'The Blue Castle' for Femnista

Well..... we all know that my favourite love story is Barney and Valancy's in The Blue Castle.

In this month's Femnista I explore my life-long love with my favourite romance of all time.


READ HERE: 

Readers of The Blue Castle know that the train is a big part of it. Here's the CPR in Bala, Muskoka where Maud set her imaginative tale.

Lest We Forget

From Walter's letter to Rilla as he fights for Canadian freedom in the Great War:

"Rilla, the Piper will pipe me 'west' tomorrow. I feel sure of this. And Rilla, I'm not afraid. When you hear the news, remember that. I've won my own freedom here--freedom from all fear. I shall never be afraid of anything again--not of death--nor of life, if after all, I am to go on living. And life, I think, would be the harder of the two to face--for it could never be beautiful for me again. There would always be such horrible things to remember--things that would make life ugly and painful always for me. I could never forget them. But whether it's life or death, I'm not afraid, Rilla-my-Rilla, and I am not sorry that I came. I'm satisfied. I'll never write the poems I once dreamed of writing--but I've helped to make Canada safe for the poets of the future--for the workers of the future--ay, and the dreamers, too--for if no man dreams, there will be nothing for the workers to fulfil--the future, not of Canada only but of the world--when the 'red rain' of Langemarck and Verdun shall have brought forth a golden harvest--not in a year or two, as some foolishly think, but a generation later, when the seed sown now shall have had time to germinate and grow. Yes, I'm glad I came, Rilla. It isn't only the fate of the little sea-born island I love that is in the balance--nor of Canada nor of England. It's the fate of mankind. That is what we're fighting for. And we shall win--never for a moment doubt that, Rilla. For it isn't only the living who are fighting --the dead are fighting too. Such an army cannot be defeated.

"Is there laughter in your face yet, Rilla? I hope so. The world will need laughter and courage more than ever in the years that will come next. I don't want to preach--this isn't any time for it. But I just want to say something that may help you over the worst when you hear that I've gone 'west.' I've a premonition about you, Rilla, as well as about myself. I think Ken will go back to you--and that there are long years of happiness for you by-and-by. And you will tell your children of the Idea we fought and died for--teach them it must be lived for as well as died for, else the price paid for it will have been given for nought. This will be part of your work, Rilla. And if you--all you girls back in the homeland--do it, then we who don't come back will know that you have not 'broken faith' with us.

"I meant to write to Una tonight, too, but I won't have time now. Read this letter to her and tell her it's really meant for you both--you two dear, fine loyal girls. Tomorrow, when we go over the top--I'll think of you both--of your laughter, Rilla-my-Rilla, and the steadfastness in Una's blue eyes--somehow I see those eyes very plainly tonight, too. Yes, you'll both keep faith--I'm sure of that--you and Una. And so--goodnight. We go over the top at dawn."

High Faluting Mumbo-Jumbo: a treatise on Barney Snaith, Morgan Harris and the Montgomery breed of Romantic Idealism

A romantic friend of mine recently got married. She’s a kindred spirit in the truest sense of the word. One of those girls, like most of us, who set up our castles on fluffy clouds and dream, with high standards, of the man we will eventually marry. She, like me… like so many of us, had it all worked out in her head in perfect connect-the-dots fashion since childhood.

The man she married: who swept her off her feet and whom she is ridiculously happy with--- was not that ideal. At all. Rather, he was far more perfect for her than her imaginative trajectory could have foreseen. 

Whenever I talk about ideals, the constructs that shape we imaginative sorts from the rest of normal humanity, I note that I am usually speaking to women who, like me, were very much shaped by the tales of LM Montgomery.  There is nothing LM Montgomery does if not instill in one an absolute early-founded penchant for romance.  It’s unlike any other romance  you will read about or experience in your head, her romance.  It does wonders for your psyche and your imaginative constructs: mostly because these yarns are read in the formative years where it is absolutely essential for you to identify with her spirited heroines.

The women I know who don’t share a passion for Montgomery somehow evaded her in childhood: when the purple prose, the wistful, whimsical lanes that spun to coloured,  christened homesteads, the long glances and the high-spirited “high faluting mumbo jumbo” ( to quote Kevin Sullivan’s Gilbert Blythe) were rampant in our playful imaginations.

oh HIIIIII morgan!!! nice coat-tails

While I wouldn’t trade my long and quite intense relationship with Montgomery…. I admit that my inability to find the same romance and happiness a lot of girls my age have found in real life has something to do with her helping me establish standards.  Not just for men: not just for her heroes and their inherent qualities [or exterior qualities---Barney Snaith’s dimples, for one, Andrew Stuart’s manner of speech, for another]; but mostly for the relationship that the heroes in her novels share with their heroines.  The preternatural kinship that strings two souls together.  It’s quite wonderful to read and re-read and read again the banter between Dean Priest, say ( not condoning him as a perfect hero; but recognizing how attractive he can be when he is at his whimsical and gnome-like best) , when he is at his best with Emily or the playful way that Valancy and Barney can read each other’s thoughts without anything being spoken.

The other night, after a text conversation with the friend listed above, I confronted this age-old idea of ideals.  I fall for them all the time. I create and construct them into something far beyond myself.  I am guilty of it as many of my ilk are.  I settled in with the Sequel to Anne of Green Gables as imagined by Sullivan.

Part of my appreciation for the Sullivan adaptation comes in the composite sketch of Morgan Harris who groups together different characters from the Anne series to create a dashing hero straight from Anne’s imagination and erstwhile conversations with Diana.  She has already explained to Gilbert and Diana what her ideal man is and she is fairly certain she won’t find him in Avonlea.  When she first encounters Morgan, she is writing on the banks of the breezy North Shore near the White Sands hotel.  Her pages flutter away as she loses herself in the language of “dark foreboding tones” and similar vernacular of her Purple Prose and it is Morgan, looking straight as if she were Pygmalion and he was constructed in physical form, who assists her.

