racism, and I agree with it, really, but it just goes deeper than that when considering different time periods. OP is definitely well within their rights to state how weird it is to read in today's context, though. Don't know why people aren't giving them that.

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Chaos-Pand4 t1_je0o92o wrote

We definitely aren’t to be trusted. I don’t even trust me all the time.

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WritingTheDream t1_je0pdx5 wrote

Wow, glad to see all the comments explaining the creepiness with historical context. Makes it so much less creepy to know that that's just what society was comfortable with at the time /s

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chrispd01 t1_je1mt8d wrote

That is maybe the single best description of a book ever …

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spotted-cat t1_je20sc9 wrote

You should probably just avoid all classic literature and historical fiction.

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Pusfilledonut t1_jdz7tyo wrote

Watch a Pepe LePew cartoon sometime. As a kid, I didn’t realize I was watching stalker porn.

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bellefleurdelacour98 t1_je0sjz7 wrote

Ironically I still laugh at those cartoons even with the added knowledge of how creepy it is (I mean, it's the looney tones, there's worse than that lmao). But the moment I try to say "you can't deny it's creepy, when you think about it" and people automatically assume I'm OfFeNdEd and incapable of watching old cartoons without swooning from the oFfEnSe or whatever they think it is lol

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Tanagrabelle t1_jdynq7g wrote

Is Eric a virgin? Just asking. evil smirk.

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Bookanista OP t1_jdyqafj wrote

Apparently??? He surely goes on about how wonderful and unspoiled and unsullied Kilmeny is, though!

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Tanagrabelle t1_jdyrpbl wrote

I've ran into quite a few things that read completely different with me now than when I was young. nod nod

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Bookanista OP t1_jdytj2v wrote

Yeah, it is super hit and miss. I enjoy Redwall & the Narnia series generally as much but my Madeline L’Engle re-reads as an adult have been disappointing.

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Distinct_Armadillo t1_jdyhnrf wrote

was her best Anne of Green Gables? because that ripped off Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin

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Bookanista OP t1_jdyj2aa wrote

Her best book was The Blue Castle, which is probably the best and most perfect romance I’ve ever read. I have also read Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm and didn’t find it as beautifully written or special as Anne of Green Gables.

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spoilt_lil_missy t1_jdyulxc wrote

I love the Blue Castle! I agree, it’s the perfect romance - it gives me warm fuzzies inside whenever I read it

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Distinct_Armadillo t1_jdys1vt wrote

I agree, Montgomery’s writing is better (but that’s not a very high bar)

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ElegantVamp t1_jdz6kgp wrote

"ripped off"

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Bookanista OP t1_jdzahxd wrote

Right, that’s like saying if someone wrote a story with a wizard in it, all other stories with wizards are rip-offs of it.

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Distinct_Armadillo t1_jdzdw1v wrote

It’s not just the plot and characters; there are many, many shared plot points and chunks of similar text. So yes, ripped off. Here’s a website listing some (not even all) of the correspondences:

http://canadianicon.org/table-of-contents/mirror-images-anne-of-green-gables-and-rebecca-of-sunnybrook-farm/

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Bookanista OP t1_je0vt9w wrote

I just read that article but it’s a bit baffling what they consider to be shared plot points and similar phrasing.

Eg “Jeremiah and Matthew are both plain and practical-minded.” Those aren’t even Matthew’s defining character traits!! Kindness and shyness are! He’s the one who does encourage Anne in her romance and impracticality.

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Daydreaming_Froggie t1_je0hdae wrote

Haven't read The Blue Castle which everyone else is saying is the best, but Anne of Green Gables wasn't her best book imo. Can't really blame her though, because it was the first book she ever wrote. I preferred the other books in the Anne series, and the Emily series.

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