I think Anne and Gilbert are my favourite literary couple. I love how despite being surrounded by white picket fences and clapboard whitewashed houses they don't feel wholly cliched. Possibly because of Anne's feistiness or possibly because Anne maintains her own as a heroine equalling Gilbert in intelligence, even surpassing him with her temper or possibly it's just because of how long it takes Anne to admit what everyone's been willing all along. I just love that in the closure of the books they are approaching old age and still entirely in love. I'd like to think they lived like that until the end of their days. I can't tell you how many times I've watched the films and sobbed my little heart out. Not just at Anne stating 'I don't want diamond sunbursts, or marble halls, I just want you' but at Matthew dying and Anne's commitment to look after Marilla. Aww. I recently rediscovered the videos and fell in love with Anne all over again. I think she might be the one that inspired me to write, with her immutable array of overly dramatic pathos and her complete devotion to books. I love it when she declares "I am simply a book drunkard. Books have the same irresistible temptation for me that liquor has for its devotee. I cannot withstand them." Montgomery really made Avonlea seem real. Or at least made people wish it was. Didn't it seem like the perfect place to grow up? Re-enacting Tennyson's Lady of Shalott and mistaking raspberry cordial for currant wine.
