Oh it’s ever so dreadfully negligent of me to never have read that pinnacle of children’s fiction when I was but a boy. I’m positively trembling with shame at such an oversight on the part of my young self!
In the paragraph above I tried to hit Anne’s excited and overaffected tone. It’s hard. And it’s true, I haven’t read the source material upon which this game is based, so I don’t have a basis for comparison to see in how far Anne of Green Cables manages to be true to the original.
I can say however that I read Anne of Green Cables as one coherent whole, with the contrasts and juxtapositions as an inherent part of the piece, and not an artefact of just stronghanding an old classic into a flashy new coat. And I mean this on all levels.
Anne’s excited chattering, her big emotions, her unbelievable eloquence and sparkling presence all testify to her origins as a late 19th century character, almost to the point of caricature. (I mean, I could picture her affected swooning gestures every time something dreadfully tragic happened.) She made me smile when she was happy, and I cared for her when she was sad. That’s because, underneath the endless blabbing and the exaggerated mannerisms, she’s a girl full of honest love and enthusiasm for life and all its surprises.
I also had no problem at all picturing her as a techno-whizzkid hacker with a deep understanding of machines, robots, and computer code. The 19th century literary character and the far future SF protagonist flowed effortlessly together, lifting her above stereotypes of girly girls who love dresses or tomboys who want to get their hands dirty. Anne soaks up those aspects that are her own, and she is just Anne. (With an “E”.)
On a broader scale, this seamlessly flowing together of the futuristic and the old happens with the setting too. The vision of rural Avonlea as a green enclave trapped among towering skyscrapers works, not in the least because of the technological marvels that are present in Avonlea too. Farmland is replaced by floating agricultural pods, windmills and farm equipment by smart(ish) robots. These techno-tools don’t get a chance to overpower the green village setting because there are… cherry trees!
The reader is first introduced to Avonlea through one of its inhabitants, and it’s in this character that all the merging juxtapositions of the setting and the characters are beautifully exemplified. Mrs Rachel Lynde is the nosy neighbour lady of the village. But instead of poking her nose between her window curtains to spy on the villagers’ coming and going, she’s connected to an electronic web of cameras and other data-feeds, instead of whispering her observations and her opinions to others in the village store, she controls a far-reaching gossip/influencer network. I think that first chapter is a genius move for pulling together all the seemingly contradictory elements of the piece and melting them together, preparing the reader for the rest of the story.
I’m saying “reader” instead of “player” because there is a lot of text compared to the number of interactive clicks. I also found it quite hard to discern whether my choices had a long term effect. But I think that my choices may have gotten Anne in a good deal more trouble with her new mother-figure Marilla or Mrs Lynde than was strictly necessary, and perhaps I also got her in some embarrasing situations with a certain boy PC.
After navigating the story with mouse-clicks, it’s an unexpected challenge to descend with Anne into a hacking scenario where you need to rearrange connections on a graphical interface. A pleasant surprise!
A beautiful melting pot of pastoral delights and small village concerns with futuristic technology and the threat of faceless corporations with dictatorial ambitions.
A final remark:
I don’t want to say too much for fear of spoiling things, but the relationship between Anne and Matthew is my favourite part of this story.
Beautiful.