Saturday 26 October 2013

Lucy Maud Montgomery: The Gift of Wings

I've been deeply fascinated by L M Montgomery ever since I met Anne and her kin. I've loved many authors, but my fascination with 'Maud' runs much deeper - it feels like a personal connection. For nearly two years after Anne of Green Gables, my reading consisted almost solely of Montgomery's works. First the Anne series, then the Emily books, then The Blue Castle and A Tangled Web...

I'm not sure what it is about Montgomery that attracted me to her above all authors. The protagonists with whom I felt I had much in common? The feeling, loving creation of setting that has immortalized Prince Edward Island in the hearts of many ardent fans (including myself)? After I had read all the aforementioned books and some, plus some collections of short stories, I felt like I personally knew the author. With Montgomery, who uses similar themes in most, if not all her books, and who endows every protagonist with some of the same qualities (her characters are different, but they all possess imagination, intelligence, wit and generally a way with words), it is easy to feel as if she is sometimes talking about herself. It is easy to fancy that you know what she would have been like. To me, it was as if a 'kindred spirit' were talking to me from across time and space - I'd related to characters in books before, but never, never at the level at which I identified with Montgomery's protagonists. After a while though, it became less about the books and more about what I could find out about Montgomery by reading them. I became rabidly curious to find out more about the author who'd ruled my imagination for years. A preliminary google search revealed to me the news that Montgomery may have committed suicide.

This may not seem like much to you, but to a sensitive, over-imaginative girl, this was almost earth-shattering. I couldn't believe that this author - whose works contained so much joy, so much life - could even have a reason to take her own life. I retreated, in my mind, behind a defensive shield, refusing to believe that her life could have ended so tragically. As long as there was any shadow of a doubt, I resolved not to believe this. I also decided (thankfully) that I wasn't ready to read Montgomery's journals or any of the books written on her, yet. I would wait till I was less involved, more sensible and less sensitive.


When I received an Amazon gift card this August, I knew what I was going to use it for. Mary Henley Rubio's biography of Montgomery, of which I'd heard good things. I'm mature enough to handle this now, I thought. It's time to get some closure and put this obsession to rest.



The first part of the book, where Rubio is describing Montgomery's ancestry, wasn't very interesting. Once she got to her life, however, I couldn't put it down. I knew some of the things that Rubio describes, but not much. Maud was an extraordinary women, determined, disciplined, talented and extremely resilient.

The book did not give me much happiness, however. I'm not sure whether it was intended that way, but Maud's life comes across as tragic and full of disappointments, perhaps because the unhappy periods in Maud's life get far more attention and description. What is it about artists and men and women of genius that draws us to the flaws and unhappiness in their lives? When we remember Van Gogh, why do we simultaneously remember his art and his famously severed ear? Why is there so much emphasis on Virginia Woolf's suicide? Dante's exile? Dante and Beatrice? Do we get some sort of vindictive satisfaction in saying, "They may have been geniuses, but they didn't lead very happy lives"?

This emphasis on the tortured artist is something that has always troubled me. Is it mandatory for a great artist to die unhappy, melancholy and disenchanted with life?
What justice is there in a world in which people who provide so much happiness to others in the form of their work, are unhappy themselves?

Back to Maud - reading the book, you come across instance after instance of disappointment, of loneliness, of difficulty. The saddest parts of the book, for me, were where Maud fights depression. Her highs and lows resonated deeply with me, because I am the sort of person who can be exquisitely happy and tremendously sad.

But with what strength, what discipline Maud fights this! Rubio says she set aside a few hours for writing everyday, and she wrote, no matter what. If she felt burdened and couldn't write, she would copy texts or things she'd memorized, over and over again until she found inspiration.

From all accounts, she did face rather a lot of difficulties.

She supported herself through her higher education, with little support from a male-centric society, slaved away for a few years teaching and writing at the same time, developed terrible migraines, married a husband whose depressive fits worsened her own, took tablets that resulted in bromide poisoning, and had a terrible son who seemed to do anything that would break his mother's heart.

For all her resilience, for all that she fought, Maud dies exhausted and broken, referring to her life in her journal as 'hell, hell, hell.'

'My position is too awful to endure and nobody realizes it. What an end to a life in which I tried always to do my best in spite of many mistakes.'

Oh, Maud!

I read the last page, shut the book and wept. I wept for my idol, for this woman who'd done so much and felt so much; I wept out of sheer sympathy; I wept out of sorrow, out of fear that I'd end up the same way (I don't flatter myself with regards to talent, but as I've already said, her highs and lows resonated with me deeply). That night, I regretted reading this book, regretted my stupidity in thinking I was mature enough to handle this.

But when a few days had passed, and I was standing a little farther away from myself, I was able to look at things more rationally.

Most accounts of Montgomery's life naturally rely on her journals as a primary source, but for most of her adulthood, Maud wrote in her journals only of things that upset her, when she was at a breaking point, and situations were past endurance. Rubio tries to overcome this by talking to all kinds of people who knew her, including Montgomery's son Stuart (who was the good son; the disappointing one was Chester). She mentions the discrepancy between the troubled woman in Maud's journals, and the witty, sparkling, laughing women most of these people spoke of. Yet, troubled, tragic Maud gets more attention, perhaps understandably, considering that Maud may have ended her life.

But I think that joyous Maud deserves attention too. The woman who wrote of beautiful lands, fun times, raptures, soaring imagination and funny people deserves mention too. Who are we to say who Maud 'really' was? What if, underneath all the bad luck and sad circumstances, the 'real' Maud is the one we see in people's descriptions and in her protagonists? Busy, kind, witty, laughing, fun?

