Oh, for anyone else in the thread who may have missed The Blue Castle bandwagon:
It is available as a free Project Gutenberg ebook, here. I’ve linked to the HTML version, because I find that easier to read online than a .txt file, rest assured there is a .txt format version available.
I finished The Ladies of Missalonghi last night. I agree that the similarities of plot are quite startling. I’ll be interested to hear what you think once you’ve read it. It’s so close, and yet with a little bit of a different twist on it, that I would almost think that she did it quite deliberately, and with a purpose. Glancing through some stuff I found about it on the internet, people have suggested that it’s supposed to be a parody of the Montgomery book and the romantic style it was written in. I could see that based on my readings of the two books, but you’d think she would make it a little more obvious that this was her intention.
I’m on my way to the library now to pick up my reserved copy. I’ll read it right away and report back with my opinon as soon as I finish.
Excellent. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.
I’m a little late to the discussion, but I have to admit I never watched ANY Anne movies because I love the books too much! I wanted nothing to interfere with my own internal imagined Anne. I cry a little every time I think of her in her tight wincy dress waiting for Matthew at the train station …
Speaking of reading aloud, I read the first Anne to my daughter aloud. She enjoyed it thoroughly but she was devastated when Matthew died. Absolutely shocked and traumatized. (She’s a bit dramatic. 
) However, she didn’t want anything to do with any more. But Gilbert …! I should encourage her to read them herself, now; she’s 13 and Can Handle the Truth.
(She was also devastated when reaching the end of a biography of Princess Diana to find that she had died. I had no idea she didn’t know about it when I gave her the book [a compilation of stories of female role-model types]. She was extremely put out with me for getting her all excited about this princess, only to find out that she was dead!)
OK, I’ve just finished both books. My verdict is that Missalonghi is totally plagiarized. It’s really blatant. Some plot details are changed, but the basic story is identical and there are details that are pure copies–the beautiful cousin with “everything in the shop window,” the desire for a cat, the half-forbidden love of the local lending library, the constant brown…it’s blatant, I tell you!
McCullough gives her heroine a much nicer mother and aunt, not to mention a feminist scheme, and she’s a lot racier–I didn’t expect actual sex!–but wow, I’m blown away by the plagiarism. I did promptly suspect Una of being an angel, but thought it would be too oddball; she proved me wrong there. That was kind of strange.
I can’t see it as a parody. There are a few details, I grant, that could be taken as parody, but if she meant it to be one she should have been more thorough about it and done a better job. Cold comfort farm is an excellent parody of a now-forgotten genre. This is much more like a member of the genre than a parody, even if it has got a bizarro angel and an eloping cousin.
dangermom, I agree with you, of course.
There was a stink at the time. I recall that McCullough was defensive and annoyed when confronted with the issue. I seem to recall, as well, that she admitted she’d read The Blue Castle, but said it was *long before * she wrote L of M. Was it purposeful plagiarism? That is the sticking point, of course. My own opinion is, yes, it was. I don’t believe for one second that a writer would sort of channel a long-read book in that fashion. McCullough has done a lot of writing, she’s no amateur and wasn’t then.
She did not claim it was a parody, and like you I think that explanation makes no sense.
Honestly, that’s what the Anne books are about too: my only complaint about the first two movies is that Anne was a little too much of a Mary Sue, compared to the books, where she really did screw up a lot but where she also learned. Most girl books have one of two plots: headstrong, idealistic girl has to learn to fit in or headstong, idealistic girl has to fight against the world to keep it from squashing her individuality. Anne is so much more complicated: she learns when to be true to herself and when to listen to what matters to others.
And I don’t cry. Not at life, not at movies, not at books. I bawl my eyes out every time I read “Anne’s House of Dreams” and I do not know why off all the books I read, that one hits me the hardest.
Well, I just finished The Blue Castle and there’s no way the similarities are coincidence. It couldn’t be a parody, either, unless McCullough is a hopeless fool at parodizing – it didn’t have any of the hallmarks of parody. Really, the two books are so similar it’s kind of shocking. I don’t have my copy of Ladies to double check – I lent it to someone and it never made its way back home – but, in addition to the obvious plot differences, there were lots of little touchs, lines & paragraphs that seemed so familiar. Disturbing really.
