A Classic Romance!

So, another entry from the "Better Reading Challenge" realm, this time about a classic romance. Romance isn't actually my genre of choice, but I DO love a "happily ever after" sort of story. STARDUST (2007) and AMELIE (2001) are some of my favorite movies for that reason.

Well, I need a book and its sequels to rightly talk about this one, so you get a three-fer here. I’m choosing Anne of Green Gables, Anne ofAvonlea, and Anne of the Island as my classic romance. Is there anything better than L.M. Montgomery’s thwarted/not-thwarted love stories in general? I mean, for romances? I claim there is not. You also may get the impression here that I’ve read a lot more than these three recently… so sorry if basically all of her works sneak in.

The way relationships develop in Montgomery’s work is really all the more poignant when you realize she herself entered an unhappy marriage after she turned down other men. In Chronicles of Avonlea she seems to want to rectify this over and over and over again.

Anne is, of course, a classic character of children’s lit. After rereading all (yes ALL) of the series earlier this year I feel like they hold up well as an adult reader. Except, EXCEPT Anne of Ingleside. This is one Montgomery went back and wrote later, and the charm has gone out of it. The sewing circle gossip seems mean rather than lighthearted and the whole thing is just…bleh. I think that’s the one everyone focuses on when they say “well, they just get worse as they go along.” Yet, Rilla of Ingleside is a really delightful book. Don’t believe the hype and give Rilla a chance.

Anyway, I love all the romances in Montgomery. Actually, I find Emily Starr and Dean Priest to be just creepy, so maybe not all. That works out okay in the end though. Emily’s a smart girl. Of course Anne and Gilbert is one of the most satisfying since it takes so long to develop (and doesn’t get stupidly put off like Emily and Teddy). You know it’s going to happen, yet they each grow as their own people before they finally get together. In contemporary boy/girl relationships I wouldn’t accept the “well, he pulls your hair because he likes you." Clearly that cements all kinds of really bad expectations for how men and women should interact. However, I’m not actually certain that Gilbert liked Anne at the hair-pulling point though, as he was just probably a jerk. Anne was right to be pissed. Yet, the book certainly teaches us about the downsides of holding a grudge after the Ophelia incident. 

Shakespeare comes to life...

Gilbert and Anne have a lovely romance because they both inspire each other (sometimes out of spite) to work harder and be better people. Once they are married their union is represented as a very happy one (DON’T pay attention to the blurbs for Anne of Ingleside AT ALL). Gilbert is sometimes stuffy and condescending, yes, but overall I accept it as a romance that I feel warm and fuzzy about (nostalgia tinged, of course).

Warm fuzzies.

Most of the books (not Windy Poplars or Ingleside which were written later and not public domain yet) are available as a set online for .99, so I suggest you give them a reread if it’s been a few decades. 

Fiction vs. Non-Fiction

My students had some questions and moments of confusion when they recently completed some discussion board postings. I decided to write a quick FAQ for them, and also post it here for future reference. I'd love to see your thoughts on what else I should include. 

Fiction vs. Non-Fiction FAQ

Which is which?

Fiction is made up. Something that is fictional is NOT real.

Non-Fiction is factual, or real. I know, this seems like it’s backwards from how it should be. But English often doesn’t make any sense.

Similarly:

Novels are always fictional. They are made up. Therefore, not every book is a novel. In fact, most are not.

Non-fiction can be referred to as a text or a book when you are discussing it. Or, for shorter pieces, call them articles or essays.

Is that it? Why do we need a FAQ?

Well, here’s some more subtleties that we can think on:

What about if something really happened in the past and an author wrote a novel about it?

Well, there’s such a thing as historical fiction which means an author takes a historical moment in time and writes about it from a made-up point of view. This is still fiction because the characters and situations come from the author’s imagination. Examples of this sort of book are The Book Thief, The Help, Secret Life of Bees, The Other Boleyn Girl, and Number the Stars.

But what if it’s about a real historical person?

You may also find a novel from the perspective of a person who actually lived. One way to tell if you’re reading fiction or non-fiction in this case is to see if the text is labeled a biography (non-fiction) or a novel (fiction). You can also look for footnotes or references at the end of the book (see below). An example of a fictional text that has a character who did actually live would be Annexed, the story of Diary of Anne Frank told from Peter van Pel’s perspective. Wolf Hall and In the Time of the Butterflies are also examples of this kind of book.

Okay, but what about a book like Devil in the White City? That talks about actual people from the past, but reads like a story.

The difference between Erik Larson’s books and the fictional examples above is in how the authors gather material for their books. In Devil in the White City or others like it, the author will include many notes at the back of the book telling you where the information comes from. They will also often include a prelude or afterword explaining their process of writing. Many popular history texts (like Seabiscuit) will read like a story, yet be carefully footnoted. Importantly, every word a character says comes from either historical record OR interviews (like In Cold Blood), depending on when the book was written. All the dialogue the characters say are words they actually said or wrote, and are not from the author’s imagination.

So what's a memoir?

Well, we tend to assume that memoirs are non-fiction. And most are. Of course, we need to consider the slippery nature of memory itself here and realize our brains are always making things up and filling details in. This is why eyewitness testimony is often unreliable. Just because someone experienced an event, we can't say we have the "truth" from any one description (or even many, because there are all kinds of motivations one might have). Still, readers believe there is "truth" or "authenticity" (both complicated terms on their own) behind a memoir, which is why A Million Little Pieces and Fragments were both so vilified when people discovered they were partially or completely fabricated (i.e. fictional). Here's a little more on the difference between memoir, autobiography, and biography. 

Both of these last two (popular history, memoir) are often referred to as creative non-fiction.