A review by laura_sackton
Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery

I reread this slowly on audio, and a few things stand out. There’s a whole lot of casual racism, very dated disability politics, Christian morality, and ideas about women that are very ick and do not hold up.

But here's the thing: this book is so queer, and it's so earnest. It's not just that Anne is so earnest, that she loves so completely and feels so deeply. It's not just that she is basically unable to process the world except openly and earnestly. It’s also and more that she can’t shut up about it. She does not stop talking about what she loves, and also what hurts her, and she talks about it all with the same level of intensity and no shame. It is wild how often she declares her love for everything and her heartbreak everything. She uses the most dramatic language she can think of. She goes on and on. She makes everything into a story. It's incredible. It’s so obvious why I loved it so much as a kid, why it resonated so profoundly. I felt exactly like Anne, so in love with everything it felt like it would kill me. 

The queer earnestness! Anne belongs in my thesis on queer earnestness. It’s  so refreshing, this character and this book that does not have a non-earnest bone in it. Love is in fact is dramatic and deserves to be shouted about! The world is so extraordinary, and the only appropriate response, really, is Anne’s response, which is to shout about it constantly and forever. 

The queerness is so obvious to me, too, the way Anne talks about Diana, the way the love each other, how they talk about growing up and living together and never marrying, how they are so devoted to each other, how their love for each other is wild and overflows its container—it’s easy to read as queer but also I think there is something to be said for defining this kind of intense childhood love and friendship as queer. Why not? Anne and Diana's friendship that is central to their lives and identities. They queer what’s supposed to be most important. 

Matthew is also so obviously queer, maybe ace. He talks about how he “never considered courting.” Matthew, Marilla, and Anne all live lives against the norm. Their familial language is queer affection. On this reread, I thought a lot about the kinship between Matthew and Anne, and how it is a kind of queer kinship. They approach the world in opposite ways—Matthew is quiet and solitary; Anne is loud and extroverted—but it’s their sense of wonder that unites them. There are so many languages to love in, and Anne understands Mathew’s language immediately, and he understands hers. Maybe because they both live in a world where people rarely take the time to understand to their languages. 

I also forgot how poignant the part at the end where Matthew dies is, how beautiful and real a description of grief it is. The way Anne wants and needs time to sit with it, to “realize” it, and then afterward how she feels so deeply how the world is still so beautiful even though she’s heartbroken. 

I could also write a lot about Marilla and her own kind of queerness and language of understanding and loving the world. 

Also, Anne has this high femme energy, and also this femme tomboy energy, and also she’s a chaotic bisexual disaster. Gilbert is the token straight character in this book, I will die on this hill.