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Lucy Maud Montgomery: The Gift Of Wings (2008)

by Mary Henley Rubio(Favorite Author)

4.2 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

0385659830 (ISBN13: 9780385659833)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Doubleday Canada

review 1: A riveting, well-researched 700+ page account that, being a long-time Anne fan, I couldn't help devouring in a few days. This is the only biography I've read of Montgomery's but seemingly the most comprehensive as it was written by one of the editors of her 10 volumes of journals. Rubio attempts to fill in many of the gaps and to include other perspectives on Montgomery's life, drawing upon interviews from two decades of research. Nevertheless, Montgomery was such a complex and mysterious figure that, the more we learn about her, the more questions we're left with. This itself is probably a testament to the importance of this biography, as it's only been in recent years that Montgomery has even been viewed as that complex of a person or writer, as Rubio points out.Among th... moree things that surprised me about Montgomery's life here that usually aren't mentioned or are glossed over elsewhere:- She had always intended for her journals to be published after death, and midway through her life she even began recopying the journals and editing and shaping her life story for posterity. (I was craving more commentary on this bizarre, compulsive practice, but it was always stated more just as a factual reminder, and the journals are still the primary source for much of this biography.) Montgomery seems to have had an obsession with the portrayal of herself, which the biography touches on (e.g., Rubio's readings of some of the staged, symbolic photos she had taken of herself are fascinating). - Montgomery was incredibly brilliant, more than just the writer of the imaginative girls' stories she's mostly become known for. She had an amazing memory, read a book a day, was active as a speaker and leader in the literary community, was a very competent, sociable, and well-loved minister's wife, and on top of all that, replied personally to all her fan mail and did her best to help others. She maintained a strict writing schedule of 2-3 hours each day and was extremely prolific, even through the many strains on her life and psyche. - She was very famous, successful, and rich from quite early on in her lifetime. - Grown men (including politicians) read and loved her work, including Mark Twain (and Rubio mentions a paper she wrote on the intriguing parallel between Huckleberry Finn and Anne of Green Gables).- I knew she had been subject to bouts of depression but did not realize the extent of it, nor did I realize just how complicated and sad her life was, from family to legal matters to falling out of favor among literary critics. Not only did she have mood disorders, but her husband was clinically depressed and one of her sons was probably a psychopath -- all of which she tried to conceal from family, friends, and the general public. She and her husband were also given medications that further exacerbated their conditions and have since been proven to be poisonous. It seems much of this was unknown prior to the publication of her journals in 1985, after both her sons had died.- I had not known about the controversy surrounding her death that came out a few years ago and was stunned to learn that she may or may not have committed suicide, and that her family has always believed that she had and kept it to themselves.- I read the last part of this biography in almost complete shock, horror, and grief, and upon finishing, went right back through certain parts to reread and try to process more fully. Overall, the biography deals much more with the later parts of her life than the earlier parts, seemingly because of the material available. Montgomery went through much effort to maintain a dignified and respectable appearance to the outside world, so I imagine this may even be as much as we'll ever learn about her. But I hope that with so much of what this biography has revealed, it will only spur more interest and respect for a little-understood literary figure and lead to more research on her work and life.
review 2: I'm reading this before handing it off to my daughter. We've both read the journals many times over, and discussed them endlessly. It is a relief to have some of the lacunae filled in, but at the same time there is a surprising sketchiness about portions of LMM's life that surprises me, and then a lot of dull repetitions of stuff like lists of earnings, etc, that could as well have been relegated to the small print in an appendix.That aside, Rubio is one of the scholars most familiar with LMM's material and the setting, so this is as good as we are going to get for now. But like Dean King's and Nikolai Tolstoy's biographies of Patrick O'Brian, it leaves a thirst for the depth of treatment that the subject deserves. less

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