I love being able to have dozens, even hundreds, of books at
my fingertips in the memories of my Kindle and my Kindle Fire. I was adamantly
against e-books when they first came out, because I love the look, feel, and
smell of a book. There’s something special and wonderful about watching a
beloved book become dog-eared, its spine broken so it falls open at favorite
passage, a “Velveteen Rabbit” transformation that makes it become more and more
real even as it literally falls apart at the seams. (I found it deliciously
illustrative when a large chunk of the book of Job fell out of my last Bible.) So
even though I carry my Kindle all over and stock it with my favorite books,
there are certain times, and certain books, when nothing but a physical, paper
book will do.
Over the past week or so, I’ve been re-reading one of my
favorite series, the Anne of Green Gables books by L.M. Montgomery. These
delicious tales, set on Prince Edward Island in Canada beginning in the late
1800s, follow the life of young Anne Shirley as she is accidentally sent away
from the orphanage where she had lived for the first 11 years of her life and
is taken in somewhat dubiously by a pair of older, unmarried siblings who had
intended to get a boy to help with the work on their farm. Over the course of
six or seven books, Anne “grows in wisdom and in stature,” becoming a teacher, going
to college, getting married, and having children of her own. A few additional
books focus on her children and follow their lives.
Every book in the series is full of funny and poignant
moments, from Anne’s ridiculous childhood scrapes and embarrassments that break
her heart and bruise her dignity, to her near-loss of the love of her life
(both to disease and to her own stubbornness), to the death of her firstborn
daughter only hours after her birth. But the most heartbreaking and poignant
stories anywhere in the books have to be the ones set during World War I, as
Anne sends all three of her beloved sons to war; only two of them coming home.
I’m not much of a crier when I read, but I will admit that I sob out loud every
time Anne’s daughter Rilla reads her last letter from her brother Walter, written
from the front the night before his death, as he tells her of his premonition
of his own death the next day. We see the death of a soldier in war as
experienced by himself, his mother, his sister, and his dear friend and would-be
sweetheart.
Which brings me to another reason that I love physical
books, especially paperbacks: the cover illustrations. There are many books
with cover illustrations that capture perfectly the most important part of the
book, that give you a tantalizing glimpse of the stories within. The Harry
Potter books, illustrated by Mary Gran Pre, are good examples, as are several
editions of C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia series. But I would include the
covers of the Anne of Green Gables books illustrated by Ben Stahl among my
favorites as well. His art on the cover of Rilla
of Ingleside, which covers the years of the war, portrays Rilla herself, her
pale, lacy dress blowing in the wind off the ocean, with a soldier in the
background, both of them gently lit by a full moon and the light of a
lighthouse.
The soldier might be one of her brothers; it might be one of
her childhood friends; most likely, it is her sweetheart, to whom she may have
become engaged just before he shipped out. His identity is as uncertain to the
reader as his fate is to the characters in the book.
As I look forward to Veteran’s Day tomorrow, I am thankful
for all the soldiers who have served their countries over time immemorial, and
for the families who kept the home fires burning, waiting anxiously for news of
the safety of their loved ones. Thank you all for your service.
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