[perhaps the only non-Gilbert/Anne video on youtube]:

Her second encounter with Morgan, after the Clam Bake is somewhat more typically Anne.  At this point she has confronted Gilbert for his silly school boy ways and has had to inform him that she will never feel the way about him the way he does her.  Morgan is rambling on the dark road and runs into Anne’s carriage. It is here that he is first treated with typical temperamental Anne aplomb.  He tries to be a gentleman, drips a few sarcastic lines that put one in mind of Andrew Stuart or Barney Snaith, raises a dashing eyebrow and spirits off.

She encounters Morgan again ---and for a far longer period of time – when she accepts the position at Kingsport Ladies College in New Brunswick and tutors his daughter.  Anne is taken with Morgan because he is like one of the heroes from Averil’s Atonement come to life (sans Rolling Reliable Baking Powder ).

When I express my love for Morgan ( noting that he is very much my ideal: an older man with experience, a dark past, a penchant for adventure---he’s a ship’s captain for God’s sake--- and a love of culture ) I am often derided by those who are passionate Gilbert fans.  What they might momentarily fail to remember through the veil of loving All Things Gil is that Morgan was very much Anne’s perfect man, too.

Indeed, I think, and this is speaking to Sullivan’s conception of course, that the Anne of that series might definitely have accepted Morgan’s offer of marriage had she not run into Gilbert in town on a weekend for a medical conference.  It is seeing him again that prompts her to take up her writing about home and experience another spell of homesickness. She drops the “high faluting mumbo jumbo” of her romance stories and, subsequently, is able to turn her back on the pitch-perfect romantic life offered her by her supposed ideal.  Seeing an island boy and connecting him with a sprint of creativity with a nostalgic turn towards Green Gables and days of old severs any chance that Morgan Harris had of winning Anne’s love.

He’s not a dark or sinister hero, he doesn’t hurt her or impose negativity on her; in fact he might be the most important person who comes into her life. It is only when she is confronted with her ideal that she recognizes that it will never bring her happiness.  There is a flesh and blood incarnation of Anne’s lofty man who will read her  “Tennyson by firelight”; but upon his materialization, she is driven home and subsequently to Gilbert.

As much as Montgomery champions lofty ideals and purple prose and romance in all of its fleeting and fluttering forms; so does she inspire thoughtful recognition that the best romances are often found outside of the lines we sketch and trace for ourselves.

In this way, I am put in mind of the ultimate Montgomery dreamer, Valancy Stirling.  The Blue Castle is my favourite Montgomery romance because it is this very idea made manifest.  The very title speaks to Valancy’s eponymous ideal situation: a castle not unlike the Alhambra in Spain with turrets and nooks where heroes wait on her every whim and desire.  The heroes in the Blue Castle, we learn, change as Valancy gets older. At the beginning, on the morning of her 29^th birthday, her hero looks very much like a man she has recently seen around Deerwood: the notorious Barney Snaith.  When circumstances inspire Valancy to propose marriage to Barney, she is made more acutely aware that her initial ideal has melded into something that this man and his life circumstance have provided. Her Blue Castle is now a Muskoka cottage, her ideal prince is now Barney.  On the morning of her hasty wedding , she thinks back to her childhood conception of marriage, of the day of her wedding: of what her dress might be, the cake, what the groom would say and how he would stand.  Instead, she has realized that her perfect happiness transcends the daydreams that so occupied her when she was relegated to a lifeless existence on Elm Street.  Just as the fateful night after she first sees Barney scrambling up from underneath his car melds the previous prince of the Blue Castle into a roguish like creature with dimples and “the look of an amused gnome”, so does Tom MacMurray’s cabin on Barney’s island become more castle than she could ever want. So does this man with a supposed reprobate past and a somewhat unconventional attractiveness become more than she ever wanted.

Montgomery’s heroines teach us to dream, to construct ideals, to build our castles in the sky; but when they are confronted with their happy ending and their perfect pairings it is often beyond their wildest dreams. My recently married friend said that she never dreamt it would feel the way it does. I guess this is what happens when you find your perfect match.  I guess it transcends these ideas and our wildest imaginations. It isn’t perfect or cookie-cutter, it is more the tingling surprise that Valancy experiences when Barney’s car breaks down in the backwoods of Muskoka after a roaring party at Chidley Corners. There, in the barrens of nowhere, with Barney sitting silently beside her, any ideal that took her far from small Ontario and to the greatest spanses of the world with the most deliciously enigmatic hero could never replace the perfect happiness she feels sitting next to that which makes her whole. 

To summarize, I think that Montgomery woman should hold out for ideal because it will occur in whatever shape or way it is meant to.  It will more greatly surprise and bewilder and delight if confronted with a life of refusing to settle for anything less than pure happiness.

Canada Day Blog Hop Day II:East Coast fiction

Here's a recap of our blog hop thus far:

• Kick-off post
• Hey Canada blog tour
• Mountie Day
• Jessica Strider's 5 Canadian Sci-Fi and Fantasy book picks
• Rachel and Katie's 5 favourite Canadian novels

GIVEAWAY: If you comment on any Canada-related post this week you could win my GIVEAWAY which includes a signed copy of Jolted (my favourite Canadian YA novel ) directly from our friend Arthur Slade (who is our guest star on Canada Day!) and some Oh Canada from DavidsTea ( the greatest tea on earth) 

I always say that Nova Scotia is my favourite province in Canada. Further, it is one of my favourite places on earth.  There is something in the ocean-scape, the steep oral tradition, the languid narrative, the music and the culture that has had its hold on me for years.  Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland: all provinces in our Atlantic region which I have had the privilege of exploring on numerous occasions.   Of course, some of our finest ( and most famous literature) comes from this area of Canada.