I've made peace with Maud's story. I refuse, however, to look at her as some sort of tragic heroine. There was tragedy in her life, but there was bliss too. I think she deserves to not have that glossed over. And despite whatever I said about the distress her story caused me, I think I have gotten that closure. I don't think I shall obsessively look for more biographies and analyses. I will let Maud rest in peace, reserving a spot in my heart for a wonderfully accomplished, resilient artist.

Sunday 20 October 2013

Hello again!

It has been too long. Way too long. Unintentionally long.

I'm sorry, faithful readers (if any, apart from my wonderful friends). My brilliant organizational skills combined with being in a new country, having to take care of my own laundry, and understanding college life have kept me occupied, although I have thought so many times of ideas that would make good blog posts that I have enough material for a while now, whether or not I get the time to read a lot.

Sorry for that painfully long sentence. I have really missed blogging.

I have had a number of experiences, wonderful and a little less wonderful, in the past one and a half months. I've seen the Niagara Falls twice, attended a fabulous play on Kasturba Gandhi, heard a magnificent concert on Romeo and Juliet by the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, been late to class when I tried to cook upma, appalled my mom with the condition of my room when she visited, attended a garba event for Dussehra...


Having started this post yesterday, and twice before that, I think I now have an idea why I have been failing at this the past two months. I have always been terrible in writing on my life or thoughts in general - I go rambling on and on and never get anywhere. I need a focus - a particular incident or topic - and then words will just pour from me effortlessly. They usually need editing, but I can work with them. 

So for this post...

Lately, one of my earlier posts on this blog (one of the earliest) has been haunting me. I compared Charlotte Bronte unfavourably to Jane Austen, saying Bronte could never match up to Austen in my estimation. I feel now that I was unfair and rather hypocritical. What bought on this reflection? Recently, I came across a Jane Eyre vlog on Youtube in the style of the immensely popular Lizzie Bennet Diaries, and today I watched the 1996 movie version of Jane Eyre. This got me thinking about my post, and about the first few times I had read Jane Eyre (I rarely read a book only once). The book had me completely engrossed, and there was a time when I re-read certain passages in the book numerous times. My opinion of the book could, of course, have changed; but I went back to the book and re-read those same passages, and I realized that it hasn't, really. I really like Jane Eyre.



I love stills where the lighting is perfect and everybody looks beautiful because they're shown from the right angles.

So what bought on that post? One of the book bloggers I really admire, Claire from the thecaptivereader.wordpress.com, dislikes Jane Eyre. At the time I decided to blog regularly, I was reading rather a lot of The Captive Reader, and she puts things so well that I suppose I convinced myself about the deep flaws in the book. I do this sometimes when I really admire someone, and I don't do it consciously. I imbibe their opinions and convince myself that they're mine.

What was wrong with my post? First and foremost, Austen and Bronte simply cannot be compared. They were different people who wrote in different contexts in utterly different styles about very different things. An Austen romance is worlds away from a Bronte romance, which of course does not necessarily make one better than the other. 

Second, I was unjustified both in my evaluation of Rochester and in saying there is no humour in Jane Eyre. 

Mr. Rochester is the male protagonist that every wannabe dark romance has been trying to imitate for a while now. Wounded, cynical, witty, impolite in a very attention-grabbing way, and in need of love from a wonderful female creature who is whole, good and innocent enough to recover his faith in humanity, reform him and temper his cynicism all at once. This female creature manages to be sympathetic and relatable and not quite a paragon of virtue because of her passion. While I might find Rochester a tad intimidating in real life, he is somehow very magnetic in the book.  Maybe this is because, despite his occasional despotism and dominance, he comes across as capable of loving very deeply. When Rochester explains things to Jane after she has found out he is already married, I forgive him as immediately as Jane. I find it impossible to think of him as manipulative, scheming and deceitful. With his own twisted, desperate logic, Rochester sincerely believes that he would do no wrong in marrying Jane. The second time I read this book (when I was actually old enough to understand it, this time) I actually found myself wondering whether Rochester was right. What harm would it do to anybody if Jane stayed with him? She has no one to judge her and he cannot be with Bertha anyway.

However, he had no right to keep Jane in the dark and expect her to break the law.

I'm getting sidetracked. I'll keep the psychoanalysis for another post. What I meant to say is that Rochester is a suitably likable and attractive male lead. While reading the book I did not find it repulsive that they are so far apart in age (although when I consider it objectively I do)!

As for humour, Jane Eyre is not a humorous book, but it has dialogue between Jane and Rochester that is witty and entertaining. I said that 'Mr. Rochester and Jane don't ever seem to converse without undertones of something.' Don't conversations between any romantic pair have undertones? Besides, Jane Eyre is one of those rare romantic books where you can actually see the characters falling in love. Their whole relationship is built on good conversation (since neither has any sort of good looks, or so we're told). Finally, it was hypocritical of me to pretend that I read Jane Eyre in a dispassionate way, liking it just 'well enough'. I read it like I read every other book, head over heels. And surely there was something in the book that warranted this liking? 

I'm not saying Jane Eyre is completely wonderful and flawless. But it deserves admiration for a number of things, including an absorbing story (except for when Jane is with the Rivers, and it seems to drag on interminably till she meets Rochester again), very unique protagonists, and the simple fact that it generally has a large impact on the reader (I know it did on me). 

I also realize now that that post was a little bit from indignation at the things Bronte said about Austen. It was a lot easier to disparage an author who had the impertinence and bad taste to dislike Austen. Kidding. About the bad taste. But it certainly coloured my opinion.

And with this I shall stop for now, and I promise I will never bring this up again.