Sometimes I read a book, friends, and I spend the entire time going, “This book! THIS BOOK!” and I mark so many pages that the spine begins to bow outwards in desperation, and I want to recommend it to everyone I know, and then I sit down to write the review and my brain says:“Um. Oh. Er. Hello? This book. It was a book. I like it. Yes.”BRAIN DAMMIT YOU ARE NOT IMPRESSING UPON MY FOLLOWERS THE IMMENSE AWESOMENESS THAT IS THE BLUE CASTLE!!“Ah. Well. It was a book. A good book. Yes.”JESUS CHRIST BRAIN WHY DO YOU FAIL?!?!Clearly I’m not going to be able to adequately express to y’all why I read this book and instantly had to go purchase a copy of my own.Suffice to say it was really, really enjoyable.I mean, the whole thing was tempered a little bit with complete and total sorrow, because as you read this book you realize that it’s basically Lucy Maud’s pipe dream. There she is, struggling through life, growing up with no mother and a distant father and a heart-wrenchingly lonely childhood, several failed engagements and one tragic influenza death under her belt, plus a crappy marriage to a mentally ill religious zealot, a deceased child, a couple of lawsuits, and God knows what else. And she writes this book—one of her few for adults—where her protagonist is also heart-wrenchingly lonely, unappreciated, stifled, saddled with heinous relatives, and whose future will involve either dying alone or marrying someone out of convenience and living out her days in a loveless marriage.Valancy herself had never quite relinquished a certain pitiful, shamed, little hope that Romance would come her way yet—never, until this wet, horrible morning, when she wakened to the fact that she was twenty-nine and unsought by any man. Ay, there lay the sting. Valancy did not mind so much being an old maid. After all, she thought, being an old maid couldn’t possibly be as dreadful as being married to an Uncle Wellignton or an Uncle Benjamin, or even an Uncle Herbert. What hurt her was that she had never had a chance to be anything but an old maid.But wait! There is light at the end of the tunnel! Valancy suddenly learns from her doctor that she’s about to die!Normally this is terrible news, but for Valancy it’s the best thing EVER. Suddenly, she realizes that she really doesn’t give a shit about her relatives. They’re horrible to her! They’re just awful, awful people! So screw them, she decides.She tells them exactly what she thinks of them all, packs a bag, and wanders over to the bad side of town to play housekeeper for the town drunk and his slowly-dying daughter (cast out of the town’s good graces after she had the nerve to get herself pregnant out of wedlock, and if she’s dying well that’s what you get when you’re no better than you ought to be) and this is all terribly shocking to her family.She befriends the loud, oath-uttering Barney Snaith, a “rakish individual with overlong tawny hair dashed with red, dark-brown eyes, and ears that stuck out just enough to give him an alert look but not enough to be called flying jibs,” and goes on wild car rides with him—and no female escort oh it gets worse all the time.Also, she leaves the Anglican church and becomes a Presbyterian. DEAR GOD NO.And Other Things Ensue and there is romance and intrique and you actually like how the inevitable relationship pans out (because was there ever any doubt?) and the writing is consistently funny. And through it all Valancy is happily bursting out of her Introverted Cocoon of Propriety and finally getting to just be herself regardless of how it’s viewed by proper society, and you as the reader spend the whole time going, “YEAH GIRL YOU SHOW THOSE ASSHATS HOW IT’S DONE” and it’s awesome. Awesome.So it’s a fantastically fun read, but like I said, one that leaves you wishing that the author’s own life hadn’t sucked quite so much.
It is remarkable that this book perfectly follows so many long-established Hollywood romantic comedy conventions, and yet it avoids cliché, surprising and delighting the reader despite its tired plot. The Blue Castle is built on several overused tropes. Valancy, the homely protagonist who has been living as an old maid since girlhood, discovers that she will die within a year. And so the book begins with one of those well-known carpe diem sequences where a dying character gives her finger to the world and learns, too late, how to live life to the fullest, normally by swimming with dolphins or going skydiving, and of course, by falling in true real deep love for the first time ever. Yet here, Montgomery’s use of this trope does not irritate, mostly because despite Valancy’s profound change in attitude, she remains the same person. Valancy accepts her morbid news and uses it as a way to discover what she has wanted and forbidden herself from having for 29 years. She doesn’t create a massive bucket list and cross off items daily—she simply learns to say yes to what she wants and no to what she doesn’t want. Another romantic comedy trope: the ridiculous family. Valancy is part of the Stirling family, a bourgeois Canadian clan that reigns in small town Ontario but considers itself to be equal to the royal family at Versailles. There are around ten relatives that incessantly insult, pity, and, worst, simply ignore Valancy, and each is wonderfully sketched. One of the novel’s most fantastic scenes takes place at a family dinner soon after Valancy’s diagnosis. She finally tells each family member exactly what she thinks of them, and each relative melts into a babbling state, unable to recognize the newly liberated niece/daughter/granddaughter/cousin who sees through them and their antics. The final romantic trope is also one of my most hated. In The Blue Castle we have a case of he-loves-her-but-shhh-only-she-doesn’t-know-it syndrome. Because of the relationship’s unique circumstances, I cannot reject this trope as I normally do. It seems believable that a girl who has been told for decades that she is ugly and unloveable would struggle to accept that she is indeed loved. And without this trope, we wouldn’t get to read a wonderful scene where the lovers finally acknowledge and confess the true depth of their love. The Blue Castle is trite, to be sure, but it’s trite in such an utterly charming way that I can’t bring myself to fault it. It certainly helps that L.M. Montgomery is a wonderful writer with an incredible capacity to describe the beauty of the Canadian wilderness. Like all of Montgomery’s work, this is a book that reminds you how amazing it is to be alive, to be able to enjoy the world with friends by your side. There may be clichés and a serious case of deus ex machina, but no matter, you’ll be too grateful that you can lie in the grass, gaze at the stars, hear the songs of the birds, and fall in love at any moment to even care. 3.5 stars
What do You think about The Blue Castle (1989)?
