Pat Gardiner to bardziej "nowoczesna" bohaterka Montgomery od Ani czy Emilki. Jeździ na przejażdżki rodzinnym autem, chadza do kina. Ale spokojnie - charakterystycznej, staromodnej ale uroczej, montgomery'owskiej sielskości tu pod dostatkiem. Tutaj pobłyskuje ukochane jeziorko, tam mruga porozumiewawczo okienko na poddaszu, nawet gałezie drzew zdają się kiwać znacząco... Wszystko to tworzy Srebrny Gaj, ukochany, okraszony kociętami rodzinny dom Pat. Dom, bez którego dorastająca Pat, rozmarzona dziewuszka o upartym charakterku, praktycznie nie wyobraża sobie życia. "Jestem beznadziejnie wiktoriańska" - mówi sama o sobie, i wyrzekając się wszelkich większych ambicji, marzy tylko, by mogła sobie spokojnie żyć w Srebrnym Gaju. Ale i tutaj dopada ją czasem proza życia i jego dramaty.

Czytałam już kiedyś tę książkę, więc była to powtórka po latach, ale teraz chyba już wiem, dlaczego tak mało z niej pamiętam. Brak jej większej wyrazistości. Wyraźniejszych bohaterów również. Mała Pat jest sympatyczna, ale wydaje się troszkę nijaka, ociupinkę irytująca - nawet jeśli łączy mnie z nią jej ogromne przywiązanie do domu, i jeszcze większa niechęć do (nieuniknionych przecież) zmian. Znacznie więcej uwagi skupia na sobie Szkrab.
Zawodzi też nieco sam styl powieści. Choć nie można powiedzieć, że niewiele się w tej książce dzieje (są narodziny, śluby, zgony, ucieczki z domu...), sporo tu uproszczeń, opowieści "na skróty".
Zdrowym balansem (i pewnego rodzaju wyrocznią) w tej historii jest niejaka Judysia, gosposia Gardinerów, której niezmierzone zasoby życiowej mądrości pozwalają dorastającej Pat nie tylko przetrwać niejedną próbę, ale także zrozumieć innych i samą siebie.

Historia małej Pat ani nie rozczarowuje (mimo wszystko ma swój klimat), ani nie oczarowuje. Jest z tych, co to ani ziębią, ani zbytnio nie grzeją, choć podejrzewam, że nowy przekład mógłby zdziałać tu cuda. Oczywiście, imiona są spolszczone, co też wypadło tu średnio (przy słowach Długiego Alka do żony "No, no, Marychno" niemal rozglądałam się za Stachem Połanieckim).

Przede mną tom drugi, który (mam taką nadzieję) poprawi notowania Pat w moim prywatnym rankingu.

While I have dearly enjoyed Anne of Green Gables and Emily of New Moon, this was also an excellent read. The story of Pat is different from LM's other heroines, and the stories therein were a delight to read. Pat is very much a homebody unlike the other heroines, so this book was different but nonetheless wonderful to read.

2021 reread:
How the heck did LMM manage to create so many distinct atmospheres? How vastly different yet equally lovable are Green Gables, New Moon, Silver Bush, etc. Yet somehow I feel the strongest sense of home when reading about Silver Bush--another testament to LMM's genius that she can make me feel as attached to Silver Bush as Pat! I feel homesick for it even though I've never actually been there, and it does not exist.

If Anne's books make me think of warm gold and Emily's of deep purple, Pat's are like light blue cotton--wholesome and comfortable.

Although, yes, Pat's resistance to change makes for a repetitive story, she is shown each time adapting to change with grace and optimism. And I don't see Pat as passive. When Cuddles is born, for instance, Pat pulls up everyone's seeds so Long Alec gets to choose the name. That is one of the sweetest parts in the book.

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2010
I've never met a character like Judy Plum! I really love her, and even think in her vernacular to cheer myself up sometimes-doesn't that sound strange? :) I can identify with Pat wanting things to stay the same and don't consider this one of LMM's weaker works.

2,5/5 - Na fali nostalgii po zabraniu się za nowy przekład "Anne z Zielonych Szczytów" odświeżyłam przy okazji powieści Montgomery, które lubiłam jako dzieciak i sięgnęłam po te, których nigdy nie czytałam, w tym dwuczęściowy cykl o Pat ze Srebrnego Gaju. I... ta historia wraz z bohaterką chyba nigdy nie trafiłyby na listę moich ulubionych. Nienawidząca zmian Pat jest w tak wielu miejscach koszmarną egoistką, że aż przykro. Gdybym nie wiedziała, że to późna książka Montgomery, powiedziałabym, że to wprawki do znacznie ciekawszej fabularnie "Anne", która jako bohaterka rozwija się w trakcie historii, w przeciwieństwie do Pat.
Podobnie jak w "Anne" tu też jest "wroga" rodzina z córką w wieku głównej bohaterki, która jest jej nemezis. Ale Anne nigdy nie była dla Josie Pye taką małostkową, klasistowską pindą, jaką Pat jest dla Mai Binnie. I nie tylko zresztą, bo klasistowskiej rodowej dumy i pogardy dla maluczkich jest tu w bród (inne bohaterki Montgomery były od tego raczej wolne). Nie sądzę, żebym kiedykolwiek wróciła do tej serii, mimo jej uroczych elementów.

