Kevin Sullivan has once again found a new way to make me hate him. You remember my rant a little while ago about Sullivan Entertainment's complete lack of sense when adapting Maud's books? Good. Well it now appears that Mr. Sullivan has decided to release a book-version of the New Beginning film (still no release-date yet, although the book is to be put on sale October 01, which is way too close to my birthday for comfort), written by, yes you guessed it, himself. That man is like bile personified. I have also been able to find a better synopsis of the upcoming film, which makes me very sad. *Spoiler Alert* They do in fact kill off Gilbert, and this synopsis seems to insinuate that Anne's father did not die when she was an infant (although we know from Anne of the Island that he most definitely did). Oh, Mr. Sullivan you are indeed an evil man; like the Grinch, but without any of the good qualities (ya, maybe a little harsh, but that's how I feel). I also found out that Penguin actually COMMISSIONED the Budge Wilson prequel, they have lost most of my respect because of this, baddies!
I was reading a scholarly paper last night (I'm not going to mention any names) about the changes in Maud's writings during and after the Great War (and at the onset of WWII). Ya, that's right, I sit around and read journal articles on Lucy Maud Montgomery. This one made me so mad! I could barely focus on the actual content, because almost every single date for a book's publication was wrong. There was actually multiple times where it was right, and than the next time the book was mentioned it was wrong. And this wasn't an instance where the author was using the date of their own edition, because in the bibliography the author gave the publication dates (wrong for the most part again) and then the date of the edition they were using. Did that just make any sense at all? And by wrong, I mean wildly wrong at times. Rilla of Ingleside was published in 1921, this person had it listed as 1944. Maud was already dead in 1944 (she passed away April 24th 1942), I mean come on! I can almost forgive someone for giving a publication date that is later than the actual publication date, because they might not realize an edition they are referencing is not a first edition. What I cannot forgive however is giving a date that is earlier than the actual date! Oh yes, that happened too in this article. I mean, I know I probably know more about Lucy Maud Montgomery than most people my age (I don't know how old the person was who wrote the article) so I know a lot of this stuff off the top of my head, but seriously, when you're writing an article for a journal, shouldn't you double-check these facts, especially since the publication dates were directly related to the content of the article. They're also super-easy to find. I actually went through my copy of the article and changed all the dates in red ink, because it was bothering me so much. I know, I am lame.
Carrying on... While I was in the shower last night (I do some of my best thinking there) I discovered a new goal (one of many) that I think I've actually been secretly harbouring, at least in part, for awhile now. I want to write something that gets me included as part of the bibliography for the Lucy Maud Montgomery Research Centre! I know, it seems a little crazy and it's definitely not a goal most people have, but it would make me outrageously happy. I think I'm going to start off by writing a paper for the 2010 conference in PEI, the theme is L.M. Montgomery and the Matter of Nature. They probably won't take it since I don't have any other papers published, but I figure I'll give it a shot. In actuality I have had a couple of things published on Maud, but they're of next to no importance, and only a handful of people have ever read them (one of them was my Mother). Hey, at least you can be guaranteed I got my dates right! I'm considering writing on the concept of Nature in The Blue Castle (1926), it is one of the more overlooked (unless you're a scholar from Northern Ontario), but is also one of my favourites. It's actually the only one of Maud's novels that is not set, at least in part, in PEI. It all takes place in the Muskokas.
Jen gave me a gift-card for Chapters-Indigo-giant-conglomeration-eater-of-the independent (I'm allowed to say that; I used to work for them). I really don't have a problem with them at all, except that they changed the names of the Smithbooks stores to Coles (Smithbooks was way better!), and I find Heather to be a tad annoying. I bought The Forger's Spell by Edward Dolnick, and The Lost Dinosaurs of Egypt by William Nothdurft. They both look good, I *heart* books.
No comments:
Post a Comment