I arrived late to the L.M. Montgomery party, not having grown up with her stories as a young girl, but rather read them for the first time in my late 20's. Knowing what I know now about the beauty and magic of her books, I realize I missed out of some major reading adventures with Anne, Emily, Pat and gang, and will consequently never be able to wax nostalgic about how those books effected my life (which is probably for the best, as I tend to go into sappy, melodramatic overdrive when I really love a book - you know it's true, my GR friends) :PBut in the case of The Blue Castle, it's a good thing I didn't pick this up to read until I was about the age of Valency, because I don't think a younger girl would be able to fully appreciate this story as much a young woman who has lived a little. This is one of Montgomery's only books written with an adult audience in mind, and it wasn't highly acclaimed at the time of publication or for several decades afterwards. It definitely deals with more adult themes, and does so with a very sympathetic hand. I have since learned more about Montgomery's less-then-fairytale life, and it makes me appreciate her talents even more.If Jane Austen's Persuasion is all about second chances in life, then Montgomery's The Blue Castle is all about allowing oneself to have a chance at all. Valancy's road to independence at the age of 29 is chock-full of convenient coincidences that happen in order for her (and the story) to blossom, but those plot contrivances thankfully don't lessen the appeal of the story. While the majority of the characters are one dimensional and make only a brief appearance, Montgomery perfectly captured the character of Valancy, her mother, Roaring Abel, Cissie, and Barney Snaith. And speaking of Barney Snaith, was there EVER a swoon-worthy hero with a more dumpy name in the history of fiction? Good grief, the man oozes sex appeal, but no reader ever brings him up in discussions of great fictional heros, and I am convinced it's because of his name. Think about it:Gone with the Wind: Barney Butler....Pride and Prejudice: Barney Darcy....Twilight: Barney Cullen....I rest my case.
—Hannah
This is without question my favorite L.M. Montgomery! Even more so than Jane of Lantern Hill. More Heartwrenching and beautiful then any of her others. It will take me some time to sort my thoughts out on this one.Valancy has had about enough of her family's nit-picking, if they remind her one more time about her being an unwanted old maid, she feels that she will burst. Then Valancy finds that her heart is not only having strange jumpy spells, but is leaving her crippled with pain at times. So, she rebels against her family's tradition of only going to Dr. _, and instead goes to Dr. Trent, without telling a soul. “Rebellion flamed up in her soul as the dark hours passed by – not because she had no future but because she had no past.” The news she hears is not encouraging, but it gives her a sudden and much needed will to live her own life, not that of her family.She takes them all by storm, they don't know what's hit them. Where has dull, submissive, plain Valancy gone? And who is this shocking, outspoken almost pretty girl? She must be crazy they decide, there is no other reason why she would treat them in this atrocious manner! For the first time in her life Valancy feels free, she says what she wants, (most of the time), works for Roaring Able and she helps his daughter Cissy, the towns shunned fallen woman. While doing that she meets Barney, a man everyone says is an ex convict. She falls head over heels for him, without him ever knowing. But that doesn't matter, because for the first time in her life, Valancy is blissfully happy. So, so beautiful! Everyone should read this. At first I didn't think I'd like Valancy, I thought it was going to be a "pity me" kind of book. How wrong I was! By the time i turnee theast page I loved her! The only thing I didn't care for is… Barney - what a terrible name! He was amazing as a character though. That's my only complaint, and as L.M. Montgomery didn't know the purple & green Dinosaur, all is forgiven. I think it is good for all long term fans of L.M.M and those new to her works, in other words you must read it! I'll go as far as to say it is better than Anne of Green Gables. I will never forget when Valancy first saw her Blue Castle…
—Tweety
(I read this as a library e-book.)Having just polished off a couple of modern Regencies with the Dying Hero trope, I had asked if anyone had encountered one with a dying heroine, because I was curious how they would compare. The differences in time, place, and style of the writing from this century-old book overwhelmed the comparison, alas for science, but it was a very enjoyable read nonetheless. It's been said that the two Ur-models for romances are Beauty and the Beast and Cinderella; this took a while to settle into its destined slot, but arrived there satisfyingly in due course.Generally better writing than many modern genre romances, but the almost complete silence about sex became very noticeable by contrast. It's such a big part of learning how to be a woman at that stage of one's life, the lacunae seemed less discreet than cruel. Well, context.Good outdoors values, ones that I entirely share. I don't see how humans can live in cities.I'm still looking for a more modern dying heroine, for comparisons. And, though it probably can't be in the same book, romantic comedy as opposed to angsty romantic melodrama. (I've read up Heyer, Crusie, Krentz, & SE Phillips, thanks.)Ta, L.
—Lois Bujold
