u/My_Poor_Nerves

I finally worked my way through Oxford's Annotated "Anne of Green Gables" earlier this year, and was rather disappointed in it as a whole. Many of the annotations were word definitions (and several of those for words that aren't particularly obscure), and many more still were about plants. So.many.plants. The worst part of the whole, though, was the introduction. It wasn't entirely bad, though. Some parts were interesting and insightful, but once it devolved into random guesses as to where the name "Avonlea" came from, and then creating some sort of bizarre Catholic pentagram (I don't have my copy with me to pull the exact words for this - sorry!) with Anne as St. Anne, Marilla as Mary, Mother of Jesus, and even bringing in poor Rachel Lynde and tying her to Rachel, Jacob's wife, we were fully off the rails and descended into what very much felt like straight up academically cloaked twaddle. This merited a google search.

In looking up the author of the introduction (Margaret Anne Doody), I found a very interesting read on JASNA: https://jasna.org/assets/Persuasions/No-42/wiltshire\_P42.pdf. The JASNA article is about as scathing a takedown of another piece of literary criticism as one would hope to see in the polite circle of Jane Austen scholarships. For me, coming in hot from my disappointment over the Anne intro, it was a very soothing read as the author, John Wiltshire, takes Doody to task over her analysis of Austen's name choices, the very sort of analysis that made me run mad and faint in reading the Anne intro.

What might be interesting to the general Austen fandom, though, is that in refuting some of Doody's name analysis, Wiltshire refutes the belief (that I've seen pop up on this sub at least a couple of times) that the name Mansfield Park itself honors the famous abolitionist, Lord Mansfield. He instead points out a naval captain that could have inspired the name, as well as proving that "Mansfield" is a name of general English-ness and in that way, might not have been used to honor anyone in specific.

The essay later discusses what Doody wrote about Edmund Bertram, a character she apparently despises (something I imagine she has in common with many people here!). Wiltshire's defense of Edmund is thorough, and I thought, quite convincing on the side of "He's actually not the worst!" The clincher to that argument was this: "How do we square this evaluation with Jane Austen’s own remark as reported by her friend Ann Barrett: "To a question ‘which of your characters do you like best?’ she once answered 'Edmund Bertram and Mr Knightley; but they are very far from being what I know English gentlemen often are’” (Le Faye 233)?"

Y'all, Jane Austen herself liked Edmund best (or second best, I mean, it's probably second best because Knightley is RIGHT THERE!). This information has blown my mind. I feel like a failed Austenite. How have I, for the last three decades, fail to love Edmund Bertram as well as he deserved? What is lacking in me, that I haven't divined his true merit? I'm going to have to pick up Mansfield Park again for a re-read, and soon.

As for my spleen over the "Anne of Green Gables" intro., it was fully calmed by the validation I found in the conclusion of Wiltshire's essay:

"This book, though so well-researched in many respects, seems in these instances to exemplify what the philosopher Paul Ricoeur called “the hermeneutics of suspicion” (27), or rather a subset of that critical mode. In the hermeneutics of suspicion, the reader claims possession of the text, or rather a knowledge of the text of which the author is unaware. Merging with a form of new historicism, it allows a critic to construe, as I have here suggested that Doody does, readings that pass over the text’s meaning for its contemporaries, subjecting it to interpretations emanating from a wholly distinct cultural world to that in which it was written and to which it was addressed. We might (and we do) entertain many ideas about Jane Austen and her novels, but it seems to me that we must always retain our trust in the author."

To preface this review - I am the target audience for this book which presents itself as an Anne of Green Gables-inspired heartfelt romance set on Mackinac Island. I'm an Anne Shirley megafan (I won The Friends of the Library Undergraduate Book Collection Award with my L.M. Montgomery collection) and have been since I was 8 (I am now old). I'm a Mackinac Island megafan (I even got engaged on that "Island of Romance") and how cool is it to read a book set in a place that you're familiar with the details of? And I adore a heartfelt romance. Again, in broad strokes, this is the book for me. But, but, but. ohhhmahgawd, I have not been as annoyed by a book so much ever in my whole life.

This book needed more research. There are so many details that are wrong, it's maddening. Examples:

The winter ferry ride is not 20 minutes, it's longer because the slower boats with the thicker hulls are used due to ice on the lake. The bridge also does not exactly slide away behind one during the ferry ride, but that's quibbling.

The heroine disembarks on the Island and immediately complains about the "crumbling" asphalt. Where is this crumbling asphalt on the island? Like Anne Gallagher of this book, I too have hauled a carry-on over a mile of Mackinac Island roads and they are not crumbling. Horse poop coated, for sure. Crumbling, not so much. She also takes a truly bizarre way to her home if she's trudging past both mansions and the cemetery on the way there.