Could it have been unintentional? I think so. McCullough might have read it in childhood and had it emerge from her subconscious later.
Maybe.
Anyway, despite the similarities, there are some basic changes in the spirit of the two books that I noticed: [spoiler]The characters of Missy and Valancy were very different. Missy’s changes were very largely driven by Una, who guided & advised her. On the surface, Ladies had a pretty overt feminist message, but I think Valancy was a stronger character – she had no advisor, and all her changes were instigated by herself.
This was actually one of the main things I’ve always disliked about Ladies – Una, the Ghostly Advisor. I liked that Valancy made her plans on her own and carried them out without assistance or guidance.
Missy’s only motivation seemed to be to ‘get’ John Brown. She knew going in she wasn’t really going to die, and she lied to force him into marrying her. Even though she didn’t really know him at all. This was another weakness in Ladies, IMO. Valancy, on the other hand, really did think she was dying. She wanted to change her life and she did so honorably, by taking a job keeping house for Abel and nursing Cissy. Once she knew Barney, she fell in love with him in a believable way, and she didn’t lie to him to trap him, but told him the truth as she understood it and asked him to marry her.[/spoiler]
These two changes The fact that Missy knew she wasn’t really sick and lied about it, and the whole character of Ghost-Una made Ladies a much worse book than Castle.
Now, as I said before, I liked Ladies – it’s been a favorite of mine for years – but those two things have always bugged me about the book. It seems odd to me that those are changes McCullough would have chosen to make, had she been purposefully plagiarizing.
It seems sensible to me that she thought she dreamed up this plot, forgetting that she had ever read The Blue Castle. In this case, then the changes make sense – she really was reimagining a half-remembered story.
Yikes, though! I’d have been mortified if I was her. Because no reader, however unobservant, could fail to see that Ladies is a blatant copy of The Blue Castle, intentional or not.
Is anyone who has read both books interested in having a discussion comparing the two books and the plagiarism aspect? I didn’t post too much about it for the same reason Jess put the spoiler boxes up, but I’d be interested in talking about it some more if any one else wants to. If so, I’ll start a new thread with a spoiler warning in the title.
That might be a good idea. I didn’t spoiler anything, and probably I should have done. I’d like to continue discussing those details Jess mentions (though I might not have much time to, since a brother, SIL, and two small children are coming today, plus the usual 4yo friend).
The problem I have with it being subconscious is that I think most people would have had to have read Castle either very recently, or many times in order to get that level of detail. I know she’s a writer and may have a better memory for written detail than I do, but the number of similarities is huge and IMO not very credible.
I’d be interested in participating also. I was really astounded to see the similarities in the two books and I’d enjoy some back and forth about it. Especially since I don’t have a copy of Ladies at my house. There were some similarities i’d like to confirm with someone who has the book right in front of them.
I can do that *Jess.
Okay, now I’m curious. I’m going to buy both books today from Borders. :smack:
Why not get them from the library? That’s a lot of money to spend on looking at a case of plagiarism.
Must…clean…house! Goodbye!
OK, maybe we should wait until everyone has had a chance to read the books. Are you interested in participating, Hazel?
I’ll play if I can get both books read. I haven’t participated in this thread because my fingers are in my ears, my eyes shut and I’m singing “lalalalalala can’t hear you” about the prequel. But I haven’t been reading much and am midway through a Georgette Heyer, so who knows if I’ll get the book read. But can you give it a month?
(I like both Mongomery and McCollough - having read the Rome stuff and some other of her stuff - they aren’t exactly hard reads).
A month would work for me, too. Give me a chance to reread Ladies, which I’d really like to do now anyway, but can’t do just yet, since I have 2 book club books to read.
I have a fetish when it comes to books - I MUST POSSESS THEM. Plus Borders has a 25% discount for teachers this month. 
I’ll probably read 'em over the weekend.
Sounds interesting–if I can get over my mental block about reading Blue Castle. I read the first chapter, but the similarities were getting to me, which is kinda amusing because I know perfectly well which book was written first (and it wasn’t the one I’ve already read), and um, just how many romances do I read with mostly interchangable plots? (Answer: too many). But the names were getting to me as well.