『The Blythes Are Quoted』이 출시되면서 몇몇 신문들에서 서평들이 보인다. 몇번 언급한 적이 있지만 앤 이야기 답지 않은 어두운 가족사를 포함하고 있는데 갑작스러운 죽음으로 생전에 출판되지 못했다. 차남 스튜어트가 74년에 출간한 적이 있지만 많은 부분이 삭제되었기 때문에 이번에 르페브르씨가 복원한 것이 최초로 온전히 세상에 나온 모드 여사의 작품이 되겠다. 아래의 글은 르페브르씨가 직접 책에 대해 소개를 해 주고 있다. 같은 캐나다인이지만 소설 속 세계와 조금은 이질적인 배경을 가진 그의 앤과의 만남의 과정이 흥미롭다.
The Dark Side of L.M. Montgomery
Montgomery didn’t just write about the cheerful life of Anne. Her books were full of unhappy characters and gothic plots.
Benjamin Lefebvre
Director, L.M. Montgomery Research Group; scholar.
Ever since I decided to dedicate a fair proportion of my time to the work of L.M. Montgomery, the author of the Anne of Green Gables series of books, at graduate school a decade ago, I’ve often been asked what it is I find so compelling about a set of books that are supposed to appeal primarily to women and children. (가끔씩 받는 질문과 동일 ^^) These questions are asked by colleagues and acquaintances who either see no value in books for women and children, or who, at the opposite end of the spectrum, have identified strongly with Montgomery’s protagonists(주인공) – Anne, Emily, Sara, Pat, Rilla, and Jane – since early childhood and have nurtured that attachment throughout their lives. (이 상황도 마찬가지... 앤을 좋아하는 남정네들이 겪는 일들은 어디서나 비슷한가 보다)
My interest in Montgomery’s work is at times perplexing(당황케 하다, 혼란케 하다) to even me, since I’m not able to identify with her characters in this way. As a male reader of French Canadian and Catholic heritage, I’ve often felt like an outsider to the Scots-Presbyterian communities that Montgomery depicts(생생하게 묘사하다). In fact, when I first read Anne of Green Gables at the age of sixteen, I’m fairly sure I only half-understood what the term “Presbyterian” meant. If I had to choose a character in Anne of Green Gables with whom I could identify based on gender and background, I suppose the best I could come up with is one of the “stupid, half-grown little French boys” who are too lazy and unreliable to be of any use on the Cuthbert farm.
Perhaps because I’m more distanced from Montgomery’s characters and communities, the elements that I enjoy most in her work are not the romance (which I don’t find that believable), or her elaborate nature descriptions (which I tend to skip). What I find most compelling and fascinating about the Anne books are the counterstories that Montgomery inserts alongside the primarily happy story of Anne Shirley Blythe. Whether comic or tragic, these counterstories primarily concern secondary characters or anecdotes(일화) about stock characters who never actually appear. These include lonely or bitter spinsters(미혼여성들) in Anne of Avonlea, odd and mismatched couples in Anne of the Island, and abused and neglected children in Rainbow Valley. In Anne’s House of Dreams, ostensibly(표면상으로는) centred on Anne’s newlywed phase with Gilbert, the most compelling story concerns neighbour Leslie Moore, trapped in a loveless marriage to a brutish(야비하고 잔인한) man who was rendered a simpleton in a bar fight. The “solution” to this subplot is totally farfetched(억지스러운 에둘러말하는), but Leslie’s suffering certainly is not. These elements may seem surprising for a children’s book, but then, Montgomery never saw herself as a writer for children.
In Anne of Windy Poplars(내가 1권 이후로 가장 좋아하는 앤 시리즈 중 가장 마지막에 나온 것. 블라이스家 이야기를 기다리는 이유이기도 하고...), a 1936 addition to the original series of six books, Montgomery backtracked to Anne as a high school principal in the years of her engagement to Gilbert. Anne meets two identical spinsters(노처녀) who are proud of the range of bizarre ways in which their relatives died. Montgomery was asked by her American editor to cut some of the more gruesome(기괴한) anecdotes, but these were retained for the British edition, published as Anne of Windy Willows. Among the anecdotes that didn’t make it into the North American editions were two suicides, an accidental shooting, an unintentional self-poisoning by a man who took the wrong medication in the dark, a cousin who may have been buried alive, a man who was buried with his eyes open, and a family legend that Satan appeared at a dance party. Perhaps not surprisingly, Montgomery was “pleasantly amazed” when the Daily Mirror chose Anne of Windy Willows for its romantic book of the month. (그렇다. 다들 인식하지 못하지만 분명히 간과하고 넘어갈 수 없는 모드 여사만의 독특한 부분이다. 르페브르씨가 점점 더 마음에 든다)
My edition of Montgomery’s final book, The Blythes Are Quoted (which will be released on October 27), is of interest to readers not only because Montgomery submitted it to her publisher the very day of her death, reportedly by suicide, but because of the way Montgomery rewrote earlier short stories and added vignettes(짤막한 장면들) to feature Anne and Gilbert. In this final book, the counterstories become the story, while Anne and her family become the counterstory: they appear, but as Montgomery’s title indicates, mostly they are spoken about.
