Lane Moore on Anne of Green Gables

This week, I finished reading a book called You Will Find Your People: How to Make Meaningful Friendships as an Adult by Lane Moore. She's a writer, musician and comedian.

Having moved this summer, and feeling lonely in general, I thought the book might be helpful to me. I’m always searching for kindred spirits and hoping for that ideal bosom friendship depicted in L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables. I think that this belief in true and lasting friendship is a common bond shared by people who love the Anne series. What I didn’t know when I started reading You Will Find Your People is that its author Lane Moore loves and identifies with Anne Shirley too and that Anne would turn up in her book.

In Chapter 2, Moore talks about Anne Shirley and Diana Barry’s friendship as being an exception to the general categories of female friendship depicted in the media. She writes:

"There are of course so many beautiful exceptions in pop culture. Particularly, Anne Shirley and Diana Barry's lifelong, deeply devoted, Platonic Soulmates friendship in Anne of Green Gables. (Though, their friendship is arguably two people who are totally in love with each other, and I will forever stand by this correct assumption, but that's for another book.) But if such a Platonic Soulmate exists, where do you find that devotion that sees you through adolescence, into adulthood, into marriages and kids and moving and new careers? Where do you find that magical, poetic friendship where you both grow on parallel tracks—even if they're not the same tracks exactly—into people who still connect deeply, not only as the people you once were, but also as the people you're constantly becoming?"

I wonder that too, where do you find that truest of friendships depicted in Anne of Green Gables? Sometimes I’ve wondered if this type of friendship really exists or if it’s simply fiction, but I still hope it’s something real and attainable.

Later on in the book, in Chapter 14, which is titled, "Friend Breakups: How to Know When to Leave, How to Do It, and How to Cope with the Grief," Lane Moore begins the chapter with a quote from L.M. Montgomery’s novel:

Even though we meet as strangers now I still love her with an inextinguishable love.
-Anne Shirley, Anne of Green Gables

Anne's statement really captures the grief when a friendship feels lost.

After finishing the book, I read a beautiful essay where Lane Moore talks about friendship and Anne of Green Gables called, "I Want a Bosom Friendship Like Anne Shirley and Diana Barry." She wrote the essay for Powell’s Books Blog on April 25, 2023. (Until just a couple months ago, I used to live a few blocks from Powell’s). Moore's essay is really lovely, and I think any fan of Anne of Green Gables should read it.

Moore writes about her lifelong goal, saying, "For me, I want a bosom friendship like Anne Shirley and Diana Barry from Anne of Green Gables more than just about anything in this world." She writes, "When I was a kid, I would read Lucy Maude Montgomery's words describing bosom friends, which boiled down this very romantic sentiment: two people who were absolutely platonic while at the same time being absolutely soulmates." She continues, saying, "I knew I wanted bosom friends. I wanted friends who I could be openly romantic with, maybe a little dramatic with, and also extremely silly with, who I could get drunk on cherry cordials with…"

I love her description of Anne and Diana’s friendship: "Their friendship was about full acceptance and full support of each other. In the face of cruel classmates, and a frustrating world, Anne had Diana's back and Diana had hers just the same."

No wonder so many of us long for a friendship like theirs.


Moore has also mentioned Anne of Green Gables in the following interviews. Check them out:

"What Attachment Styles Teach Us About Our Friendships: They’re Not Just for Romantic Relationships" by Lane Moore, Elle (June 28, 2023)

"Lane Moore: 5 Books That Make Me Feel Less Alone" by Lane Moore, Strand Book Store (October 30, 2018)

Image Credits:
Left: Photograph of Lane Moore from her website.
Right: Screen capture of Megan Follows as Anne Shirley in Anne of Green Gables: The Sequel © Sullivan Entertainment.

Created September 5, 2023.

Anne of Green Gables Inspired Clothing in Simple Retro's 2022 Fall Winter Line

I came across this clothing store called Simple Retro a couple weeks ago while searching for Anne of Green Gables-style blouses and outfits. The shop features feminine, vintage-inspired, everyday retro clothing. Simple Retro has a base in NYC, and their clothing is made in China and mainly shipped around the world from there.

Soon after I found Simple Retro, they featured an Anne of Green Gables-inspired fall winter line for 2022. It seemed so serendipitous that I found the store when I did!