Unlike many other LMM novels, I read this one for the first time in adulthood. I was apprehensive about how I would take it, not having fond childhood memories connected to it, but I turned out to love it quite a bit. It's probably not going to be one of my favourite LMM novels, because Pat as a heroine is a bit too passive, her main characteristic being resistance to change and so every conflict in the story being the result of outside forces. It's not as interesting as heroines who have a powerful drive for something inside them and so cause many of their life events themselves, for example Valancy, Emily or Anne. But I still find Pat an endearing and likeable heroine in her deep love of nature, things and people, and Judy Plum is a deliciously entertaining character. On the other hand, most other characters (with the exception of Jingle) are unusually shallowly characterised for a Montgomery book, and I often felt that Judy's cat and Jingle's dog showed more personality than most of Pat's family.

It's beautifully written, and while Pat in the end of the book seems almost as resistant to change as she is in the beginning, it seems she has learned a great deal about coping with it nevertheless and I really like how she grows during the story. I look forward to reading the sequel, Mistress Pat.

The main thing I want to say about this is that Jingle's name is not Hilary. Hilary is a dreadful name for a boy and he will always be Jingle to me. Thank you and goodnight.

How I love these books! Pat is so attuned to nature and the simple pleasures of life, choosing not to pick flowers but rather to enjoy them where they are, walking through secret fields with friends who just suddenly become friends. It is rare a book will actually make me cry but there was no choice in the heartbreak in this beautiful book.

I hope I can finish it before my trip to PEI but I'm thinking not... In any case, it will be nice to have something to come back to when I'm missing the island!

I'm going to revisit this at some point...lol...it's been too long since I read, so I need to restart anyway. but for now, I'm removing it from my currently reading shelf.

I had no idea this book even existed. I had read the Anne series several times, and Jane of Lantern Hill...and tried to read The Blue Castle without success. But Pat of Silver Bush was new to me.

As books go, I found it a pleasant evening-time read, if a bit long. However, it reads like a recycling, or perhaps a blending, of Rainbow Valley and Rilla of Ingleside, with the addition of bobbed hair, autos and movie shows. It was written later than the Anne books, and yet somehow the style is less polished. Like Rilla, Pat has no ambitions, no desire to study or "be somebody"...and yet she rejects the idea of marriage as well, even though (a la Anne) she plays at being in love while at Queens College. It was rather refreshing, however, to read of a Montgomery heroine who isn't constantly tops at all she turns her hand to, as well as being Queen of the May in every circle. Anne Shirley was just a leetle too good to be true, most times.

In the first half, Pat's parents and siblings are mere names in the background--Sid is the only one who takes part in the action and dialogue aside from the eternal Judy. I found the constant transliteration of Judy's "Irish" dialect annoying and unnecessary, as well as being cod-Irish in the first place, with her "oh ohs" and "ye do be doing whatevers." I also fail to understand Montgomery's obsession with houses as such. Houses are not people, and yet in her books so many of her characters become obsessively attached to bricks and mortar (or wood and nails, or whatever)over and above the humans who inhabit them. Pat is repeatedly described as "loving too hard", resisting change to an unhealthy degree, and she transfers quite an extreme amount of this obsessive love to the house itself, going so far as to...kiss the flowers goodnight? Okaaaay....

The action takes place over a good 12 years, though some of those "years" are reduced to a sentence or two: "April was May" (oh really?) and "Winter was Spring." By the second half of the book the narration started to drag a little bit, even though Pat's brothers and sisters start being real people instead of just background. I also found the unresolved ending annoying until I realised, oh goodie...yet another novel series.
I don't know if I'll ever come across any more of this series. If so I hope the writing improves.

Dear Pat, get over it. Change is part of growing up.

Although I like almost everything L.M. Montgomery ever wrote, I have to admit that the Pat books are not my favorites. Pat Gardiner lives with her family at Silver Bush, an old house and farm on Prince Edward Island. Unlike Montgomery's other heroines, Pat has no ambitions other than to stay at home forever, taking care of the home and family she loves.

There's a feeling of domesticity and hominess which pervades the books, and I appreciate that more than I used to, but Pat is so neurotically attached to her home that she becomes a little hard to take. Happily, there are other characters who are more engaging (the old servant Judy Plum and Pat's sister Rae are probably my favorites), and Montgomery's affectionate descriptions of Prince Edward Island do make up for a lot of Pat's (and Pat's) failings.