Very much in the vein of the Montgomery short stories, but they fit the form of a novel because she’s telling about six of them at once, and they’re all intertwined. I think the jug is a contrivance, frankly (and I think the ending makes that clear) and that means the book feels inconsequential. Especially because Montgomery has told all these stories before.

I suppose this would be three stars - perfectly average - but it loses a star for the racist last page. It’s honestly shocking.

A Tangled Web is one of L.M. Montgomery's lesser-known works, but one well worth discovering for yourself! It starts out strong with the soon-to-be-late Aunt Becky, who loves nothing more than to insult her relatives and watch them squirm at her infamous family gatherings(she is much funnier than she sounds here). Even though I think she was the best character here, her departure still leaves us with some likable personalities. Margaret is a sweetheart and the Sams are a funny duo. I liked Donna's sense of independence but thought she was too often unkind to Virginia. I thought Gay was a big sap the first time I read this, and while I still don't find her interesting I admit she does have a little more backbone than I remembered. She is the only one who plans to break with tradition and marry outside the Dark and Penhallow clans(these people badly need a bigger gene pool anyhow). But this first fiance turns out to be a shallow cheater and she marries within the clans after all, reestablishing the very weird status quo.

Hugh and Joscelyn's story was a good example of the thick-headedness and stubbornness seen in some of these characters. Luckily this works because the book comes across as mostly a tale of human folly. I think this message was a bit lost in the scene where Joscelyn meets the man she barely knew but convinced herself she was in love with for a decade. That scene unfortunately seems to equate his present homeliness with unworthiness and failure. He could have been shown as a really good and competent person but seeing him portly and balding could have just made her realize she only loved his looks and not the actual person. That is probably what LMM intended, but it comes across like Joscelyn blames him more than herself for the way she falls out of "love" just as quickly as she fell into it.

Even though I didn't love all the characters and it's driving me a bit mad to not find out who inherited the jug after all, most everything came together very well by the end and I really enjoyed this book. Remember LMM's better-known heroine Emily Starr? Even though Emily was a writer yet we never got to read her stories ourselves, A Tangled Web feels just like the kind of story I imagine she would have written about her Applegath characters. It has a bit of drama, plenty of comedy, and is a sweet story about ordinary people with extraordinary foibles. If you've always wished Emily's stories really existed, you may find a lot to love in A Tangled Web!

I cannot, in good conscience, give a book with gratuitous cat killing more than one star. The death was so unnecessary, malicious, and cruel, and it was a nasty surprise on the page. The only reason it happened was to pile anguish on an already anguished character, and I cannot stand for that.

I'm fairly sure that LMM wrote this novel with her tongue firmly in her cheek - how else to explain the four generations of intermarriage in one family, the ridiculous fight over an earthenware jug, and the constantly tended torches of instalove? - but it wasn't all that fun, even without the animal deaths (yes, there is more than one, but at least the other one was an accident). I didn't really like any of the characters, or feel like I could root for them to have happy endings. SO MANY of these people decided that they fell in love instantly, at first sight, and carried flames of passion for their idealized OTL, to the point of wrecking multiple lives. It was just plain tedious to read, over and over again.

One for the completionists only, IMO. And track down your copy from the library if you can!

Montgomery has such a way with words, from scathing snarky comments to glorious prose about nature. And it's often a joy to read, though I did have a few struggles with this one, despite liking it a fair bit.

Firstly, it reads a bit differently. We basically bounce around in narration from character to character to character to character to character. At the beginning, sometimes it's just a sentence about one character only to have the next five sentences about 5 OTHER characters. There's a lot of names being thrown around and honestly, it was hard to keep track of who was who, unless they were one of the main...10?? For all that it bounced around though, you did feel like it was a complete story in the end.

I had to roll my eyes at so many people here. So many of them were so stupid, and all regarding love. It was slightly frustrating because it was almost hard to believe any of them really in love, they were so fickle or dumb about it. Which made it hard to root for anybody. Most especially Gay I would have liked to bop over the head. Probably Hugh and Jocelyn I most rooted for, and even they to some degree needed a head bopping.

I expected so much more from the stupid jug. I mean, the more it went, the more I knew nothing would come of it, but still, I was promised things, and it was pretty duddy.

Also, dear heavens, I would like to see a family tree for these two families because good grief. Is the whole damn island just these two families intermarrying???? (I know it's not, but it sure seems like it )

But all that being said, it was really genuinely a pleasure to read. Qualms aside, it mostly worked and Montgomery's writing is just so

I get very cranky when L.M. Montgomery's books are dismissed as "girly kids' lit." For one thing, it's just part of the grand old tradition of shitting on things that girls like. And for another, it completely disregards what a wonderful storyteller she really was.

