Customer Reviews

Road to Yesterday

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The Road to Yesterday was the last collection of tales that L.M.Montgomery wrote before she died. Her son, Stuart McDonald, found the manuscript among her papers, and had it published post-humously. Originally, Montgomery had called the work The Blythes Are Quoted, and had framed the tales with accounts of the Blythes at home listening to their favorite stories. This frame-narrative was removed, and the stories were rearranged into their current order.

In many ways, The Road to Yesterday displays both the strengths and the weaknesses of Montgomery's work. It shows her genuine ability to tell stories of the community in the voice of the community. Her narrative voice is that of the neighborhood gossip, who doesn't wish ill on her neighbours but who delights nonetheless in their poor decisions, their misfortunes and their downfalls as an interesting tale. It also shows her command of irony and satire, two qualities with which she is seldom credited. At the same time, though, it reveals how she could never quite break away from the narrative patterns of magazine literature with its improbable coincidences and inevitable happy endings. Most of the stories revolved around love and romance, and tend to be rather implausibly constructed. For instance, "Fool's Errand" tells of a man who becomes lonely after his mother dies and remembers a promise he made long ago to a young girl to return and marry her, while "The Pot and the Kettle" is the tale of a young woman who has to marry a certain man to gain an inheritance and who refuses to do so, only to fall in love with him when he courts her by another name.

Only two stories in the collection are genuinely startling and unconventional. "A Commonplace Woman" is striking in its refusal to conform to generally-accepted standards of morality. It is a savage satire of the hypocrisy surrounding old age and death in a family, a feminist polemic about women's position in society, and a carefully observed character sketch of a woman who feels no remorse or shame about having a child out of marriage or committing murder but merely proclaims that she has lived. Similarly, "Here Comes the Bride" is a gently pointed portrait built up from multiple perspectives of what a village really thinks of a wedding.

Such stories show what Montgomery could have achieved if she had been given the chance. Unfortunately, she was a victim of Anne of Green Gables' early, unprecedented success, which led to her being pigeonholed as the author of rather sentimental tales of girlhood, and which she ultimately came to resent. Some of this bitterness seems to have seeped into The Road to Yesterday. Despite not being its major protagonists, the Blythes are a major presence throughout the novel as friends, neighbours or guests, and they are the subject of much scrutiny by the village. (Montgomery would have been familiar with the feeling, as the wife of a minister who was prone to religious mania and who had to keep up the front of a happy, perfect life for the sake of his parishoners.) People in the tales frequently comment on how tired they are of hearing about the Blythes or having them quoted at them, which surely suggests Montgomery's own irritation at having been linked with Anne throughout her life. Alternatively, the Blythes are praised so often and so profusely that it becomes absurd, which may be intended to parody the public's adulation of Anne.

As a final note, Benjamin Lefevbre is working on a critical edition of The Blythes Are Quoted for publication. This edition will restore the frame narrative and put the stories into their original order. It will be interesting to Montgomery's original intentions for the piece, and to see whether and how the feel of the collection changes.

While this is not my most favorite of LMM's short story collections, it does have very good stories. It offers a few extra tidbits about the Blythes, although I agree with others, that it seems a bit forced at times. However, I want to make a point of saying that this book includes what I think may be LMM's most powerful short story: A Commonplace Woman. That story alone is worth buying the book. It is an incredible tale of the life of one woman, who everyone thinks is simply an old boring woman, who never did anything of interest in her life. As she lies in a bed upstairs dying, her relatives sit around downstairs waiting for her to die and talking about how boring her life was. Meanwhile, the woman, Ursula, is remembering her life and the one secret that made her and her life extremely rewarding and interesting, and if anyone had known of it, they would change their opinion of her in a hurry. I don't want to give away what the secret is, but, believe me, it's a wonderful story, easily the most beautiful, sad, thought-provoking and rich of LMM's short stories, once you get past the somewhat long- winded beginning! Besides this one, I highly recommend all of Lucy Montgomery's books, they are all excellent. I re-read most of mine very year!

The Road to Yesterday contains many many wonderful stories about Glen St. Mary, where Anne and Gilbert and their children live. It gives a bit of insight into the Blythe family from the townspeople, as well as a few tidbits as to what became of the Blythe children (and even a little bit about the grandchildren) after the book Rilla of Ingleside. This is a wonderful book.

