That’s what I found rather disconcerting. Meg is important in A Swiftly Tilting Planet but really disappears into the worldwork after that book. Even her husband gets more attention. Heck Anne Blythe of Anne of Green Gables is still around for a few more books before Montgomery vanquishes her into oblivion once her children have started to grow up.
L’Engle writes adult fiction. I always wondered she didn’t write about the grown up Meg. Perhaps because the audience for the series wouldn’t cross over? But I can still imagine lots of adult women and even some men who would surely be interested in buying novels about Meg and Charles and her family.
I’m also a mommy and I’ll agree with that sentiment. So far, though, I haven’t really found really great fiction dealing with motherhood. There’s a lot of cartoony stuff out there and a lot of motherhood-is-hell material but not much in between.
True. And you know, I haven’t so far found motherhood hellish at all, so I’d like some realistic fiction. Oh well, I have Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell here, so that’s some comfort.
I, too, would like to see what happened to Calvin and Meg. Vicky, too. But once she came up with Poly, she really seemed to be more interested in her; I kind of got the feeling that she was more invested in Poly than she ever was in Meg. That’s just me, though…
I remember in one of Montgomery’s short stories that she has a man end up falling in love with - and marrying - the daughter of the woman he used to love. The man was not as creepy as Dean (who creeps me out even more upon each reading) but the idea still struck me as a bit odd. But it was written in such a casual way that I suppose for Montgomery it wasn’t that much of a stretch.
At least the man in the short story didn’t fall in love until the girl was grown up. Dean tells Emily he’ll “wait for” her the first time he meets her. When she’s 11. He’s decided to wait for an 11-year-old. Ew.
Realistic fiction dealing with motherhood. Hmm. That’s interesting to think about. L’Engle’s book Two-Part Invention is her biographical account of her marriage, so motherhood enters in, but it’s not centred on it.
I think l’Engle found Meg boring after Meg became gorgeous, brilliant, and adult.
I’ll have to think about it, and see if I can come up with any books. Or someone could start a thread. It’s an interesting question.
I’m rereading Emily’s Quest right now and I’m at the part where Emily and Dean are engaged. (By the way, there are unboxed spoilers in this post.)
Everyone warns Emily about “Priest men” after she announces her engagement. At one point, Dean tells her
If my fiancé ever said that to me, I’d be running very fast and very far away from him.
Then a little bit farther down the page, Ilse comes back for a visit and even she warns Emily about Dean:
That sounds like the recipe for a perfect marriage.
Then Old Jock Kelly comes by and gives Emily chapter and verse on what the Priest women had to put up with from their husbands: having dishes thrown at them, being called fools, going down on their knees to ask a favor of their husbands, that sort of thing.
And of course, she gets engaged to Dean when none of her other friends are around and Mr. Carpenter has just died. There is no one looking out for Emily but Emily, so she’s susceptible to Dean, especially after she spends the winter nearly dead.
Y’know, Dean’s coming across as a predator during this engagement.
I just re-read this series recently, and HELL yeah, Dean is a creep and I’m sure it’s intentional on the part of the author. She sprinkles seeds of evidence throughout the series so that when Dean and Emily get engaged, you know it’s a bad choice (and not just because Teddy is clearly the one for Emily).
Well, I got 'em out again last night and am half-way through Emily of New Moon. It’s been a long time and I’ve forgotten a lot. Dean hasn’t arrived yet.
I just finished EQ and I will say this much: Dean seems to have gotten over himself by the end. I guess living three thousand miles away from your obsession is a good enough reality check.