*********************************************************************************

To help us decide which East Coast writers we should read, I called on my friend ( and one of my favourite bloggers) Kailana from The Written World.  Kailiana is a real, live Nova Scotian and an expert on CanLit.

Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery (read pre-blogging) – I don’t think an east coast list is complete without Lucy Maud Montgomery because she is an author many are familiar with. For me, I have never been able to resist the wonderful character of red-haired, blue-eyed, Anne with an ‘E’.

 

The Birth House by Ami McKay (review: http://myreadingbooks.blogspot.ca/2006/06/birth-house-ami-mckay-june06.html ) – This is a look at midwifery in Nova Scotia and takes place close to where I currently live. It is not something you see written about a lot and McKay does an excellent job of capturing the history of the province through the eyes of women.

 

The Republic of Nothing by Lesley Choyce (read pre-blogging) – This book is only sort of set in Nova Scotia because the island doesn’t actually exist, but the author is from Nova Scotia. It is one of those books that it is hard to even pin down why it is worth reading, but the craziness that occurs will keep you flipping the pages.

 

Kit’s Law by Donna Morrissey (read pre-blogging) – Morrissey tends to set her books in Newfoundland. If you read any of your books you will feel like you are there because she captures the east coast culture really well.

 

Mercy Among the Children by David Adams Richards (read pre-blogging) – This is definitely my favourite author from New Brunswick. I read this book about 10 years and still think about it. I really need to reread it.

 

Honourable Mentions:

 

Barometer Rising by Hugh MacLennan (read pre-blogging) – This remains one of my favourite WWII reads. It was released in 1941 and looks back on Halifax during WWI.

 

Heave by Christy Ann Conlin (read pre-blogging) – Another book set in my neck of the woods.

 

Saints of Big Harbour by Lynn Coady (post: http://myreadingbooks.blogspot.ca/2005/12/first-book-look.html (my very first review on my blog ever...)) – Captures the east coast very well!

 

The Gravesavers by Sheree Fitch (Read but never reviewed) – I enjoyed that this book uses the SS Atlantic as a background to the story. Before the Titanic it was the greatest marine disaster.

 

Fall on Your Knees by Anne Marie MacDonald (read pre-blogging) – Excellent novel set in Nova Scotia.

 

Galore by Michael Crummey (Read but never reviewed) – An excellent novel set in Newfoundland.

Alpha who?: musing thoughts on selected gender roles of page and screen

 “'No woman really wants a man to carry her off; she only wants him to want to do it.' ---Elizabeth Peters

Women want to be strong and self-serving; but they also want stories of initiative, of passion, of strength, of the man who will sweep them away. They work all day to make equal salary, to prove that what their foresisters fought for has come to light; but they curl up in the evening with their Jane Austen dvds or the latest chicklit or, egads, a Harlequin on their e-reader.

In many of these cases, women retreat into stories where gender roles are clearly defined:  the man is the 'alpha' in presence, physicality, initiative (he takes the lead in pressing the romance forward) and the ultra-protector.  The woman is offered solace, financial and familial stability. She may "tame the rogue", yes; but the rogue will still provide. 

The Alpha male drives women to read and recollect and sink into fictionland again and again....

But....

Do we need the alpha male for romance to be realized?

I read this article on Castle ( which I have watched intermittently; but confess to not having followed with any dedication) by Christian romance writer Jenny B. Jones who argues that every romance needs an alpha…. An alpha male at that and that her viewing of Castle was  conflicted by Kate Beckett, the heroine, and her having usurped the “male” role. I am not agreeing or disagreeing with Jones in this musing and this is certainly not a counter to her words ( as mentioned, I don’t follow Castle); but it turned my brain on and inspired me to share and muse and hopefully kick-start dialogue.

Fifty Shades of Grey, the erotic bestseller borne of Twilight fan fiction, inevitably paints a heroine who is very much the submissive: in every crass sense of the word when paired with the ultra-masculine dominant Christian.  Part of the sexual contract explored in the book requires Anastasia ( ironically surnamed Steele; because she is any matter but)  to completely resign her independent life, her will and her routine to her new counterpart.  One would hardly argue this is romance ---- rather than erotic exploration---but still--- it climbs the charts.  My hypothesis is this: partly for the shock content; partly for the alpha male.

What used to be characterized mostly as brute strength ( watch Victor Mature in, say, anything ) has redefined itself to strength of heart, character, wit and grace.  As easy as it is for women to want, umm, Thor, so are they attracted to the softer, more adorkable geeky heroes that are prominent in our world.  We want Superman, yes; but we really want Clark Kent, too. Question this? Look at the show Grimm -- Monroe, the geeky watchmaker who plays the cello, likes fine wine and has difficulty mustering the courage to finalize his crush on the spice shop lady it the fan favourite and not the dashing police detective with the dimple in his chin: the snuggly, be-spectacled vegan with the quick intellect, plaid, penchant for Christmas decorations and inescapable curiousity.

books. he likes books. score for Monroe

We want, ostensibly, to know that Clark Kent can be Superman. An alpha male who can hide the alpha or in whom the alpha is so carefully embedded--- and most of all, who can forge equilibrium with us. 

If we’re in it together --- then who cares who has the upper hand?  And, in a world where gender roles have changed, what does alpha really mean? Who defines strength and who can turn the roles over like a salt shaker and go to town?

