A Girl of the Limberlost

A Girl of the Limberlost

By Gene Stratton-Porter

Set amid Indiana's vast Limberlost Swamp around 1909, this treasured children's classic mixes astute observations on nature with the struggles of growing up in the early 20th century. A smart, ambitious girl, Elnora lives in the dwindling wetland with her mother and pays for school by collecting local moth specimens to sell to naturalists. Harassed by her mother and scorned by her peers, Elnora Comstock finds solace in natural beauty along with friendship, independence, and romance.

Well, if you're looking for the spiritual kin of L.M. Montgomery, you've found her.  This had a lot of the same hallmarks many of Montgomery's books do (not necessarily the Anne of Green Gables series, but a lot of her others): fiercely proud, independent women, some of them disappointed in love and taking it out on other people, friendly farm neighbors, rich benefactors, "mean" city people who actually love the country person's bold and simple way of life and speaking, etc., etc. I was reminded, reading this, about a recent article that reframed our country's political divide not as one between conservative and liberal, but between rural and urban, and called out all of this literature and media which gave rise to the myth of the rural pure and urban suspect.  This book would certainly add to that myth (although I doubt it's widely read enough to actually affect most voters).

We start out with Elnora walking the three miles to the high school in town, only to find out she needs books and tuition (and probably something other than calico and heavy boots if she doesn't want to stick out like a sore thumb).  Her mother, who is an ENORMOUS BITCH, by the way, knew all of this, but wanted Elnora to be defeated by the experience and give up.  Instead, Elnora sells some bugs and this farm couple help her out, since both their own daughters died in infancy.  We end up following Elnora as she (and her farm "family") charms the local girls and succeeds wildly in school, befriends a young, demanding boy whose alcoholic father dies conveniently timed so that the farm neighbors can adopt him, deals with her awful mother, who is a huge asshole until she finds out her husband died while cheating on her and suddenly about-turns into a caring woman and no one holds a grudge for the last twenty years of abuse, and then a recovering rich boy/Chicago lawyer comes to the swamp for health purposes and calls her "unspoiled" which we all know is code for "going to leave my fiance for you". 

So, yes, maybe I sound dismissive, but I really loved (and love) my LM Montgomery books, and even if this feels like a version of one of her books with about 1000% more bugs and 75% more wooden characters, I found it very readable. It does skip around in time, improbably, and is sort of vignette-y (although we spend a good chunk of time on Elnora's first week at school and her romance with Phillip), and as I mentioned, the characters don't really "develop" with the sole exception of Edith, Phillip's erstwhile fiance, who (somewhat understandably) throws a fit at their engagement party when he abruptly leaves so he can catch a moth for Elnora, and then compounds her sins by going down to the Limberlost and implying Phillip is hers for the taking anytime, so you know she's going to get her comeuppance by the end of the book, and she does, not only giving up on Phillip, but actually being gracious to Elnora and giving her an elusive moth, which is how you know Elnora's innate good character and moral values have finally subdued every possible person she's ever met. 

Well, and NOW I find out that apparently this is a sequel of sorts to Freckles, which goes a long way to explaining who the hell HE is, and why we're never given any information about what his connection is to the moths, the swamp, or Eleanora, aside from leaving her all these valuable pieces. This becomes more pertinent at the end of the book, when Elnora goes to stay with Freckles and his family when she's waiting for Phillip to make up his mind about whether he's really interested in marrying her.  This also sort of explains the mentioned-but-never-really-resolved storyline of the band of criminals who use the swamp for their midnight expeditions (and spy on Elnora through the window, DAMN that creepy mess was just sort of glossed over!) and how the Bird Woman, Swamp Angel, and Freckles all know each other.

Overall, the plot feels a bit thin, and the characters are not much thicker, with the sole exception of Elnora's mother who does a complete 180, but if you're looking for books about moths, you've come to the right place.  Ironically, it was published just as the Limberlost was drained, although it has since been reclaimed for wetlands.