LM Montgomery Reading Challenge: The Blue Castle

I ended up reading one more book for the LM Montgomery Reading Challenge. Last night I glanced at my bookshelf and noticed that my copy of The Blue Castle was there. I thought it was in a box in storage. Since it's not, I decided to read it quickly for the challenge. It is, after all, my favorite of LM Montgomery's books.

I first read The Blue Castle in high school, I think. I distinctly remember seeing it in the bookstore my first year of college, but being a broke college student, I didn't buy it. I finally found it again about a year ago online. I don't remember right off how much I paid for it, but I'm sure it was more than if I'd bought it at the college bookstore. Oh well, hindsight is 20/20.

I like the storyline and I love the descriptions LM Montgomery uses. The descriptions of Valancy's family are so vivid and real that you can't help but despise them and feel bad for Valancy.

Some great quotes from the book:

• "...Valancy had long ago decided that she would rather offend God than Aunt Wellington, because God might forgive her but Aunt Wellington never would."
• "Aunt Isabel prided herself on saying what she thought, but didn't like it so well when other people said what they thought to her."
• "So Valancy was allowed to read them [the John Foster books]- under protest, for it was only too evident that she enjoyed them too much. It was permissible, even laudable, to read to improve your mind and your religion, but a book that was enjoyable was dangerous." [glad that's not true...]
• "'You made me apologise to Olive fifteen years ago for something I didn't do,' said Valancy. 'That old apology will do for now.'"
• "What business had Valancy to look like- like- like a young girl? The way of the transgressor was hard. Had to be. Scriptural and proper. Yet Valancy's path couldn't be hard. She wouldn't look like that if it were. There was something wrong. It was almost enough to make a man turn modernist."
• "At her old home Valancy, seized with a sudden impulse, got out, opened the little gate and tiptoed around to the sitting-room window. There sat her mother and Cousin Stickles drearily, grimly knitting. Baffling and inhuman as ever. If they had looked the least bit lonesome Valancy would have gone in. But they did not. Valancy would not disturb them for worlds."

You can't help but hate all of Valancy's relations. They're so mean-spirited and niggling. And her mother is so cold, unfeeling, and unloving. I feel that if she had been more loving and sympathetic, life would have been a lot different for Valancy from a much younger age. And who came up with "Doss" as a better alternative to "Valancy"?

In the end, after it's discovered that the man she married is the rich heir to a patent medicine company and the author of a very popular series, all her relations trip over themselves to get in her good graces. Before, she was neglected and the brunt of jokes. Now they're ever so proud of her, in a completely hypocritical way.  Her cousin Olive says it best:

"'Uncle Ben is a scream. Likewise Uncle James. The fuss they all make over Doss now is absolutely sickening. To hear Aunt Amelia talking of 'my son-in-law, Bernard Redfern' and 'my daughter, Mrs. Bernard Redfern.' Mother and Father are as bad as the rest. And they can't see that Valancy is just laughing at them all in her sleeve.'"

The vivid descriptions of nature and people and the storyline combine to make a very enjoyable story- everyone should read it if they can find a copy (good luck on that!).