The Hunger Games poses an interesting reflection of this.  Unlike Twilight where two brute alpha males are paired with ostensibly the weakest heroine in the history of the world, Collins gives us Peeta the ultimate literal breadwinner, Gale the Hunter and Gatherer and a woman who is just as strong and sufficient as either of her male counterparts.  While Peeta is not outwardly as “strong” ( I delineated quotations for emphasis) as Gale, he harbours an amazing sense of cunning reserve.  I recently re-watched the film and was, as at first viewing, immediately beguiled when lovely, quiet and stern Peeta plays to the crowd by turning and waving to the audience to win admirers lining the streets of the Capitol.  If, as I believe Collins means us to, we survey every one of Peeta’s steps as a plot in which to secure Katniss’ safety and his actions : whether meted out blatantly or seen in somewhat minimalized retrospect, to ensure that she is the winner of the Hunger Games, then strength, Peeta-fied, comes from creative intelligence, ingenious intuition;rather than the ability to snare a deer in the forest.  Strength deepened further by his long time affection for the girl who didn’t notice him.

I'll eat the berries if you do

When you pair a heroine who is as equally as “strong” to watch as the two prospective suitors rounding the triangle at what point do you establish the need for alpha in romance?  Is equilibrium enough?

My favourite romance of all time is the Blue Castle. Herein, Barney and Valancy meet as friends, they have an easy companionship, are kindred spirits, can laugh and can see that their camaraderie is laying a solid foundation for a life-long romance.

There is no love at first sight. Valancy notices Barney physically; but it is his elusively winsome manner that attracts her more and more…. She has to like HIM as a person ---with his freedom and nonchalant aura before she notices more definitive aspects of his physiognomy: that his eyebrows are mis-matched, the colour of his eyes, the thin dimples in his cheeks… his lackadaisical grace.  She falls in love with the person before he has a chance to exhibit the alpha.  She is more inclined to desire his freedom on an island and what that could serve her as a repressed woman than she is the prospect of him rescuing her.  While she dreams of princes who will ride from the walls of the Blue Castle and secure her favour, she acts in real life--- deciding to throw her affection on a man she views as a preternatural equal.

Barney, the automatic alpha, doesn’t necessarily need to save Valancy who, at the point in the novel when their relationship is developing has already made galloping strides toward self-sustenance; but CAN and shows he will…. Not in the fairytale way; but in Montgomery’s meta-fairytale way--- spiriting her away from unwanted suitors at the dance at Chidley Corner’s, rescuing her from Roaring Abel’s drunken debauchery when he sets off with her in their tin lizzie to Port Lawrence to see a film.

Sure, Valancy is alpha when she proposes --- but Barney immediately turns and gains upper alpha hand when he kisses her. That’s right.  Physical initiative is on his end, not hers.  She may have initiated the “let’s be friends for all time and live on your island… and by all time I mean the year I have left to live “ ; but Barney sealed it.

Both Barney and Valancy have alpha moments. Both are strong and willed and wise and winsome and funny and lovely and THAT is why they work: two halves to a whole.  Their passion develops and foremost in words and kinship before in physical consommation…..

When I speak of romance I speak of it as a genre: a genre which calls to mind knights in armour and ladies willing to be rescued. But I also call to mind the connection that most of us want to find in life with a significant other --- If we are what we read, watch, see, listen to--- then we must recognize that we are informed by the stories that shape us.  We become invested in the pairings that most closely match what we would like in our real life. Love triangles work so well because you can Choose Your Own Adventure:  Katniss and Peeta, Katniss and Gale, Bella and Edward (god help you) and match your personal preference to the movie playing in your mind. 

If, like me, you want equilibrium of smarts and chats and laughter where you allow that gender roles can be rooted in natural biological make-up; but there is room for personal growth and the colouring of personality and individuality, then you recognize that many guys have the desire to be the alpha : whether the alpha means smashing down things with a hammer or strongly staring resolvedly at a woman they have quietly loved for years. In the same way that females want to be seen as equal; but still get jelly in the knees when thinking that some man would protect, provide…

We don’t have to be one or the other and our romance does not have to define one or the other.  We should look at romance as a reflection of the best parts of human companionship: as a rainbow-flavoured, sunshine-y ideal, as the mecca, the i-ching, the best of ourselves.  Your self can ride a white horse or fall for a guy who has one; or be the guy who waits in the wings while another presses his suit.

It’s not clear cut, it’s not black and white because we are not cookie-cutter humans and we are melded with different shapes, attractions, desires….

Formulaic romance would like us to subscribe to one thing; personal preference re-imagines those scenarios: the best laid example of what we hope our lives to be in a fictional light.

I’ll take Barney, you take Thor….

There are many different kinds of love in the world --- and many different kinds of strength.

Rachel's Favourite Romances

Soon it shall be Valentine's Day and soon this Romantic will celebrate her birthday ( which, coincidentally, is also on Valentine's Day). I wanted to share some love.... some wonderful, chocolatey, delicious, cheeks-burning, breath-catching, finger-tingling love... in all of its beautiful literary and literary adaptation form.....My countdown of my top 10 romances of all-time leading to my NO. 1 FAVOURITE

10.) Anne and Gilbert: Anne of Green Gables., etc., L. M. Montgomery

I include them because they were my first introduction to romance as a child. That infamous kissing scene on the bridge at the end of the miniseries was, in all of its dusty purpled light, my first realization of a boy and girl falling in love. I love stories of unrequited love and of passionate persistence: both of which Gilbert epitomizes in his steadfast patience for Anne.  Like all of Montgomery’s love stories, she champions the imaginative, creative and eccentric woman. Gil loves Anne because she is different: thus validating so many of us ---especially in our formative years—when we creative bookish types were more likely to go off on imaginative sprees than engage in the real world. Ironically, I prefer Anne and Gil in the Sullivan miniseries to the series of books. Odd, I know.

