JOINT REVIEW: The Blue Castle by L. M. Montgomery
Dear Readers:
Sunita: This month the TBR Challenge category is “recommended read,” which gave me the chance to finally read The Blue Castle by LM Montgomery. Although I’ve read most of the Anne of Green Gables series countless times, I’d never read this stand-alone story. Susanna Kearsley generously gave me a copy of the book a couple of RT conferences ago and as usual, I’d been saving it for just the right moment.
When I told Jayne last week that I was reading it, she responded that she had just finished it. See, Jayne, you are my DA reading twin! So we decided to write a joint review.
Jayne: The Blue Castle is a modern (for the time) fairy tale. Set in 1920s Canada, we meet a put upon heroine, living with her appalling family who finally gets set free – at least in her own mind – by a death sentence. Or what she thinks is one. Told she only has a year to live, Valancy decides that she’s finally going to actually live.
The first part details how downtrodden the poor woman is. Just turned 29 and considered an old maid by her family, she lives in a horrible house with a witch for a mother and an ogre for a cousin both of whom firmly believe in Good Works and not wasting any time in such frivolous things as reading or even daydreaming. Life is a regimented horror of endless, gray, depressing days punctuated only by encounters with the family clan of equally awful people who make Valancy’s life a living hell of ghastliness.
This part does rather go on a bit: chapters and chapters of it. I had wondered if I needed to skim a bit since it’s depressing even to read about it let alone live it. But we must firmly see our heroine as the quintessential fairy tale woman and some things are set up that will pay off later on. Plus there’s Valancy’s black humor and secret thoughts to keep you going.
Sunita: I read somewhere that Montgomery was retelling the Cinderella story, and that makes sense, especially for the first part. Valancy is so badly treated and beaten down by her circumstances, and her family is so awful, that it really does feel like a fairy-tale world. I enoyed Valancy’s internal monologues and thoughts, but like you, this part went on for a bit and I had to make myself keep going. I enjoyed the writing but it was depressing (even though I knew things were going to get better for our heroine). If I hadn’t known it was supposed to be like a fairy-tale I might have bailed.
Jayne: Agreed. I expected some of this but not as much as we had to wade through. Then finally, she’s set free. As she says, despair sets you free while hope – which for her had been to inherit a bit of money from a boorish uncle or maybe finally find some little dab of romance – keeps you imprisoned. A visit to a doctor turns out to change Valancy’s view on life – or the dreary life she’d been living. Why not say what she thinks and do what she wants or not do what she doesn’t want? If she’s going to die in a year, she wants to finally kick off the traces that have bound her to this miserable existence. She wants her perfect hour of happiness.
So she does. At the family dinner party, she finally begins to look at them with new eyes and sees the pettiness, the littleness and the fact that they’re not the looming tyrants she’s always thought they were. Seizing the chance that helping an old acquaintance affords her to move out, she does just that and discovers that life can be so much more. It can be a beautiful garden, a nice new dress, a chance to go to a dance, an opportunity to help a friend even if that friend is dying. Valancy begins to enjoy life and her new freedom.
That new freedom leads to marriage, and a lot of the story is predicated on that change. But for the time, this would have been the aspiration of most women and to be an Old Maid would be a drab life since the world around you is always asking when you’ll finally get a man, so I could live with this part of the book. Plus, wanting it opens Valancy to what happens next.
Sunita: Watching Valancy blossom and come into her own was a terrific next step in the story. I especially appreciated that she did that before she got married. She bought the dress, changed her hair, and generally fell in love with the world around her and found her place in it. She even went to a dance, although she had to be rescued by a Prince Charming. But she knew her ignorance in what could happen there wasn’t her fault, and she didn’t become cowed by making a mistake.
Jayne: I really enjoyed when she breaks free some more, as well as shocking her family which delights her to no end, and asks a totally unsuitable – in their eyes – man to marry her with the up-front information that this is only for less than a year because she’s dying. And to her surprise this man she knows she loves agrees. I loved this gutsy move on her part.
