Chronicles of Avonlea (Chronicles of Avonlea, #1) in Never too Late to Read Classics

Sep 23, 2018 Manybooks rated it really liked it

Shelves: book-reviews, childrens-literature, l-m-montgomery, short-stories

Now while like with ALL short story collections I have ever read, period, I have of course and naturally not enjoyed each of the featured tales in L.M. Montgomery's Chronicles of Avonlea equally so, I do have to with considerable pleasure proclaim that in particular with this collection, that especially with Chronicles of Avonlea, there have also and fortunately not been ANY tales that I have actually in any manner actively despised, there have been no inclusions that have made me massively angr Now while like with ALL short story collections I have ever read, period, I have of course and naturally not enjoyed each of the featured tales in L.M. Montgomery's Chronicles of Avonlea equally so, I do have to with considerable pleasure proclaim that in particular with this collection, that especially with Chronicles of Avonlea, there have also and fortunately not been ANY tales that I have actually in any manner actively despised, there have been no inclusions that have made me massively angry, disgusted or frustrated enough not to want to continue reading. And while indeed the first featured story of Chronicles of Avonlea, while The Hurrying of Ludovic, and interestingly enough this is also the only tale where Anne Shirley, where Anne of Green Gables plays an active and primary, prominent role and part, is just a wee bit too much romance and lovemaking for my personal reading tastes, I have still managed to more than adequately enjoy the story, mostly because even though Anne Shirley's rather annoying propensity to and for matchmaking is definitely prominently and indeed also somewhat for me frustratingly featured, one does still not really get all too much hit over the proverbial head with this so to speak (in other words, L.M. Montgomery fortunately still spends ample enough time with her characterisations and descriptions of place so that the thematics of lovemaking, of Anne Shirley trying to "hurry" Ludovic Speed along in his courtship of Theodora Dix, while yes perhaps a trifle annoying to and for those of us with scant interest in these types of tales, this all is nevertheless somewhat mitigated and rendered more easily digestible and readable).

But honestly, truly (but of course also in my humble opinion), the featured tales of Chronicles of Avonlea, they absolutely do glowingly and brightly feature L.M. Montgomery at her delightful storytelling best (narratives, anecdotes of passion, emotion, sadness, happiness, triumph and tragedy, and often also sweetly and appreciatively imbued with both slyly sarcastic and sometimes even wildly laugh out loud humour, a marvellous and wonderful palette and tableau of both descriptiveness and generally also more than enough action and reaction for those readers who tend to crave and need the latter). And even move importantly (at least to and for me), with regard to Chronicles of Avonlea, the vast majority of L.M. Montgomery's literary characters (both primary figures such as Old Lady Lloyd, Felix Moore, Angelina "Peter" McPherson and secondary/tertiary characters like hired hands, servants and the like) they also are for the most part totally and all-encompassingly well enough developed, finely nuanced and three dimensional, with basically and happily no annoyingly one dimensional stereotypical personality renderings ever to be found.

Furthermore, I also very much have enjoyed and appreciated that except for Anne Shirley actively appearing as a matchmaker in the The Hurrying of Ludovic, in ALL of the other accounts where she is mentioned, such as for example in Little Jocelyn and in Each in His Own Tongue, Anne is only ever playing an explanatory, inactive and absolutely supporting role, with L.M. Montgomery giving other characters, other figures their dues and their stories and experiences (for as much as I have always enjoyed and loved the Anne of Green Gables series, Chronicles of Avonlea has in fact and indeed also been such a wonderful personal reading pleasure precisely because while reading about the same locales as in the Anne series is lovely, with places such as Avonlea, Carmody, Kensington and the like being featured, it has definitely been both fun and massively rewarding to read stories about other Avonlea and surrounding areas individuals and worthies and not simply more tales featuring Anne Shirley, the Cuthberts, Rachel Lynde, Diana Barry and so on and so on). Highly recommended, and for those of you who have watched and enjoyed the Road to Avonlea television series, especially in the first two seasons, quite a goodly number of the featured episodes are actually and often even quite heavily content and sometimes even title wise based on Chronicles of Avonlea. ...more

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May 03, 2020 Barb rated it it was amazing

I loved The Anne of Green Gables series, , the Chronicles of Avonlea are a collection of stories about the women in Avonlea. They don't involve Anne except for the first story and her name in the others. The stories are all similar in style and they were quite funny. I'm going to read the 2nd one now!! ...more

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