The Road To Yesterday is my favourite of Lucy Montgomery's collection of stories. It makes you want to live vicariously through the experiences of the characters. What is also lovely is that you read more about Anne's descendents and more about her as well. I cannot count the amount of times I have reread this book. You will not regret your purchase.

As a Lucy Maud Montgomery fan I loved this book. It showcases her amazing ability to make a character live and breath...even across 70 years. The only thing I did not like was the almost forced inclusion of the Blythe family. I bought this book BECAUSE it had further references to beloved Anne, however the insertion of a Blythe into every story was a bit of a drawback at times because the stories were not about the Blythes and just gave enough information to make you wish they were. Over all I would definately reccomend this to any reader who enjoys classic tales about human nature in all of its derivations. And after all, who ever wants to let go of Anne-with-an-e.

I gave up reading the Montgomery short story collections (e.g. Akin to Anne) after a while because they were obviously written simply to make money and had little or no literary merit or originality. They were not intended to be published in book form anyway. However 'The Road to Yesterday' was. The stories are well up to Montgomery's standard and are very varied - some romantic, some sad - but all very good. Especially worthy of mention is 'Here Comes the Bride' which very cleverly builds up a story from many different viewpoints. 'Penelope Struts her Theories' has to be read just because of the title.

As another reviewer has noted, the inclusion of the Blythes into every story does seem somewhat forced in parts, but provides a common link which truns the book more into a book rather than just a random selection of stories.

As a big fan of the 20 or so L. M. Montgomery books I've read and re-read, I was so excited to finally find a copy of this book. But when I started reading it I was really disappointed. I know this book was published posthumously and wondered if maybe she hadn't had time to polish the stories in it. Basically, I found it boring; one or two stories I couldn't even bother to finish, and others I've never re-read. None of the stories were wholly satisfying; each lacked something of the charm and entertainment of her previous short stories; those that started well ended flat.

Another reviewer mentioned that they didn't find L.M. Montgomery's previous short stories satisfying, but I enjoyed the style of those earlier ones, which is perhaps why I didn't like these; they really have a different flavour to her other stories, although she still includes a number of her common themes.

This book was a great find. I had read the whole Anne series and always wanted more. The stories are sweet but a little frustrating because they feel like they should tie the comunity and characters together somehow but they dont. Also it does get a little annoying to hear so much about the Blythe family without actally advancing their story at all. Overall I was glad I got this book but i will probably never read it again.

Before they started re-releasing L.M.'s short stories in paperback, my local library had a hardback version of this book. I checked that book out countless times. I still remember the faded pink cover with its fancy Victorian drawing.

I read and re-read this book throughout my teenage years. I had doubts if the stories would translate into adulthood, but the humor lasts. I recommend this book to any L.M. fan. You can pick up this book and find an entertaining story to pass a trainride or a warm evening by the fire.

At her death in 1942, Lucy Maud Montgomery had completed the manuscript for a ninth "Anne of Green Gables" book. "The Blythes Are Quoted" is a series of short stories about people living in and around Glen St. Mary, in which Anne and Gilbert Blythe and their children are supporting characters and the subject of gossip. The stories were connected by vignettes featuring the poetry of Anne Blythe and her son Walter, with some revealing family commentary.

When finally published in 1974 as "The Road To Yesterday", the short stories were rearranged, and the poetry and commentary removed. The stories feature a mature and edgier writing style and contain a few nuggets of information about the Blythe family past the conclusion of "Rilla of Ingleside."

Among the highlights: "Penelope Struts Her Theories", in which a child development expert has a hilarious experience raising real children; "Here Comes The Bride", in which various persons provide a sometimes biting, sometimes humorous commentary on a wedding; and "A Commonplace Woman", in which an elderly dying woman turns out to have had a shocking life. "The Road To Yesterday" of the title is a clever love story with (muddled)references to the Blythe children and their Meredith neighbors.

"The Road To Yesterday" is recommended to fans of L.M. Montgomery's short stories. Fans of the "Anne of Green Gables" series are most strongly urged to track down Benjamin Lefevre's unabridged 2009 version of "The Blythes Are Quoted."