Valancy and her husband turn out to be perfectly matched. Both are nature lovers and living in his small cabin out in the woods is Valancy’s delight, so much so that people who haven’t seen her for months don’t recognize the happy, sparkling woman who glows with contentment. She and he agree to no lies but no questions about their pasts either – a typical fairy tale requirement. For a year they’re as happy as clams at high tide. This section is filled with loving descriptions of the Canadian wilderness in all seasons sort of like the enchanted lands of fairy tales:
October–with a gorgeous pageant of colour around Mistawis, into which Valancy plunged her soul. Never had she imagined anything so splendid. A great, tinted peace. Blue, wind-winnowed skies. Sunlight sleeping in the glades of that fairyland. Long dreamy purple days paddling idly in their canoe along shores and up the rivers of crimson and gold. A sleepy, red hunter’s moon. Enchanted tempests that stripped the leaves from the trees and heaped them along the shores. Flying shadows of clouds. What had all the smug, opulent lands out front to compare with this?
November–with uncanny witchery in its changed trees. With murky red sunsets flaming in smoky crimson behind the westering hills. With dear days when the austere woods were beautiful and gracious in a dignified serenity of folded hands and closed eyes–days full of a fine, pale sunshine that sifted through the late, leafless gold of the juniper-trees and glimmered among the grey beeches, lighting up evergreen banks of moss and washing the colonnades of the pines. Days with a high-sprung sky of flawless turquoise. Days when an exquisite melancholy seemed to hang over the landscape and dream about the lake. But days, too, of the wild blackness of great autumn storms, followed by dank, wet, streaming nights when there was witch-laughter in the pines and fitful moans among the mainland trees. What cared they? Old Tom had built his roof well, and his chimney drew.
“Warm fire–books–comfort–safety from storm–our cats on the rug. Moonlight,” said Barney, “would you be any happier now if you had a million dollars?”
“No–nor half so happy. I’d be bored by conventions and obligations then.”
Sunita: This was the happy fairy-tale sequel to the unhappy stuff that opened the book. It was so idyllic, so filled with love and contentment that it felt unreal, but it was lovely. In romance terms, it wasn’t their relationship that felt unreal (which would have made their happiness fundamentally implausible to me), but more the fact that the outside world was so absent. Both of them had been shaped by that world and retreated from it, and I discovered that I was holding my breath waiting to see what was going to shatter their idyll.
Jayne: And then comes a moment of revelation followed by truths which turn their happy life upside down. Valancy learns some things – some of which I had guessed but some of which was a surprise. She makes a decision and takes action which brings the fairy tale near its conclusion. Will her husband turn out to be her true Prince Charming or a dud?
It should be fairly obvious once you’ve got to this stage. The protestations of love Valancy finally gets are enough to make up for all the prior 29 years of waiting she put up with, and they provide a crowning finale for the year of happiness just past. “Blue Castle” is a lovely, feel good fairy tale for when you need a book to make you feel good. Grade: B+
Sunita: Like you, I’d guessed one of the revelations but not the other one. All the changes felt like a bit too much, but that’s the nature of fairy tales, so I went with them.
When I was about a third of the way through the book I told a friend that I wasn’t feeling the specialness of the story as much as I had expected, and that maybe I had come to the book too late, after reading too many romances. But even though I’m not a huge fan of fairy-tale retellings, the year after Valancy’s marriage and the writing in those parts sucked me in and cast their spell, as did Valancy herself. I closed the book feeling contented and thinking that this is a book I’m certain to reread. Thank you, Susanna, for a lovely gift. Grade: B+
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I’ve actually never heard of this book, despite being a huge fan of the Anne of Green Gables series! Thanks for the review. :)
I love love love this book! And I think it’s time to reread…
I love this book. I discovered it when I was in library school and just fell for it. But I’m an utter sap for the fairy tale books.
It’s also $.99 in kindle format.
Was this read in e-format by either of you? There is a $0.99 version available for Kindle but I’m curious if the formatting is okay. I’ve only found one review that references it.
@Sarah: I read an epub version that I made from the Gutenberg Australia html file. Australia has different copyright laws, so it’s in the public domain. I just downloaded an epub version from feedbooks to see what it looked like, and when it opened on iBooks (on my Mac), it looked pretty clean. You could download the Kindle sample and see how it is; if it’s screwed up, the first few pages should tell you.