Has any reader ordered from them? If you have, what did you think of their clothing?

Created October 7, 2022.

L.M. Montgomery Quote in Boden's October 2022 Catalog

This October morning, I turned the key of my mailbox and found a treat inside—a catalog from Boden, the British clothing store. I peaked inside, and on the first page was the following quote from Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery.

"I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers"

-L.M. Montgomery

Seeing the quote made me smile. Way to win the heart (and maybe wallet) of this Anne of Green Gables fan, Boden!

Here's the cover of Boden's October Issue:



Boden carries a lot of clothing that I think a modern Anne Shirley might like to wear. I especially love their feminine blouses with lace and puffed sleeves. Do you think a modern Anne would wear any of them?

Created October 5, 2022.

Nikole Hannah-Jones on Anne of Green Gables

I’m always intrigued by how many people around the world have been touched in various ways by Anne Shirley of Anne of Green Gables.

Nikole Hannah-Jones is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist. She led and developed The 1619 Project for The New York Times Magazine, which re-frames and re-examines the legacy of slavery in the United States. The project was initially published in 2019 on the 400th anniversary of the 1619 arrival of the first enslaved African people in Virginia. For her work, Hannah-Jones was named one of The 100 Most Influential People of 2021 by Time Magazine. That same year, Nikole Hannah-Jones published a book with her colleagues titled, The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story. She’s currently a professor at Howard University.

Last fall, prior to the publication of her book, the L.A. Times Book Club interviewed Nikole Hannah-Jones. She was asked her about her favorite books, music, movies, and TV shows for the book club’s newsletter, which was published in the Los Angeles Times by the book club editor Donna Wares on November 6, 2021.

Among Nikole Hannah-Jones’s answers was this gem mentioning Anne of Green Gables:

TV that got me through the pandemic: "Tiger King," of course. My daughter and I spent many nights watching "Anne of Green Gables" together, "Law & Order" reruns, "Dateline" murder mysteries, "Living Single" reruns. I am obsessed with "Dopesick," "Snowfall" and "Impeached."

Like Nikole Hannah-Jones and her daughter, watching Anne of Green Gables has helped me during the pandemic too.

Reference:
Wares, Donna. (2021, November 6). Book club: Get to know Nikole Hannah-Jones and ‘The 1619 Project.’ Los Angeles Times. Retrieved from: https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/newsletter/2021-11-06/book-club-newsletter-nikole-hannah-jones-the-1619-project-book-club

Image credits:
Left: Photograph of Nikole Hannah-Jones by Levi Walton in The 100 Most Influential People of 2021 issue of Time Magazine published September 15, 2021.
Right: Screen capture of Megan Follows as Anne Shirley in Anne of Green Gables © Sullivan Entertainment.

Created September 30, 2022.

Google Doodle Celebrates Lucy Maud Montgomery on her 141st Birthday

Today's Google Doodle celebrates L.M. Montgomery's 141st birthday with three animated doodles by Olivia When featuring scenes from Montgomery's beloved story Anne of Green Gables.

In one Google Doodle, Anne Shirley and Diana Barry are laying in a field of field of flowers. Anne is writing, while Diana is reading. The pair are wearing flower crowns in their hair.

In a second Google Doodle, Anne Shirley turns green when she tastes the layered cake she prepared for Mrs. Allen's visit to the Cuthbert home. Anne accidentally flavored her cake with anodyne liniment, thinking it was vanilla. Marilla had poured her liniment into an old vanilla bottle and hadn't relabeled the bottle.



A third Google Doodle pictures show scenes on the Lake of Shining Waters, with Anne walking to school, Anne and Diana running together, and Gilbert Blythe saving Anne after she played Elaine, in the chapter titled, "An Unfortunate Lily Maid."



Google posted the following info about the L.M. Montgomery Google Doodles:

Lucy Maud Montgomery wrote her first novel in 1905. It was rejected by every single publishing house that received it. A few years later, Montgomery tried shopping it again and succeeded. Her story about the adventures of a red-headed girl in Prince Edward Island became a smash hit. That novel ultimately became one of Canada’s most all-time popular books, being translated into around 20 languages and selling more than 50 million copies to date. Anne of Green Gables and its many sequels made Montgomery a wildly successful author and turned PEI into a destination for the book’s thousands of fans.

