Emily Climbs

A solid three stars. I liked the depiction of small town gossip and nosiness into other people's business. I also like the way that the characters are rounded - even Aunt Ruth turns up trumps when it's really needed. I enjoyed it enough to go straight on to the third volume of the Emily trilogy.

Beautiful. This story follows Emily through her high school years. The lessons she learns studying together with other people. She becomes more mature, and her understanding is broadened of the world. I love the little snippets of poetry interspersed throughout the book, references to other poets and such. I'm looking forward to reading the last book of the series. L.M. Montgomery is awesome.

3.25/5 stars

آه امیلی هفده ساله‌ی من...
دوستت دارم. ستایشت می‌کنم. تو همینطور داری در مسیر آلپ پیش می‌روی و موفق هم می‌شوی. تو، ای ستاره!

امیلی در نیومون معرفی داستان و شخصیتاس و امیلی و صعود رشد و پیشرفت روابط.
یکی از جالبترین شخصیت ها دین پریسته. ارتباط دوطرفه و درک متقابل دین و امیلی بعضی وقتا واقعا باعث میشه حسودیم شه :) البته گاهی همین رابطه ترسناک هم میشه. احساس مالکیتی که نسبت به امیلی داره یه سنگینی ای داره. هر جا که دین توی داستان حضور داره یهو فضا عوض میشه. انگار با هر برخوردی که امیلی و دین دارن, امیلی یکم بزرگتر و بالغتر میشه که از نوع نوشته های دفتر خاطراتش هم معلومه.
فرم اپیزودیک داستان و سریالی بودنش رو هم خیلی دوست دارم.


https://taaghche.com/book/52178

Montgomery has a beautiful way of writing. I’d say this series is a real life version of Anne of Green Gables. She doesn’t hide Emily’s flaws and you see Montgomery’s religion even clearer or lack of belief in God. The characters are more raw and real as opposed to the characters in her Anne of Green Gables series who are romanticized in my opinion. Not my favorite but an interesting study in comparison to her other writings.

The novel is an excellent continuation of "Emily of New Moon", though it lacks the intense psychological depth of the previous volume. The characterization is quite good with Aunt Ruth stealing the show. There are excellent foreshadowings of plot developments to come in the final book of the series.

Modern readers might be put off by the occasional intrusions of the author (disguised as a "biographer"). Sometimes these interruptions to the narrative flow simply underline a point which could have been made more effectively through dramatization. However, fictional narrative rhetoric was different in the twenties when these books were written and the use of such methods was in fashion especially in works written for younger readers. In the end, that convention is eclipsed by the wonderfully vivid world Montgomery presents to us.

Just a wee bit too episodic at times for my liking and personal tastes (and with especially the chapters where Emil Byrd Starr and best friend Ilse Burnley go canvassing for magazine subscriptions, where Emily through her supposed second sight then locates little lost Alan Bradshaw feeling at least to and for me a trifle tacked on so to speak and almost as though L.M. Montgomery has felt as though she desperately requires yet another instance of Emily Byrd Starr being presented as someone with supposed psychic powers in order to cement her depiction and description of Emily as a person of magic, artistry, of Emily as a creature of starlight and occasional uncanniness, albeit I do admit absolutely loving the tale of the woman who spanked the king) and that sometimes, in particular the imagined diary entries do tend to interrupt narrative flow a bit, generally L.M. Montgomery's second instalment of the Emily of New Moon trilogy (Emily Climbs) features (in my opinion) as both a more than worthy and adequate sequel to Emily of New Moon and also nicely and effortlessly then ties the latter, ties Emily Climbs to the third novel, to Emily's Quest.

And indeed, all my mild criticisms of Emily Climbs mentioned above notwithstanding (as well as the personal frustrations with the annoying truth of the matter that I have also found one of my favourite characters from the first novel, from Emily of New Moon, that I have found Dean Priest increasingly turning too clingy, too demanding and strangely jealous in Emily Climbs and with Perry Miller, his constant bragging and that he obviously is incredibly clueless regarding the fact that Emily is NOT AT ALL interested in him in a romantic manner also really getting on my nerves) I certainly have very much enjoyed reading about Emily Byrd Starr's experiences (and multiple escapades) going to high school in Shrewsbury, and in particular how she is increasingly growing up and becoming more and more sure of herself (including how she usually and hilariously does manage to rout arch rival Evelyn Blake with pointed and excruciatingly hilarious sarcasm, finally leaving the latter squirmingly helpless and Emily Byrd Starr as the total victor with the timely and satisfying discovery and outing that Evelyn did in fact copy that poem for which she won an award over Emily's own and non plagiarised submission).

And yes even L.M. Montgomery's descriptions of Emily having to live with her more often than not rather odious and overbearing Aunt Ruth have generally been rather amusing and enlighteningly engaging. But to be honest, Ruth Dutton's constant refrain that Emily somehow is sly and untrustworthy, that does sometimes feel a bit over-used and exaggerated by L.M. Montgomery and actually has made me even want to at times skim over certain parts of Emily Climbs since reading over and over again about Emily constantly being labelled as someone not to be trusted and consistently denigrated gets a bit same old, same old and lamely tedious (although I have to admit broadly and pleasurably smiling at the episode where Emily finally overhears her aunt praising her to a visitor and realising that perhaps Aunt Ruth does not actually despise her but will of course never ever likely say many if any laudatory and positive words of encouragement to her face).

Finally, while I do not particularly like (and am also infuriated) in Emily Climbs having Emily's Aunt Elizabeth Murray exact that mandate of Emily not being allowed to write fictional stories in order for her to be able to attend high school in Shrewsbury (as of course it would be the Murrays footing the bill, paying Emily's tuition and expenses and well, especially Aunt Elizabeth strongly considers fiction as writing falsehoods) I do appreciate and cheer that Emily does not simply agree and say yes and amen to Aunt Elizabeth's unreasonable demands of NO WRITING whatsoever and that between both Emily and her cousin Jimmy, they manage to both reason with and convince Aunt Elizabeth that Emily need only promise not to pen "stories" and that writing non fiction and poetry would still be allowed and deemed acceptable.

And yes, reading Emily Climbs and Emily Byrd Starr's continuous development and maturation as a writer, in my opinion, having Emily be forced to reign in her imagination a bit in order to pen reasonable and acceptable non fiction accounts is actually (in retrospect) a very good ways and means of training Emily's writing skills for the time when she will finally be once again free to write fiction. For when after Great Aunt Nancy's death, Aunt Elizabeth tells her niece that since she has now been provided for education-wise in the latter's will, she also no longer is bound by her promise to not write prose fiction as Aunt Elizabeth Murray will naturally no longer be responsible for providing the funds for Emily's education, to and for me, it sure also does seem as though that after Great Aunt Nancy Priest's death, while Emily is of course ecstatic that she can once again let her imagination run wild and compose, pen fictional stories, her enforced break of having to limit herself to non fiction for much of Emily Climbs has actually been a godsend in many ways, as it also has made Emily's fiction writing less exaggerated, more realistic and believable, that Aunt Elizabeth's demands that her niece not write ANY fiction (while she was paying Emily's expenses) have actually made Emily Byrd Starr into a better and less overly emotional and exaggerated writer across the board.