@Shayera: Thanks! I don’t know if there are mobi versions available for free, but $.99 is a steal for a book that so many people love.
I’m glad to see the love for this book. As I said in the review, at first it didn’t grab me, but by the halfway point or so I was hooked, and I’m not a fairy-tale reader as a rule.
ETA: Just to clarify, I started with the hard copy version Susanna K. gave me (it’s a lovely edition) but then I was traveling so switched to the epub version. That’s why I referred to both formats (one in the review, one in comments).
Oh, I love this book too, although when I read it when I was younger, after the Anne and Emily books, I didn’t appreciate it at all. I’ve found it resonates more with me as I’ve gotten older. Now I believe it’s my favorite of all Montgomery’s books.
I’ve always been troubled by lingering questions as I read it, though, about the nature of their marital relations. Do they have sex or do they not? And, if so, what is it like? I desperately need to know.
I’ve yet to come across a writer who could make the natural world sound so magical. She’s the only one who could waste three paragraphs describing the great outdoors and I wouldn’t skim a word of it. And her talent for characterization dazzles me even more now than when I first read Anne.
After reading Maud’s journals, I’ve always felt she was creating happily ever afters in her stories that she never found in real life. The books have gained a greater poignancy for me, especially this one because I read echoes of Maud yearning for that same freedom and happiness.
Thanks for a fantastic review.
Not the same Allison. This was my go-to cheer up book for years, and the small well spring of inspiration to get a toxic relation off my back. I would have had to break up with the site if the book had been panned.
BTW – I think they had relations. They were sharing a bed in the cabin! I think she was asking for the whole deal.
I read this book as a teenager and loved it! So happy to see others find this gem.
I remember picking this one up in my late teens and recall that I didn’t like it very much (I’m not sure that I even finished it since I do not remember anything about the ending). I think that I was probably too young and had not “lived” enough to appreciate the book at the time. Thanks to your review, I will definitely try it again.
“When I was about a third of the way through the book I told a friend that I wasn’t feeling the specialness of the story as much as I had expected, and that maybe I had come to the book too late, after reading too many romances.”
This was my experience too. A dear friend sent me a copy of The Blue Castle several years ago and I know several people who love it very much. I was expecting to enjoy it, because I adore the Anne books. Maybe my expectations were too high. I didn’t love it at all. The first part, as you both felt, was really hard-going, but for me the second part wasn’t the payoff that you felt it was. I finished the book still feeling dissatisfied with it, so I’m interested to see that the two of you had a different experience. Maybe I’ll try it again sometime.
I read this book about a month ago and then sent it on to a friend who is having health issues. I thought the mix of realism and fairy tale would be perfect for her — the nature descriptions and early family relations to keep her grounded and the love story to provide the magic and hope she needs right now. Part of what I liked about the book was that, as awful as Valency’s family were (especially to her), they were still human and elicited sympathy for how small their lives were. Valency managed to make her own world larger and brighter, even when she lived in a small cabin in the woods.
I too guessed at one of the surprises though not the other. As as for her physical relationship with Barney, I think there was one brief passage that led me to believe they were intimate, although LMM was subtle enough that I may have misread it.
I read this for the first time when I was about 12, and absolutely fell in love with it. I never had trouble with the first part of the story, probably because as a melodramatic 12 year old, I sympathized with Valancy, dealing with a family that didn’t understand her, and all their miserable rules. :P
I love this book to bits. I don’t think there’s a book I’ve re-read more often than I have this one.
As to their marital relations, I believe they did have them. Barney kisses her as soon as they land on the island (and then we fade to black). When Valancy informs her family of the marriage she refers to “feeling Barney’s arms around me and his cheek against mine.” Later on in their marriage he waxes poetical about her “maddening beauty spots” and “that little kissable dent just between your collar bones” and says she’s maddening in moonlight. Towards the end Valancy misses “his caresses” and aches for “his arms around her–his face against hers–his whispers in her ear”
So, yeah ;)
I read this and LMM’s Tangled Web as a teen on my glom of Montgomery. For me, both of them have aged better than the Emily of New Moon books and some of LMM’s other standalone work.