While the subject matter may surprise some readers who know Montgomery as a writer of sunny romances for children – the book contains three elaborate deathbed scenes as well as brief mentions of sixty-odd characters who have died – the purpose of its publication is not to ruin a beloved Canadian icon, but to appreciate more the darker elements that she has offered us all along in the margins of her beloved books. In her final contribution to literature, Montgomery provides for her international community of readers a new way of reading her beloved heroine Anne.
UPDATED 26 OCTOBER: See also my essay “The Dark Side of L.M. Montgomery,” published in The Mark.
Montgomery didn’t just write about the cheerful life of Anne. Her books were full of unhappy characters and gothic plots.
Benjamin Lefebvre
Director, L.M. Montgomery Research Group; scholar.
Ever since I decided to dedicate a fair proportion of my time to the work of L.M. Montgomery, the author of the Anne of Green Gables series of books, at graduate school a decade ago, I’ve often been asked what it is I find so compelling about a set of books that are supposed to appeal primarily to women and children. (가끔씩 받는 질문과 동일 ^^) These questions are asked by colleagues and acquaintances who either see no value in books for women and children, or who, at the opposite end of the spectrum, have identified strongly with Montgomery’s protagonists(주인공) – Anne, Emily, Sara, Pat, Rilla, and Jane – since early childhood and have nurtured that attachment throughout their lives. (이 상황도 마찬가지... 앤을 좋아하는 남정네들이 겪는 일들은 어디서나 비슷한가 보다)My interest in Montgomery’s work is at times perplexing(당황케 하다, 혼란케 하다) to even me, since I’m not able to identify with her characters in this way. As a male reader of French Canadian and Catholic heritage, I’ve often felt like an outsider to the Scots-Presbyterian communities that Montgomery depicts(생생하게 묘사하다). In fact, when I first read Anne of Green Gables at the age of sixteen, I’m fairly sure I only half-understood what the term “Presbyterian” meant. If I had to choose a character in Anne of Green Gables with whom I could identify based on gender and background, I suppose the best I could come up with is one of the “stupid, half-grown little French boys” who are too lazy and unreliable to be of any use on the Cuthbert farm.
Perhaps because I’m more distanced from Montgomery’s characters and communities, the elements that I enjoy most in her work are not the romance (which I don’t find that believable), or her elaborate nature descriptions (which I tend to skip). What I find most compelling and fascinating about the Anne books are the counterstories that Montgomery inserts alongside the primarily happy story of Anne Shirley Blythe. Whether comic or tragic, these counterstories primarily concern secondary characters or anecdotes(일화) about stock characters who never actually appear. These include lonely or bitter spinsters(미혼여성들) in Anne of Avonlea, odd and mismatched couples in Anne of the Island, and abused and neglected children in Rainbow Valley. In Anne’s House of Dreams, ostensibly(표면상으로는) centred on Anne’s newlywed phase with Gilbert, the most compelling story concerns neighbour Leslie Moore, trapped in a loveless marriage to a brutish(야비하고 잔인한) man who was rendered a simpleton in a bar fight. The “solution” to this subplot is totally farfetched(억지스러운 에둘러말하는), but Leslie’s suffering certainly is not. These elements may seem surprising for a children’s book, but then, Montgomery never saw herself as a writer for children.
In Anne of Windy Poplars(내가 1권 이후로 가장 좋아하는 앤 시리즈 중 가장 마지막에 나온 것. 블라이스家 이야기를 기다리는 이유이기도 하고...), a 1936 addition to the original series of six books, Montgomery backtracked to Anne as a high school principal in the years of her engagement to Gilbert. Anne meets two identical spinsters(노처녀) who are proud of the range of bizarre ways in which their relatives died. Montgomery was asked by her American editor to cut some of the more gruesome(기괴한) anecdotes, but these were retained for the British edition, published as Anne of Windy Willows. Among the anecdotes that didn’t make it into the North American editions were two suicides, an accidental shooting, an unintentional self-poisoning by a man who took the wrong medication in the dark, a cousin who may have been buried alive, a man who was buried with his eyes open, and a family legend that Satan appeared at a dance party. Perhaps not surprisingly, Montgomery was “pleasantly amazed” when the Daily Mirror chose Anne of Windy Willows for its romantic book of the month. (그렇다. 다들 인식하지 못하지만 분명히 간과하고 넘어갈 수 없는 모드 여사만의 독특한 부분이다. 르페브르씨가 점점 더 마음에 든다)
My edition of Montgomery’s final book, The Blythes Are Quoted (which will be released on October 27), is of interest to readers not only because Montgomery submitted it to her publisher the very day of her death, reportedly by suicide, but because of the way Montgomery rewrote earlier short stories and added vignettes(짤막한 장면들) to feature Anne and Gilbert. In this final book, the counterstories become the story, while Anne and her family become the counterstory: they appear, but as Montgomery’s title indicates, mostly they are spoken about.
While the subject matter may surprise some readers who know Montgomery as a writer of sunny romances for children – the book contains three elaborate deathbed scenes as well as brief mentions of sixty-odd characters who have died – the purpose of its publication is not to ruin a beloved Canadian icon, but to appreciate more the darker elements that she has offered us all along in the margins of her beloved books. In her final contribution to literature, Montgomery provides for her international community of readers a new way of reading her beloved heroine Anne.
UPDATED 26 OCTOBER: See also my essay “The Dark Side of L.M. Montgomery,” published in The Mark.
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