One of Canada’s most celebrated writers, Montgomery also wrote hundreds of poems and short stories as well as a number of novels apart from the Anne series. She was the first Canadian woman to be made a member of the British Royal Society of Arts and was also appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire. Today, on what would have been her 141st birthday, we salute Lucy Maud Montgomery with a Doodle that pays tribute to her most iconic book.

Doodler Olivia When, herself an Anne of Green Gables fan, wanted to honor Montgomery by illustrating several scenes from the beloved novel, including a particularly memorable one in which Anne mistakenly bakes a cake with liniment (a medicated oil) instead of vanilla. Here’s to Anne with an “e” Shirley and her revered creator, Lucy Maud Montgomery.

Created November 30, 2015. Re-posted online September 4, 2023. Last updated September 4, 2023.

Christina Hendricks on Anne of Green Gables

I love finding mentions of Anne Shirley and L.M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables in interviews. Here’s my most recent find.

Christina Hendricks is an actress and model who stars as Joan Holloway on the television series Mad Men. The show is a period drama about a fictional advertising agency set in the 1960s. Christina Hendricks’s talent and striking beauty have made Joan Holloway a favorite on the show. In May of this year, in a poll of female readers, Hendricks was named Esquire’s sexist woman of the year.

This July, prior to the debut of the fourth season of Mad Men, Leslie Gornstein interviewed Christina Hendricks for the Los Angeles Times Magazine. It was a great interview, in which Gornstein asked Hendricks about Joan and Mad Men, her playing the accordion, her seeing Tom Waits perform and once dining with him and his wife, her three-episode role on Firefly, and her appearances in several music videos. She also spoke about finding red carpet gowns, dressing in retro costumes, and the Joan Holloway Barbie doll.

Best of all (for me, at least), Leslie Gornstein asked Christina Hendricks about how she began dying her hair red:

You’ve said you started dying your blond hair red at age 10. How exactly did you sell that choice to your folks?
They did it to me! I was obsessed with the Canadian novel Anne of Green Gables. I decided I was Anne of Green Gables. There was something that spoke to me about her, and I wanted to have her beautiful red hair. So my mother said, “Let’s just go to the drugstore and get one of those cover-the-gray rinses!” My hair was very blond at the time, but it went carrot red. And I was over the moon. I went to school the next day and felt like myself. And then I went back [to that color] over and over again. What a cool mom, right?

I think we can all agree that Christina Hendricks’s Mom was super cool for supporting her daughter’s obsession with Anne of Green Gables. And I adore Christina Hendricks’s red hair.

Reference:
Gornstein, Leslie. (2010, July) Past Perfect Christina Hendricks. Los Angeles Times Magazine. Originally retrieved from: https://www.latimesmagazine.com/2010/07/christina-hendricks.html (presently, dead link). Archived at: https://web.archive.org/web/20101227122133/https://www.latimesmagazine.com/2010/07/christina-hendricks.html

Image credits:
Left: Photograph of Christina Hendricks by Joshua Jordan with styling by Hayley Atkin from "Past Perfect Christina Hendricks", Los Angeles Times Magazine, published July 2010.
Right: Screen capture of Megan Follows as Anne Shirley in Anne of Green Gables: The Sequel © Sullivan Entertainment.

Created July 6, 2010.  Re-posted online October 8, 2022. Last updated September 4, 2023.

Anne of Green Gables U-Haul Truck

When I opened my front door today, I found this Anne of Green Gables U-Haul truck parked right outside my apartment. I took this photograph of it from my doorstep.

The under the illustration of Anne and Green Gables, the side of the truck reads:

PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND
HOME OF THE LEGENDARY ANNE OF GREEN GABLES
FOYER DE LA LÉGENDAIRE «ANNE DE LA MAISON AUX PIGNONS VERTS»

Seeing the truck made me smile. It's always nice to have a reminder of Prince Edward Island and Anne Shirley.

Here's a crisper view of the Anne Shirley graphic art from the U-Haul website:



Created September 3, 2005. Re-posted online June 10, 2022. Last updated June 10, 2022.