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A review by sathyasekar
A Tangled Web by L.M. Montgomery
3.0
"A Tangled Web" is one of the very very few "adult" novels penned by Lucy Maud Montgomery. The Canadian author is primarily renowned for her creation of Anne shirley. perhaps the most beautiful creation of a child in all fiction. She also created many other works of children fiction - Emily of Silver Moon, Pat of Silver Busy, Jane of Lantern Hill and more. She achieved immense success as a writer of fiction based on children. But her adult books did not receive as much success. "Blue Castle" was a ver yinteresting book indeed - a woman is pronounced to be suffering from an incurable disease with a limited time to live. The book is about how she tries to achieve all her dreams in the time remaining. The theme is beautiful but Montgomery couldnt make it a gripping account. She meandered and tried to make it as pleasing an affair as the child stories. The well-written story hence fell flat.
"A tangled web" has a good theme. An elderly aunt prepares for her death and as one of her last actions, bequathes her precious heirloom, an old jug, to an unnamed relative to be announded after a year. There is a big family, each one of whose members expects the jug to be their gift. The book is almost completely abou tthe lives of these members and how things change over the course of the year. The theme of the book is very interesting as I said. Being part of a big family myself with strong senior ladies, I could relate to a lot of action early in the book. To me, the book very quickly became a very confusing affair. There are just way too many characters and keeping track of each one of their stories in parallel was too difficult a task for me. By the time you got familiar with the people and relate to their stories, the book was almost over. Due to the number of stories being spawned, I felt a certain shallowness to the characters. I could connect with none. I had the same experience as watching one of the Harry Potter movies - just a quick assembly of different images with no emotinal connect anywhere. This from Ms Montgomery was a huge disappointment. For the most essential win about her "child" books are about the emotional connect you feel with the chief characters. Anne, Mathew and Marila for instance. Ms Montgomery appears to have rather a limited view of what an adult book means. To her, it appears it must means more swearing and more kissing. Otherwise, the adults just seem to be the simpletons they appear in her child books.
Despite all of this, the book is still not a bad read. The disappointment is high only because of the expectations going with the author. Its a typically gay, light read marks Ms Montgomery's books. Once you know to recognize the characters by their name, the chances are you may actually start liking them - at least some. So it may not be a complete waste of time. But dont go into it expecting a brilliance you may (justifiably) expect from the author who wrote "Anne of Green Gables". There is no such flair here. But the prose is lovely as ever and you dont feel bored. Just confused.
"A tangled web" has a good theme. An elderly aunt prepares for her death and as one of her last actions, bequathes her precious heirloom, an old jug, to an unnamed relative to be announded after a year. There is a big family, each one of whose members expects the jug to be their gift. The book is almost completely abou tthe lives of these members and how things change over the course of the year. The theme of the book is very interesting as I said. Being part of a big family myself with strong senior ladies, I could relate to a lot of action early in the book. To me, the book very quickly became a very confusing affair. There are just way too many characters and keeping track of each one of their stories in parallel was too difficult a task for me. By the time you got familiar with the people and relate to their stories, the book was almost over. Due to the number of stories being spawned, I felt a certain shallowness to the characters. I could connect with none. I had the same experience as watching one of the Harry Potter movies - just a quick assembly of different images with no emotinal connect anywhere. This from Ms Montgomery was a huge disappointment. For the most essential win about her "child" books are about the emotional connect you feel with the chief characters. Anne, Mathew and Marila for instance. Ms Montgomery appears to have rather a limited view of what an adult book means. To her, it appears it must means more swearing and more kissing. Otherwise, the adults just seem to be the simpletons they appear in her child books.
Despite all of this, the book is still not a bad read. The disappointment is high only because of the expectations going with the author. Its a typically gay, light read marks Ms Montgomery's books. Once you know to recognize the characters by their name, the chances are you may actually start liking them - at least some. So it may not be a complete waste of time. But dont go into it expecting a brilliance you may (justifiably) expect from the author who wrote "Anne of Green Gables". There is no such flair here. But the prose is lovely as ever and you dont feel bored. Just confused.