My all time favorite Montgomery book. That is saying something! I read it at a very young age. Rereading it when I was older, I appreciated how she took a character who might be considered “wimpy” and made her sympathetic even though she doesn’t start out very strong.
I love this one. Like Jane of Lantern Hill, LMM does heap on the angst, then pour on the rewards, but Valancy deserves it all.
And Barney is a dear,
I live not far from where it’s set and have been to the area often. It’s beautiful but not as gorgeous as she makes it sound. But no one could evoke a nature scene the way she did. Purple prose? Pure amethyst. But it’s gorgeous.
I think it’s quite daring for the time; there’s the woman proposing and the unmarried mother element, plus the rebellion against maternal authority.
I came to this book rather late (just a few years ago and I am officially older than dirt) and I loved it! Your review is spot on! Now to go re-read it…
FYI, Kobo has several different editions of this for $0.99, t least one of them is DRM-free.
I got this for Christmas when I was 11 and finished it before lunch. I think my favourite scene is the dinner party where she finally starts to stand up to her family.
LM Montgomery is one of my all-time faves. I reread this one last year and I think I loved it even more than the first time. Her descriptions of the landscape are just magical. Thanks so much for highlighting such a great classic.
@AMK: I’m also in the “they had relations” camp because of all the little bits you’ve quoted here.
@Sarah: I read this version (with the sketch drawing of the castle on the cover?) and it was fine.
I agree with everyone who thinks Valancy and Barney definitely had a sex life, and a satisfying one at that. In these older books you have to read between the lines, but as AMK’s excerpts suggest, it’s there if you’re looking hard enough.
On the descriptions of nature: this is a great example of a type of writing that wouldn’t ordinarily work that well for me no matter how well it was done (and it’s done very well here). But it’s not just about luxuriating in a prose style, the natural world is critical for Valancy’s arc. John Foster’s nature books are what give her an escape from her Cinderella family life, and when she can see it for herself it’s everything she has imagined and more. It gives context to and deepens her happiness.
And I agree with Jane Davitt that the book is pretty forward-thinking for the time; although the 1920s were freer for women in a number of ways, LMM was a minister’s wife if I remember correctly, and Mara’s point about LMM’s own life makes a lot of sense (and does add to the poignancy of the fairy tale aspects).
It’s so much fun to see all the comments from readers who love this book.
@Ros: I really had to give myself up to the book. I’m not a romantic (I know I’ve been a romance reader for decades, but I’m not!) and I’m not a fairy-tale reader. But the book pulled me in, and I think it’s because it really is very well written and put together. Yes the end is way too fast and the coincidences pile up, but there’s something so heartfelt and genuine in it. And Valancy herself, if you go with her characterization, is a terrific creation.
That said, you may reread it and find it still doesn’t work for you. Which would be totally valid. ;)
I adore LMM’s books; they were the first ones that spoke to me as a young teen – particularly Anne of Avonlea (that and Robin McKinley’s Beauty) and I will have to look this one up.
LMM’s own life was so unhappy towards the end (she committed suicide at 67); the pain and poignancy in her later works is pretty razor sharp for me.
Words cannot express how much I love this book. More than any other L.M.M. book (2nd place goes to Jane of Lantern Hill). I first read it when I was an adolescent and it was just the perfect balance romance and angst for me at that time.
I came to this as an adult, having read it after reading McCullough’s LADIES OF MISSALONGHI for a book club (and hating it), then hearing about the plagiarism scandal, I had to go look up the original.
And even knowing all the plot beats ahead of time, I just loved this; I am a sucker for fairy tales, and loved the role the natural setting played in Valency’s maturation.
It’s been too long since I’ve last re-read it; it sounds perfect for a dreary winter day.
I was amazed when I pulled up Dear Author today and immediately saw that you had reviewed The Blue Castle. It’s been my favourite LMM book since I received it as a Christmas gift from my mother when I was 11. I don’t know how many times I’ve re-read it but easily over 50 times (I’m nearly 64, btw). What amazed me even more were all the comments from people who love the book as much as I do. Most of the time when I mention it, people have never heard of it!