19th C. Illustration: Eponine: a Rose in Misery

9.) Eponine and Marius: Les Miserables, Victor Hugo

People will automatically assume I’m speaking to the musical and I’m not (though the musical is the strongest adaptation I have seen of the book in any medium). Eponine’s love for Marius is complex and unrequited. She, the daughter of the malevolently scheming Thenardier--- a soldier to whom Marius’ father owed his life at Waterloo--- has fallen into disgrace and poverty.  Gap-toothed with stringy hair and a  voice sounding like a piano missing keys, she pines for the bookish student who lives next door.  She doesn’t know how to feminize herself with the coquettish glances he reaps from Cosette; but she does love devoutedly and passionately---so much so she dies in his arms after saving him from a bullet during the student uprising of the July Revolution.  Eponine’s plight: from the steeped underworld of the Seine, through her goblin-like appearance hovering in the corner of some of the major intertwining plotlines gives her an almost every-person status.  Like her brother Gavroche, she acts as median between the rapidly twirling plots.  Her sister Azelma does not require the same flesh and blood treatment upon growing up---she is left darkly in the shadows: Eponine’s inherent goodness, her crassly endearing way of talking, her dirty vulnerability and her efforts to act on a love never reciprocated speak to one of the many emblems of pathos in this aptly titled novel.

8) Jasper and Venetia: Venetia, Georgette Heyer. Heyer is a Jane Austen fan’s dream. She pens willful heroines and whirling plots of mistaken identity from the lusciously ornamented ton to abandoned country estates. The latter finds the intelligently well-read Venetia on the shelf looking after her younger, scholarly brother and avoiding the suits of two nearby men so dull and boring and foppish she cannot bear to look at them. Enter Jasper Damerel: he is a RAKE if ever there was one. Upon their first meeting he steals a kiss from our pretty Venetia which would send London high society reeling. What follows is a long-stemmed, slow-churning romance that involves some sacrifice and some swallowed pride. What stands out is the preternatural marriage of minds that meld both Venetia and her mental equal. Their banter, his abandoned thought at his love for her and their eventual fireworks and sass proposal is one of my favourites to revisit.

7) Rhett and Scarlett, Gone With the Wind, Margaret Mitchell: When I was 10 years old I had the flu and watched Gone with The Wind which my dad had taped from television on vhs over and over again.  I was in love with the dresses and the decline of the Antebellum period, yes, and also by Scarlett’s ridiculous reserves of strength and panache; but I also loved roguish Rhett, the indelible Clark Gable with his rakish moustache, dimples and alert ears.  I loved the passion he felt for Scarlett and how he kept insisting that, though she try to avoid it, they were so very much the same. Later, I read the book several times and though it departs strongly from the  film ( one of the rare cases where I prefer a film to its source material; perhaps because it was my first introduction to the story), it maintained the sizzle and spark I liked between Rhett and Scarlett. I love this story. I love when she slaps him! I love when he devastatingly admits to Melanie the extent of his love. Ashley Wilkes is a dull dreamer; Rhett the perfectly irreverent man of action.

6) Amy and Arthur Little Dorrit, Charles Dickens: This is another story that I prefer on screen.  If you watch the Derek Jacobi version you are once again reminded of the stern age difference between Amy Dorrit and Arthur Clennam. In the recent BBC adaptation, they seem a little more on equal terms and the expression of their love and Arthur’s gradual realization is heart-stopping. Like so many of my favourite stories, it is, for the most part, one of persistent, unrequited love. Amy Dorrit falls in love with the kind-hearted Arthur near the very beginning: well aware of her social seclusion  as a daughter of the Marshalsea prison and that Arthur’s interests lie elsewhere.  Every moment shared between these two, as Amy steals one his shirt buttons, as Amy listens to Arthur express his love for another are heart-wrenching. Finally, when their respective fortunes seem dissolved and the mysteries of their parentage and long-time link is revealed, they can fall against each other in bliss.  Arthur cannot say when he realized that Amy was a woman hidden inside the girl he was so very fond of; but relationships borne out of respect, equality and friendship are my favourite

5) Emma and Knightley, Emma, Jane Austen: Another love story born out of friendship.  I really want to leave this one to the reader; but think it is best represented in the 2009 BBC version of the tale at the pivotal moment when Knightley leads Emma to the dance floor.  Johnny Lee Miller does an incredible job of repressing gushing feelings, expressing confusion and inwardly recognizing the change in his feelings toward Emma:

4)Olivia and Jasper Dale, Road to Avonlea (inspired by the tales of L M Montgomery) R to A took a lot of liberties with both of these characters: sometimes melding instances from Montgomery’s Chronicles of Avonlea, The Story Girl and the Golden Road to make it more engaging for a television audience.  Like Anne of GG,  the love story of the stuttering befuddled inventor Jasper Dale and Sara Stanley’s adorably scattered and sweet aunt Olivia was one of my first introductions to the world of romance. I love the chemistry between these two and how they so devotedly believe in each other’s pursuits: Olivia as a newspaperwoman and Jasper as a budding inventor.  It really is one of the sweetest courtships explored in television and I can’t help but re-watch the scene when Olivia *finally* tells Jasper she loves him and throws her arms around his neck, near tipping over their horse-drawn carriage in her fervor

3) Percy and Marguerite, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Baroness Orczy. The Elusive Pimpernel and the beautiful French stage actress.  This is the stuff that dreams are made of.  Whether in musical, televised or film format, I will never stop loving the treatment given to the dashing English aristocrat who becomes the first super-hero in many ways by disguising his identity as a clothes-obsessed fop to make several trips into Paris: only to secure the lives of those threatened by the guillotine. Percy is the perfect hero: gaily poetic, smart, intelligent and honourable and willing to sacrifice his pride to save the innocent. He is tricky and clever and balances his passion for his cause with his troubled love for his beautiful wife.  When they first meet he is nothing short of besotted by her beauty and charm. Once they marry and he is misinformed as to her part in the renouncement of a prominent family, he hides his love beneath a mask that will ensure his role as the pimpernel is secure. But, even when he cannot trust her, he worships her enough to kiss the steps where her feet have trod.  This story is wonderfully frustrating to the reader/audience who knows that if they JUST TALK IT OUT, the two equally capriciously clever duo will be a perfect pair. It takes a long time and a lot of misunderstanding before they finally, married as they are, are able to enjoy their deserved wedded bliss. [my favourite version]