Speaking of crumbling, Anne's mother's home is crumbling because Anne's mother has owned a fudge shop on the Island for (presumably) a couple of decades and yet is doing very badly financially. Y'all, fudge is a multi-million dollar industry there. If her shop has been around for years and years and she's struggling, the math ain't mathing or her fudge is awful and doesn't sell well.

The book mentions there are "only three kinds" of people on Mackinac Island is mentioned twice, ignoring the 4,500 seasonal workers, which is an odd omission.

Anne and her mother drive 3.5 hours to Marquette, MI to shop at Goodwill. There is a Goodwill 40 minutes away from Mackinaw City in Gaylord, MI.

Speaking of Marquette, our "rangy" male leads favorite beer is said to be "Blackrocks," which he orders while our heroine orders a "Corona." But Blackrocks is a brewery, not one specific beer unlike Corona. Maybe the bar in question in the story only carries one Blackrocks beer, but it still seems odd to order a beer by brewery instead of by its name or type.

But the worst "fudged" detail? In a flashback, Anne walks home from downtown Mackinac after leaving prom early. She's in her dress and heels. Her escort vaguely notes she's wearing impractical shoes. They proceed to walk back to her home by going past the Fort which might, if google maps is to be believed, is the shortest distance in feet by a small amount, but it takes you up the steepest and worst hill on the Island (it's so steep bikes are banned from it). There is no further mention of how agonizing hoofing up that hill must be in heels (but dude gives her his shirt because she must be cold!).

The worst part about this last bit, though, takes me into my more serious complaint about the book which is the Anne of Green Gables connection operates on the most basic level. Anne's mom's crusty exterior hides her loving heart just like Marilla! Anne's dad was quiet and loving like Matthew! Her true love is her Gilbert (because they fought a little bit when they were younger, I guess, there's nothing else Gilbert- like about him)! Her best friend marries and stays local like Diana! Anne wants to be an author like Anne Shirley! There was so much missed opportunity for more. For example, in the aforementioned party shoe walk home, the author could have made a parallel to the last Anne of Green Gables book, Rilla of Ingleside, in which Rilla, Anne's daughter, has to walk home in her own uncomfortable shoes after a disappointing time at a dance. At another point in the story, when Anne Gallagher has to deal with the consequences a clash with a parent of one of her students (she's a teacher), she does not make the connection that a similar thing happens to Anne Shirley in "Anne of Avonlea." And some of the character connections are just bad - Anne's ex-bf she labels as her Roy Gardiner, but he's not really like Anne Shirley's Roy at all. The book makes it apparent from the first chapter that he's an awful boyfriend wheras Anne Shirley's Roy is perfect on paper and treats her like a princess, but doesn't "fit" with her life.

There's also some uncomfortable age things going on. 17 year old Anne of this story kisses a twenty-something man. There is no reason that the author couldn't have made her 18 at that point in the story - she is a senior in high school! She also stumbles across same man having outdoor sex (don't even get me started on how if you're having sex on the beach on Mackinac Island, you're almost inevitably within thirty feet of the tourist heavy bike path that runs around the whole island, and if you're doing it on the side of the island that has tree cover on the shore you're in view of all the ferries so that is certainly a choice to do that in broad daylight) when she's 12 and he's an older teen. It was a super unnecessary scene, and, like I said, also uncomfy! Whyyyyy????

I'm big mad about this book and I'm mad that I'm mad about it and I'm mad that I'm mad enough to spend time to write all this out. My only defense is that my anger was born out of my disappointment. I'm going to soothe my spirit by reading "A Girl of the Limberlost" a heartfelt romance that takes place on Mackinac Island but with the correct geography.

I have a long, solo road trip coming up and I think it would be nice to have a lengthy audiobook cued up for it, but the problem is I just have not enjoyed being read to since I was about six years old. So what I'm looking for is an audiobook of an excellent book where the production of the audiobook itself is excellent and worth listening to regardless of the content. Sort of the equivalent of reading a book in a genre you don't enjoy but you like the book anyway because the writing is excellent.

I tend to read classic literature (specifically I'm a huge Austen fan), but not really picky about genre with the exceptions being horror, dark romance, or depressing books generally (gotta keep at least a little positive balance in the hope bank!)

Thanks!

NPR's 1A is currently running an interview with a person who generates 200 ai books a year. Some points she's put forward are:

1. publishers/platforms don't widely require disclosure to readers that the book was ai generated (and apparently readers can't tell the rudeness difference)

2. all authors are influenced by other authors and there are no original ideas left in the world, so the fact that authors are upset that their materials were used to train the ai systems she is currently profiting off, don't have a leg to stand on

3. this is the future of all writing/publishing, if one has any hope of being profitable

To me, if this is where writing is going, it feels like the death of writing as an art and the beginning of writing as editing solely with an eye towards profit and I want nothing to do with that. I wish disclosure of ai use was mandatory but that seems like a pipe dream.

https://the1a.org/segments/what-ai-authored-books-mean-for-the-publishing-industry/