Pollyanna & Pollyanna Grows Up by Eleanor H. Porter

Pollyanna / Pollyanna Grows Up by Eleanor H. Porter

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I have been aware of Pollyanna for a long while, mainly because “Pollyanna” has been used as a kind of insult in some of the books I read. It’s normally attached to a Slightly Over-Dramatic Child who might have been weeping a lot but is DETERMINED to see the best on everything (and yes, irritating, no? Sometimes it’s quite satisfying to lean into the grumpiness providing you lean out of it on the other side). And so, when I found this combined edition the other day, I felt like now was the time to figure out the girl behind the myth.

Pollyanna is an orphan (inevitably!) who is sent to live with her Aunt following her father’s death. She brings with her a game that she played with her father, namely the seeing of ‘glad’ in everything. For example, if one dislikes Mondays then one can be glad that there is a WHOLE WEEK before the next one. It’s a lot, right? And yet, it’s oddly charming stuff. Pollyanna charms the whole town, the grumps get ungrumped, long lost romances get rekindled, and everybody skips merrily around in a Positive Frame Of Mind.

As you might imagine, I was ready to dislike this book intensely and yet I found myself genuinely enjoying it. It’s all just very genuine and straightforwardly done. Porter’s writing is deft and determined and very, very readable stuff. Stylistically and thematically, you know that this is early twentieth-century, but in terms of the actual writing, it’s dated very well. I was trying to think of a comparative author and Edith Nesbit was honestly the first that came to mind as there’s that similarly light, sunny edge to Porter’s writing.

BUT THEN COMES THE LAST QUARTER OF THE BOOK. (I am putting that in capital letters to convey the enormity of my reaction). Pollyanna experiences something which seems the very definition of leftfield. It’s all intensely baffling, both in terms of plot development but also in terms of the entire book.

And the weirdest thing of all was that it happened again in Pollyanna Grows Up (1915). The first three-quarters of the book are perfectly charming and deeply readable. Bits of it have dated but fair enough, that’s going to happen. Certain characters have kind of completely changed since the previous book but fair enough, I can let you get away with that for plot purposes, alright.

BUT THEN COMES THE LAST QUARTER. This sees the most convoluted relationship ever, even more convoluted misunderstandings, the weirdest and slightly ick ‘well if you want to marry me I am BOUND BY DUTY to accept’, and basically it all goes to bonkers town. Again.

To sum, then, three-quarters of the Pollyanna books are very solid things indeed and quite surprising in their readability. The last quarters, however, are not. I am FASCINATED by them.

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