For the love of ALL THAT is HOLY read the BOOK! read the BOOK!
I just added this for fun; but they take too many liberties in the cheesy TV show

2) Neil MacNeill and Christy, Christy, Catherine Marshall: The devout, seeker Christian and the Agnostic Doctor. Catherine Marshall planted strands of her own history and that of her mother’s into her Christian fiction masterpiece, Christy: I argue that her father the minister is doled out in David Grantland, one of Christy’s ardent suitors when she moves to the Mission in Cutter Gap, Tennessee, while her own husband, Peter Marshall infused some of the fiery Scottish conviction of Neil MacNeill.  I love this love story.  I love how fascinated Neil is with Christy and how he pressures her to discover herself and her faith. Neil is a catalyst and part of their relationship involves how he can push her to tipping point and force her to discover her own values and opinions. If only every relationship had such a supremely intelligent model.  MacNeill believes that “love is the most creative force in the world” and a force that spirits a young teacher to Tennessee to thaw the heart of one who long ago gave up on God is a potently creative one indeed.

My FAVOURITE ROMANCE OF ALL TIME

1)Barney and Valancy, The Blue Castle, LM Montgomery:The Blue Castle is my wish book. In fact, should I ever get married, I have pictured Bala as a possible location.  There are so many things I love about this: one such being the fact that Valancy falls in love with Barney long before he does her. I love stories where the female pursues the man as this is not always the most popular case in literature. Seemingly relegated to spinsterhood by her over-bearing community, Valancy changes her life at 29: at the time this was published, this was way past marriageable age where, like so many Heyer heroines, she was well on the shelf.  Upon receiving the letter that will change her life, Valancy shakes off her shackles, acknowledges there is worth in defiant independence and is rewarded with romance beyond her wildest imaginings.  Again, a preternatural kinship between hero and heroine pulses between Valancy and Barney who are best friends before they become lovers and lovers before they realize that their happy ending is forever after.

Honourable Mentions: Harriet Vane and Lord Peter Wimsey, D L Sayers; Prof. Bhaer and Josephine March, Little Women, Louisa May Alcott; John Harmon and Bella Wilfer, Our Mutual Friend, Charles Dickens; Vivian Rivington and Richard Jury, Richard Jury Series, Martha Grimes

And, finally, my absolute favourite love story of all time is an ancient and sacred one and can be found in the Book of Ruth (read online here)

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY

Alias Barney Snaith: In Which Rachel Utilizes her Magnificent Powers of Internet Deduction

A few nights ago, I got an amazon recommendation for a book called The God of Relationships by Barney Snaith.

Yes, that’s right: Barney Snaith*. I thought this was just the most ironic thing. There was an actual Barney Snaith in the world… and he was a Christian relationships writer?  Something seemed too good to be true, here. I mean, seemingly, any living Christian with the actual name Barney Snaith needs to be a closer acquaintance of mine, n'est pas?

* Barney Snaith is the hero of L.M. Montgomery's 1926 novel, The Blue Castle. 

After snickering with my friends: “Barney Snaith? Christian? Writer? What?” , google- searching, and with the solid assurance that this Barney Snaith (like his literary counterpart) must be using the handle as a nom-de-plume, I remained puzzled.  Who would possibly pick that pseudonym? I didn’t think there was a gentleman on earth who knew who Mr. Snaith was (face it Blue Castle? Not "guy" book. At all).

At one point, for an infinitesimal moment, I even entertained the idea that it could all be a lovely, impractical practical joke.

A little bit about “Barney Snaith’s” book: it was published in June 2011 by  Createspace. It has one rather highly starred amazon.com review by a reviewer who keeps referring to the author as a John Di Marco.  I searched John Di Marco and discovered that he published a book with the same title for the same e-publishing company the year before; even boasting the exact same amazon.com review---except this time, the copyright was under the name Barney Snaith. I searched through the book and stumbled upon erudite paragraphs extolling valid ideas about Christ-centered relationships and the pursuit for a life-partner while simultaneously striving to maintain a Christ-centric ideal.

Yet, Barney Snaith, readers, was an alias.

Not satisfied, I needed to find out more about John Di Marco (who has a blog) this sounds stalkerish; but it was really just internet Sherlock Holmes ---you can’t just use the name Barney Snaith and expect to get away with it? Can you? Seriously. It’s bound to resonate…) and found out that a John DiMarco (the same one, perchance?) writes graphic art and design books for Wiley and seems very educated, assistant professor at a prestigious institute, and what not.  I flipped through his amazon books ( same title; under both Di Marco and Snaith) and from what I read he seems like a relatively relevant and intellectual chap.  So, if you are so inclined please explore. Perhaps, inadvertently, this blog post will direct interested parties to an author they may never have otherwise stumbled upon. And, "Barney Snaith", will google search to find an entry which refers to his book and not, possibly for the first time ever, eighteen thousand searches pertaining to that other Barney Snaith. Ahh… the power of the internet.

The story goes slightly deeper. I decided to look up the amazon profile of Di Marco/Snaith’s enthusiastic four- star reviewer and discovered this guy --- who also seems like a decent, intelligent human being ---Joni Erickson Tada gave one of his books a shout-out. That’s clout in Christian circles, friends.

[He notes a very interesting interest (for our intents and purposes in his bio]

So, Andrew Case and John Di Marco (whomever you are)--- live long, prosper and write well and often--- this is posted with the most good-natured of intentions ---

Your pseudonym, Mr. Di Marco, sparked very fun and distracting intervals of sleuthdom for this rabid Montgomery fan and I wish you well in your future endeavours. A Christian writer named Barney Snaith dapples in life-long-dream territory for many bibliophilic, albeit, Christ-following gals.