A few years ago I bought the Kindle edition of her complete works for like $3, and every now and again I peek into a book I haven't read before. I'd avoided this one because the premise sounded pretty dopey - a large, complicated family loses its collective head over who is going to inherit Aunt Becky's ceramic jug - but it sucked me right in. There are a lot of characters to keep track of, but they're all wonderfully portrayed and Montgomery has given each of them a pretty great identifying characteristic so you can keep them straight. They all ended up where I wanted them to be at the end (well, mostly) but it was a hell of a roller coaster ride getting there, and the ending turned out to be excellent. And then it ended with a paragraph that made me go DAMN, LUCY MAUD, and feel grateful that nobody was looking over my shoulder.

So yeah, this was good.

This is one of LMM's only two books written for and aimed at adults (the other is "The Blue Castle"). There are a LOT of characters to keep straight in it, but I enjoy it. It's one of my favourite books by her I think. If you've read it, here's a question for you: Who do you think ought to have received the jug?

This is the L.M. Montgomery book for adults I was hoping to read. Keep in mind it was first published in 1931... but it is daring and witty, sarcastic and sentimental. This clever story of the Dark and Penhallow clans, whose family trees are more like shrubs, is a fun romp with the skeletons in their closets. It's a behind the scenes look at the best and worst of human nature among the clan and it's entertaining from start (or almost) to the end (not quite). The first section of the first chapter is a little off-putting and there is an unfortunate racial slur in the last paragraph of the book which leaves the reader with a nasty taste in their mouth which is sad for such a wonderful book. Granted there are so many characters in the book with such similar names that it gets very difficult to keep track of them all but the main characters are quickly well developed and stand out from the pack. A definite recommend to anyone who loves Victorian literature and L.M. Montgomery in particular.

من این کتاب رو در یک روز خوندم و از خوندنش لذت بردم. اما واقعیت اینه که سبکش با چیزی که از نوشته های لوسی مونتگمری میشناختم فرق داشت. در عین حال که انتظار ظهور یک شخصیت قوی و خاص مثل آنه یا امیلی رو داشتم، در کمال تعجب دیدم که از این سبک متفاوت که شخصیت های مختلفی حضور داشتن و مسیر داستانی خودشون رو طی می کردن هم بدم نیومد!

طبیعتا به دلیل تعداد زیاد شخصیت ها و حجم کم کتاب، فرصت پرداخت عمیق به ماجراها نبود ولی در همین حدی که بود رضایت بخش بود. بین امتیاز سه و چهار مردد بودم که درنهایت به دلیل ترجمه ی عالی و پانوشت های مفید تصمیم گرفتم امتیاز چهار بدم!

فکر کنم پر شخصیت‌ترین و پر جزئیات‌ترین کار مونتگمری باشه.
۱۰۰صفحه اولش قشنگ بود اما ادامه‌اش برام خسته‌کننده بود. پایانشم مایوسم کرد.

L.M. Montgomery usual milieu was the young-girl-grows-up-story, but she occasionally crafted a story aimed toward the more adult end of the spectrum. The Blue Castle, for one, which is a wonderful story.

A Tangled Web is another. First published in 1931, it follows a large cast of characters, all belonging the extended Dark and Penhallow clans as they speculate on who will inherit the "old Dark jug" from dying Aunt Emily.

We particularly pursue half dozen or so of the family members, all of whom seek and find love or companionship in a variety of amusing ways. We have young lovers, estranged lovers, confirmed bachelors, lonely old maids, lonely children - the usual cast.

It's a different kind of book for Lucy Maud, one that regularly flits between people and perspectives, following various threads over the course of several months or so. As is usual for Montgomery, the tone is usually sentimental and comic, and is usually successful in eliciting smiles and laughs.

I had believed that I had already read all of Montgomery's novels, so it was an agreeable surprise to find one I hadn't. While no classic, I had a good time reading it.

Fun book to read with a wise ending. I will admit I was looking forward to seeing who got the jug so that was disappointing.

I was shocked by the last paragraph in this book, which was disgustingly racist. Up to that point , I enjoyed some of L.M. Montgomery's book geared to an adult audience, about the clan of Darks and Penhallows, who fight over an ugly heirloom. There were too many clan members to keep track of, which greatly took away from the story. And then the horrible ending, felt like someone had dropped a brick on my foot. I think the author could have dropped the last chapter altogether. Not my favorite book by this author who wrote the beloved Anne of Green Gables series.