The Reader and the Writer

Welcome back to Anne of Green Gables. In this episode, Shari and Rhea discuss the narrative shape that this story is taking in ways that are different than the traditional story arc structure. They talk extensively about goodness, Anne’s ideas of it, the ways her ideas are limiting and how much of the community seems to help foster those limits. They discuss goodness as in ideal versus goodness as a human charecteristic—how each is different and where the overlap occurs. This naturally leads to a discussion of beauty, truth, and goodness: how each one informs, strengthens and adds to the overflow of the others. And, they talk about how, for all Anne’s wild imaginations, her ability to imagine herself being vulnerable to the “other”—particularly Gilbert Blythe—is woefully stunted, or more likely, blocked by her fears.
Be sure to check out Rhea’s reading guide for Anne of Green Gables:
Also, please tell us how you’ve been inspired by Anne of Green Gables to stretch your imagination and find new ways to play!
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“Dear me, it’s only been three weeks since she came, and it seems as if she’d been here always. I can’t imagine the place without her.” —Marilla

Welcome back to Anne of Green Gables. In this episode, Shari and Rhea spend time discussing our narrator: When does she pop out from behind the book to talk to us? What effect does this have on our experience of the story? Our feelings about the characters? They also talk more about the imagination, and how critical it is to develop our imaginations, especially as it relates to the life of faith. They talk about romance, not the “kiss, kiss” kind, but rather romance in the grander sense. Finally, they ask whether or not Anne’s extreme emotion, imagination, and romance are hyperbole if it truly is Anne bringing all that is in her to bear in every joy and despair, with no real in-between’s.
Rhea’s amazing Anne of Green Gables Reading Guide is available! You can find it here:
Thanks for listening to this episode of The Reader & the Writer! If you like this post, please ❤️ it and pass it along.

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“It’s delightful when your imaginations come true, isn’t it?
But the worst of imagining things is that the time comes when you have to stop and that hurts.
When the Lord puts us in certain circumstances He doesn’t mean for us to imagine them away.

Welcome to our first conversation on Anne of Green Gables! In this episode, Shari and Rhea can’t get enough of Anne with an ‘e’. They share their favorite moments, favorite quotes, favorite things this story make them think about, and their favorite things about Anne, which, of course, is everything! They wonder what it takes for a wide scope of imagination. They ask if we treat our own imaginations well in this day and age, and what would it look like to cherish our imaginations? They talk about the connection between imagination and beauty, and how Anne sees beauty in everything but herself. They talk about naming, and wonder if Anne’s naming of places and objects transfigures them—not only for herself, but for those around her as well. Also, they ask one another the hardest question ever: Which would you rather be if you had the choice: divinely beautiful, dazzling clever, or angelically good??
Look for the Rhea’s reading guide for Anne of Green Gables to publish on her Substack page, soon!
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Welcome back to Middlemarch! In this episode, Shari and Rhea think long and hard about our narrator: by what tactics is she (he?) getting us to see? Where are our eyes turned? On what do we gaze? And how does this gaze serve Eliot’s purposes for expressing her greater themes? They also talk about the symmetry in the story lines of Book Three, and the elegant arc they make. Of course, they discuss details: Fred Vincy’s extreme self-centerdness, Lydgate’s dunce-headedness, and poor Dorthea’s hopes of matrimonial bliss being popped so soon. They argue over passionately discuss whether Rosamond is manipulative or innocent in her pursuit of Lydgate. They bring up that tricky narrator again, and how we are given the turn in their relationship: from careless flirting to holy matrimony. They continue to scratch their heads over the British class system and where exactly every person and trade fits in. And furniture… What is up with this continual mention of furniture?? Finally, they take in the title of Book Three, Waiting to Die, and consider the full scope of its meaning.
Show Notes:
What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew, by Daniel Pool. (Rhea referenced)
R&W Outline for Middlemarch, Book Three (Available for a limited time to all subscribers. Will go behind paywall mid-year). Great for use with:
* Personal Study
* Book Groups
* Homeschool Supplement
* Upper Level High School Curriculum Supplement

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“Survival, it is called. Often it is accidental, sometimes it is engineered by creatures or forces that we have no conception of, always it is temporary.” —p. 324

Welcome back to Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner. In this episode, Shari and Rhea find themselves without words… more than once…! They talk about Charity’s way of controlling everything to the very end, and how still after all that, they couldn’t dislike her, or harbor ill feelings toward her. They talk about Sid and Larry’s simultaneous “journeys” they took at the end, and how each one came out on the other side. They talk about dying “right” v. dying “well,” living “right” v. living “well,” and how the two inform one another. They talk about fate, forgiveness, and the way suffering has the mysterious gift of enlarging us if we’ll let it. Finally, Shari declares Crossing to Safety as one of her top five books of all time—a statement that, if you’ve been listening to R&W for any length of time, you know she doesn’t make easily.
Below is The Resurrection by Piero della Francesca that was mentioned multiple times in the narrative and acted as a critical image in the last section of the story.
Our next book is Anne of Green Gables, by L.M. Montgomery. Our first episode of that four-part series will air April 14th.
Thanks for listening to this edition of The Reader & the Writer! If you like this post, ❤️ it and pass it along.

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