 I think we all learned something here --- Using an alias from a lesser-known; but well-beloved L.M. Montgomery hero will garner you some attention….

Mea Culpa John DiMarco and Andrew Case--- best wishes. If you are back-tracking to see where you  have left indelible thumbprints on the internet, please feel free to let us know what inspired Barney Snaith as a pseudonym. If you have read (and enjoyed) the Blue Castle, I would really like to know…. ‘cause guys don’t DO Montgomery ( at least that was my previous impression)

Stuff Barney Snaith Actually Says

So we all went to the recent Jane Eyre adaptation and we all went a little blarmey when Rochester is all, like: “You have transfixed me quite.” 

For those (few) of you I have not yet converted to the Church of “Blue Castledom” (read this article, if you will. This one is fun, too, if you want a good reader comment weigh in whether or not Valancy and Barney had sex ---it even references the Hitchcock film 'Notorious' and you can read my CONVINCING you to read The Blue Castle in Aarti's With Reverent Hands series, because we like that)  I give you…

Stuff Barney Snaith Actually Says:

“Ever dream of ballooning?”

“If you buy your experience, it’s your own…Someone else’s experience can never be yours.”

“I never satisfy curiousity.”

“Piffle”

“Those silences at the back of the north wind got me. I’ve never belonged to myself since.”

“So do you want anything but salt codfish, then?”

“It will exonerate me in the eyes of your kindred from the suspicion of having poisoned you.”

“Once in a thousand years, you know, one cat is allowed to speak.”

“The moon belongs to everybody”

“I’m really quite a middle-aged dog.”

“You think you are free now because you’ve escaped from a peculiarly unbearable kind of bondage. But are you? You love me…that’s a bondage.”

“That’s all we can hope for---the freedom to choose our prison.”

“You’re maddening---especially in twilight or moonlight.”

“In spite of your ancestry, there’s something wild and remote and untamed about you.”

“There are so many different kinds of loveliness, Valancy.”

“Forsooth” (he actually says forsooth. *giggle *)

“You’re in the very core of my heart. I hold you there like a jewel. Didn’t I promise you I’d never tell you a lie? Love you! I love you with all there is of me to love. Heart, soul, brain. Every fibre of body and spirit thrilling to the sweetness of you. There’s nobody in the world for me but you, Valancy.”

And …. The ultimate: “You know nothing of the beauty of the world. We’ll climb mountains, hunt for treasures in the bazaars of Samarcand---search out the magic of the east and west---run hand in hand to the rim of the world. I want to show you it all—see it again through your eyes. Girl, there are a million things I want to show you---do with you --- say to you. It’ll take a lifetime.”

Do any of Montgomery’s other heroes get such AWESOME page-time.

Well-played, Mr. Snaith, well-played.

A Fair Substitute for Heaven: dedicated to shameless and irrational Barney Snaith love since 2006.




Just for Unexpected Fun: amazon.com recommended this book for me this evening. I wonder if this guy knows what name he has.

Mentally Casting Barney Snaith for "The Blue Castle " Movie of the Mind...

The most amazing, grail-like fictional casting discovery ever has been made.  All passionate readers have at one time or another attempted to find a real-life parallel to the characters they so love to read about.  Casting a favourite book in one's imagination is a wonderful pastime.  Some BBC miniseries and Hollywood adaptations do a great job of matching, some actors seem destined to bring classic characters to life (I mentally cast Jack Davenport as several Georgette Heyer heroes); but finding an actor to play Barney Snaith of L.M. Montgomery’s The Blue Castle, possibly my favourite fictional leading man, eluded me for years.

I felt that some actors captured  the essence of Barney and Eric Stoltz was a possible contender for years ( the right smile, the right hair):

British actors Damien Lewis  and Steven Mackintosh were lesser possibilities:

....Kevin McKidd had the right colouring, too:

....and I sort of want to give a shout-out to Benedict Cumberbatch who probably would be up to snuff as well...

But fair, ginger-haired Barney seemed doomed to evade imaginary casting forever.  I just couldn't pinpoint him and no one seemed right.

Casting Barney Snaith of The Blue Castle is something, in my world, that is well over a decade in the making.  He is the absolute GRAIL of fictional casting and if you find the perfect Barney, well, the imaginative world is your proverbial oyster. 

Shall we spend a few moments recalling Barney?  It’s such an agreeable pastime:

The narrator describes him in wily fashion in the very opening paragraphs of the book….even without our knowing that the description meted out matches Valancy’s soon-to-be leading man. As the dawn arises on Valancy’s 29th birthday, we learn who has pre-occupied her mind. Conveniently replacing the physical characteristics of her imaginative Prince as she grows older, the narrator informs: "recently--very recently--her hero had had reddish, tawny hair, a twisted smile and a mysterious past."

Soon after this dream-like incarnation Barney is viewed through Valancy's furtive glances in downtown Deerwood as she runs errands:

"This was only the second time she had ever seen the notorious Barney Snaith[...] He had been crawling out from under his car then, too, and he had given her a cheerful grin as she went by--a little, whimsical grin that gave him the look of an amused gnome.He didn't look bad--she didn't believe he was bad, in spite of the wild yarns that were always being told of him[...]  But still Valancy didn't believe he was bad.  Nobody with a smile like that could be bad, no matter what he had done."

Barney's smile and his look of an amused gnome are a consistent part of his allure and charm for Valancy and he soon manifests himself in her ever important dream world:

“It was that night the Prince of the Blue Castle changed from a

being of grim jaw and hair with a dash of premature grey to a

rakish individual with overlong, tawny hair, dashed with red, dark-

brown eyes, and ears that stuck out just enough to give him an

alert look but not enough to be called flying jibs.  But he still

retained something a little grim about the jaw.”

