John Buchan, L. M. Montgomery and some snakes

I neither love and revere snakes nor hate and fear them. I once horrified a friend by trying to stroke a big snake in a small zoo. I couldn’t understand why she reacted the way she did! 

Snakes certainly bring out strong emotions in people, and in fiction they represent evil more often than good.

The discovery that both Stella Benson and Antonia White were lovers of snakes made me wonder whether any more writers of interest shared their views. Did anyone other than Stella Benson believe that they had the soul of a snake?

I looked for obvious personal opinions as opposed to standard Biblical references where they are classic symbols of evil.

I couldn’t find any more positive references to snakes by the people featured on here apart from Gerald Durrell, who doesn’t really count because he was a conservationist and zookeeper who loved all wildlife.

I found that neither John Buchan nor L. M. Montgomery had a good word to say about snakes. Buchan used them to describe some of his villains and L. M. Montgomery obviously loathed and feared them.

A few snake references from John Buchan
This is from The Thirty-Nine Steps:

“...the real boss... with an eye like a rattlesnake.”

“Then he looked steadily at me, and that was the hardest ordeal of all. There was something weird and devilish in those eyes, cold, malignant, unearthly, and most hellishly clever. They fascinated me like the bright eyes of a snake. “

This is from The Power House:

“It was with profound relief that I found myself in Piccadilly in the wholesome company of my kind. I had carried myself boldly enough in the last hour, but I would not have gone through it again for a king's ransom. Do you know what it is to deal with a pure intelligence, a brain stripped of every shred of humanity? It is like being in the company of a snake.”

This is from Mr Standfast:

“Blenkiron got out of his chair and stood above me. 'I tell you, Dick, that man makes my spine cold. He hasn’t a drop of good red blood in him. The dirtiest apache is a Christian gentleman compared to Moxon Ivery. He’s as cruel as a snake and as deep as hell.'”

More words about writing from L. M. Montgomery

This article contains a few more hard-hitting quotations on the subject of writers and writing from L. M. Montgomery.

She seems ambivalent about the whole business of being a writer, seeing it as both a gift and a curse:

“You'll never write anything that really satisfies you though it may satisfy other people.”

From Emily Climbs

This may be true in some cases - artists often feel that their works fall far short of their visions - but the converse also applies: some writers may be proud of their productions while their readers may not think much of them.

Disapproval, criticism and discouragement

People who read a lot are often criticised for it, and people who try to write are often discouraged. L. M. Montgomery obviously experienced much disapproval herself:

“’I think this story-writing business is the foolishest yet,’ scoffed Marilla. ‘You’ll get a pack of nonsense into your heads and waste time that should be put on your lessons. 

Reading stories is bad enough but writing them is worse.’”

From Anne of Green Gables

Although this disapproving attitude does a lot of damage, that last line seems quite funny to me.

L. M. Montgomery and the compulsion to read and write

I have found some more significant quotations from Lucy Maud Montgomery. What she has to say about reading and writing, both as herself and through her characters, is of particular interest. She could be speaking for many people of her kind.

Compulsive reading

 “I am simply a 'book drunkard.' Books have the same irresistible temptation for me that liquor has for its devotee. I cannot withstand them.” 

From L.M. Montgomery’s personal journals 1899

“We have sent for a lot of new books for our Literary Society library here and when they come I’m simply going on a spree. I shall read all night and all day. I’m a book-drunkard, sad to say, and though I earnestly try to curb my appetite for reading I never met with much success.”

From L.M. Montgomery’s letter of March 1905

Me too. All my life I have been unable to resist this temptation.

‘Book addict’ or ‘reading addict’ is another way of putting it, although there is nothing of the need to take more and more to achieve less and less.

“I doubt if I shall ever have time to read the book again -- there are too many new ones coming out all the time which I want to read. Yet an old book has something for me which no new book can ever have -- for at every reading the memories and atmosphere of other readings come back and I am reading old years as well as an old book.”

From The Selected Journals Of L.M. Montgomery, Vol. 3: 1921-1929

This is all spot on.

Not only are there not enough hours in the day to do all the reading some of us would like, there are not enough years in our lives. We are even more spoiled for choice now than L. M. Montgomery was then.