Last year my husband and I did a cross-Canada tour (from Vancouver Island all the way to Newfoundland and Labrador) and two very special places we visited were Green Gables in PEI and Bala, Ontario, home of an Anne of Green Gables museum. The museum is there because in 1922 LMM and her family spent a two-week vacation in Bala and the Muskoka region was the setting for The Blue Castle. When we were in Bala in June the museum was closed (only open on Saturdays before the high season) so when we returned through Ontario we tried again and this time were able to arrange a time to see it. I had a fabulous time with the founder and curator of the museum. Truly one of the special highlights of a trip filled with highlights.
Oh, btw, I re-read TBC on my kindle while we were on the trip and it seemed okay.
I’m joining the many kindred spirits who are thrilled to see you both reviewing this book. I’ve read all of LMM’s books, and I think this one is in the top three—with Jane of Lantern Hill and Anne of the Island. There are so many books I read as a teenager and never thought of as romances, like this one. And gosh, I never dreamed that Valancy and Barney were having relations. I will have to reread.
Another reader for whom this book was discovered in mid-teenagehood, and it became my favourite Lucy Maud Montgomery story. I remember being so, so sad at the part of SPOILER!
the young woman who became pregnant because she didn’t understand how conception worked, then lost her baby, then died herself.
END SPOILER!
Clearly, something of a cautionary tale for readers, but it also made sense that that experience and tragic finality served as motivator for the protagonist to be more active in seeking out how she wanted to shape her life from then on.
I didn’t read the Green Gables books as a youngster; just missed them somehow. But I am a sucker for re-told fairy tales, and with both Jayne and Sunita recommending it, I will buy it at once. Thank you, ladies, for the lovely review.
It’s so nice to hear so many other people who have loved this book! For years, I felt like I was alone with it since most people have never even heard of it.
Thanks to all those weighing into the marital relations question. I agree with all the details that seem to imply they did–implied with typically elusive discretion. I read it a couple of years ago and kept track of all the evidence one way and the other, and there were a couple of spots that made me question whether they actually had sex. Of course, I can’t remember what those passages were now–probably because I didn’t like them. I’ll have to read it again!
@Noelle: My opinion on their hypothetical marital relations actually evolved over the years. As a kid, I was sure they had a celibate marriage. Then for a long time I was in two minds about it and simply couldn’t be swayed either way.
And then I started reading romance novels. I read several hundred of them and when I went to TBC I was *sure* it would fall short in the romance department. But big surprise – it didn’t. Instead, I was struck how those few hints dropped here and there showed this sensuality between them. And they DID sleep in one bed and Valancy DID ask Barney for a year of perfectly normal life and forbid him to make ANY allowances for her health (this, in fact, is explicitly the only condition she makes when she proposes). And she doesn’t pretend it’s a marriage of convenience for her – she tells him outright that she loves him and wants to spend the rest of her life with him. Wouldn’t he assume that a woman in love with him would want the full experience when they married?
At this point in my life I look at these facts and I get – yeah, they were totally doing it.
(oh, and when he cuts her hair… I think they totally made out afterwards ;))
PS Noelle, so can I assume that Listed was at least partly BC-inspired? ;)
@AMK:
Yes, Listed was definitely inspired by The Blue Castle! In fact, the story came to me almost fully formed after I reread this book several years ago.
I tend to agree it was probably a consummated marriage. I wish I could remember the spots that made me question–I know they were there because I was looking for them particularly the last few times I’ve reread.
There’s something about this particular book that makes me want a little more in that regard. I have no problem at all with fade-to-black scenes in romances or even no sex at all. One of my favorite romantic relationships in all of fiction is Merry and Ralph’s relationship in Louisa May Alcott’s Jack and Jill. It’s not even the main plot of the book and it’s completely innocent and non-sexual, and it gives me all kinds of satisfied romantic feelings. (It is just so sweet!) So it’s not at all that I have to see sex to be satisfied. But in The Blue Castle, it feels somehow like Montgomery wanted to do more and was holding back, which leaves that lingering question in my mind. Every time I read the book, I feel the same thing–even though I know exactly what’s coming.
Count me in as another reader who glomped through LMM in her teenage years and fell in love with Valancy and Barney. Now I need to reread it. It’s been way too long. Actually, I think I need to reread all of her works–I remember absolutely loving her short stories. But then I’m a sucker for shorts.