 She envies him his freedom and his beguiling manner and she admits at a rigid family dinner that she has studied him closely: both upfront and, as we know from her recalling of her Blue Castle dream sprees, in her imaginative consciousness: "I've seen him twice and I looked at him closely," said Valancy composedly.  "I thought his face the most interesting one I ever

saw."

Barney’s physical presence is intrinsically linked to his enigma. Not only is he (with the exceptions of Dean Priest and, to lesser extent, Andrew Stuart) Montgomery’s most dimensional hero, his mysterious past recalls the Byronic and Brontean mystique so prevalent in her novels. Though Valancy’s initial encounters with Barney allow her slight, old-maidenly, shy glances, when she leaves Deerwood for Roaring Abel’s and meets him more consistently as he visits Cissy Gay and even begins an odd friendship with her, she is given further opportunity to notice him:

“His eyes, which she had always thought brown, now seen close, were

deep violet--translucent and intense.  Neither of his eyebrows

looked like the other.  He was thin--too thin--she wished she could

feed him up a bit--she wished she could sew the buttons on his

coat--and make him cut his hair--and shave every day.  There was

SOMETHING in his face--one hardly knew what it was.  Tiredness?

Sadness?  Disillusionment?  He had dimples in his thin cheeks when

he smiled.  All these thoughts flashed through Valancy's mind in

that one moment while his eyes looked into hers.”

That’s right, he had dimples…. A favourite physical mark of Montgomery’s.

So, we’ve covered Barney physically.  Interestingly, other Montgomery heroes (such as Gilbert Blythe and Teddy Kent of Anne of Green Gables and Emily of New Moon respectively) are given far less physical description. Instead, Montgomery sketches them in outline—relying on her readers to colour in their own attributes and physical characteristics.  You can make Gil whatever hero you want him to be, you can colour Teddy with the paintbrush that so tickles your imaginative fancy. Barney, on the other hand (as well as Dean Priest, as a relative if somewhat more cynical comparison), is clearly outlined for you.  While she gives you a snapshot of his physical presence from the very beginning, it is alternatively his past that she expects you to play with until the “reveal” at the end which brushstrokes all of his “missing” information.

So, when mentally casting Barney Snaith, the physical composite is, of course,  a great place to start.  But, as Barney is a dimensional and complicated character, his strong, enticing personality, lackadaisical air, sense of nature and aesthetic pleasure, knack for speaking in all of the languages of the world, and dark past feeding his prototype as Harlequin Hero Extraordinaire is also uber-important.

That’s why  blogger Joni’s mental inspiration for Barney is quite pitch-perfect.

In the comments section of a blog post focusing on (the obviously similar) Edward Rochester, she scribbled:

“BUT since you mentioned LMM, I just thought I'd throw this out there: Doesn't Toby Stephens look an awful lot like Barney Snaith from 'The Blue Castle'?” ….”My sister and I have been fantasy-casting 'TBC' for YEARS now. We haven't found a suitable Valancy and maybe never will (everyone in Hollywood is too pretty). But TS circa 'Tenant of Wildfell Hall' is DEAD ON.”

 Say wha.....? But, I know Toby Stephens. How could I have not seen Barney in him?

  

Toby Stephens is familiar to many like me who hanker after all things British. Think Cambridge Spies, the A&E Great Gatsby (he was a fab Jay Gatsby) Tenant of Wildfell Hall and even an episode of Sharpe and that sad, sad third season of Robin Hood.  But, the image of Toby that most often springs to mind is as his turn as Rochester: a hulking, brooding, dark-haired gentleman whose virility and mischievous, miscreant smile overtakes many of his scenes opposite Ruth Wilson’s Jane Eyre. As I took the time to go back, to recognize  (as I often forget with that pre-possessing Rochester image in mind) that Stephens’ natural colouring is akin to Barney’s and that he indeed has a whimsical smile, a fresh, athletic frame and a mischievous glint in his light eyes, I saw more and more what Joni and her sister did.

Revisiting the 2006 miniseries of Jane Eyre, I read moments of John Foster (John Foster, to those uninitiated with The Blue Castle, is an author who serves a very large role in Valancy and Barney’s romantic development): Rochester and Jane chase dragonflies; they look into nature books in Rochester’s glorious library.  The easy rapport that Rochester shares with Jane, like the preternatural kinship and automatic friendship between Barney and Valancy also offered a serene comparative light.

This seems like a loquacious article when extolling the possible screen-like compatibility of an actor who will probably never grace the screen in our imagined role; but darnit! I have looked for Barney for an age and Joni (whomever she is) is currently my hero for finding him.

Here's some Barney in our friend Toby Stephens. Montgomery writes that Barney had "over-long, tawny hair" in an age when men were known to wear their hair closely cut (here is a photo of a typical 1920s male hairstyle).  Barney's tawny, reddish hair is interesting because he is the only masculine character of her novels to sport a similar shade gifted to her first and  most memorable female heroine, Anne Shirley. [I am not including the next generation of Shirley-Blythes like Walter and Jem: because they are peripheral and not leading men, per se. I like Walter as much as you do.)

Montgomery mentions that Barney often fails to shave (preluding his marriage to Valancy where immediately thereafter he is shown to shave every day).  This BBC interview with Toby Stephens recalls this look.


Finally, Barney is a bit of a rakish fellow and, as such, featuring in an early example of Canadian romance, would sport a roguish grin.  Observe this picture:

I throw this to you:

-What fictional character seems elusive to you when it comes to casting?

-Are you an L.M. Montgomery fan? Who would you cast as Barney? Dean Priest? (we're forgetting that gawdawful Emily of New Moon series from the CBC) Andrew Stuart?