Looking for Anne, Irene Gammel

I read this today, and it's very good, well-researched, fascinating. It pieces together bits of LMM's life from her journals and letters, the books she read and the magazines published around the time Green Gables was being written, searching for clues of what inspired Anne. I like how there are no direct implications that any character was based on a specific person, or that any incident was actually drawn from life - but rather an amalgamation of people and events in LMM's life, and there is a lot to do with the subconscious; for instance, names in the Anne books suggest other literary works. Green Gables suggests Hawthorne's The House of Seven Gables (which LMM read), and a short story in a contemporary magazine (which LMM might or might not have read) where the heroine goes to live at "Gray Gables." It's not that LMM was directly inspired by these books, but their influence may have filtered into the fabric of the novel. Two magazine stories published a few years before Anne featured orphans named "Ann" who are similar to Anne Shirley, one with a knack for taking care of babies, the other with red hair and freckles.

I also find myself a lot like LMM as Irene Gammel describes her. Shy, soft-spoken, and self-critical - LMM is not at all like chatterbox Anne, neither in appearance nor personality, and Anne perhaps resembles some of her enemies (a redheaded boy) and ex-lovers(a very talkative man)! LMM has a photographic memory, is proud and snobby, isn't always "nice" despite her petite and feminine aspect. She reconstructs and manipulates her relationships and memories. This book is a fascinating psychological portrait (of a fascinating subject).