@Sunita: awesome review guys. Do you think I will like this one?
@Sunita: I’m so glad you finally found the right time to read this one.
There are so many moments I love in this story. I grew up on Anne of Green Gables, and adore Rilla of Ingleside, but Valancy’s the heroine I most related to. When she decided she was done with trying to please everyone else, picked up that jar of potpourri and hurled it out the window and said, “I’m sick of the fragrance of dead things”, I inwardly cheered.
I still do.
This is one of my favourite standalone LM Montgomery books, along with Jane of Lantern Hill–and my daughters refuse to read them, which saddens me greatly. So glad to see it reviewed here.
@Hapax: I had no idea about the McCullough book’s similarities, so thanks for the info! This sounds much better. ;)
@Sirius: I think you will like this. The writing is beautiful and the role of nature is something that I think will appeal to you, and of course the romance.
@Susanna: It is a lovely book. I think that had I read it when I was younger it would be one of my treasured favorites, and even now at this age it’s a book that grows on me as I think about it.
I had read (and mostly liked) The Ladies of Missalonghi, and then I read somewhere about the plagiarism scandal, saw TBC was free on Gutenberg, and had to read it.
I think it’s one of the few books were I actually read the descriptions. I tend to skip them (Try reading Martin Rivas without skipping), but this was so beautiful, I went back and re-read them later.
Just thinking about it makes me smile.
And I never had any doubt that it was a full marriage. Not just for the small bits described earlier in the comments, but because I don’t see why not. Not immediatly, probably, but …
off to write fanfic on this.
TBC is definitely my favourite Montgomery. Maybe it’s because I didn’t read Anne very young, but Valancy strikes a chord with me that Anne doesn’t. And Barney is no ordinary romance hero, which I appreciate more and more.
They so had sex. To me there is no doubt about that. I remember reading TBC and thinking that it was quite forward for its time, especially since it was mainstream fiction.
@Sunita: Completely off topic, but I was a lurker at VM and I still miss it very much, especially the notebooks post.
@Ellie: Oh, that is so sweet of you to say! I am still posting, although a bit erratically right now because I’m swamped. And please check your email when you get a chance. ;)
So I totally missed this post at the time.. This book has long been a favourite of mine, and I was just wondering whether to do (another) reread. Great review and discussion :)
@Janhavi: I’m glad you found it! And I bet it does hold up to a reread.
@Sunita: Somewhat funnily, I found it because I was thinking in my head “I never could figure out whether the marriage was consummated, hmm, maybe I should google that, someone must have answered the question” and funnily that lead me to DA :D If I had noticed the discussion/post back in February I would *definitely* have asked you all, so I am glad someone else did! I now have an answer to a question I first wondered about some 10-15 years ago :)
@Janhavi: We are here to serve. ;) Seriously, though, reading this book and participating in the discussion after doing the joint review with Jayne has been one of this year’s most enjoyable romance-related activities for me.
@Sunita: That’s great to hear :) These discussions of old favourites are definitely awesome. In fact, I basically discovered DA when I was on a Georgette Heyer rereading kick (for the nth time) and was googling to find interesting discussion pieces. I read through the entire long discussion chain after your 2012 review of A Civil Contract (https://dearauthor.com/book-reviews/overall-a-reviews/a-minus-reviews/review-a-civil-contract-by-georgette-heyer/). That was one of the posts that lead to me becoming a DA regular. The Heyer ones and Jane’s citation-filled essays on the Psy Changeling series (“Theories on Kaleb Krychek”) were what got me hooked ;D
For those who enjoyed Blue Castle, another of Montgomery’s stand alone novels I like is Kilmeny of the Orchard. It also has a fairy-tale like ending, and is not perhaps quite as good as Blue Castle, but I would rate these two, Anne of the Island, and Rilla of Ingleside as my favourites of all her novels (and I have pretty much read all of them- the mainstream ones when I was younger, and the more obscure ones through MobileReference’s ‘Works of Lucy Maud Montgomery’. I can vouch for the formatting on that edition, but unfortunately it seems to no longer be available as a Kindle book).
@Sunita: And it was such serendipity that we were both reading it at the same time without any idea the other was too.