Friday, December 23, 2011

Chapter 32: The Big Exam

So Avonlea's students go off to take their version of the SATs. Just like the SATs, the Queens test will clearly determine their worth as humans and all their future possibilities, so nerves are appropriately on edge.
"Jane asked him what on earth he was doing and he said he was repeating the multiplication table over and over to steady his nerves and for pity's sake not to interrupt him, because if he stopped for a moment he got frightened and forgot everything he ever knew, but the multiplication table kept all his facts firmly in their proper place!"
The "he" in the previous sentence is Moody Spurgeon McPherson, and I'm left wondering what this kid did to make himself so unpopular.
"Sometimes I have wished I was born a boy, but when I see Moody Spurgeon I'm always glad I'm a girl and not his sister."
Is it just the fact that he's not on the same level as Anne? I feel kind of bad for him, but who knows? He might be the sort who's just too generally irritating to want to spend time with.

Gilbert Blythe is not that sort, but that doesn't mean that he and Anne have improved the state of their relations any.
"They had met and passed each other on the street a dozen times without any sign of recognition and every time Anne had held her head a little higher and wished a little more earnestly that she had made friends with Gilbert when he asked her, and vowed a little more determinedly to surpass him in the examination."
As we all remember, she does not, of course, surpass him. They tie for first. But I think Kevin Sullivan had it right, shifting things around in the movie so Gilbert's the one who gives her the news.

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