Plenty of Nothing

Anne of the Post Office

In 2008 the Japanese and Canadian post offices jointly issued this Anne of Green Gables commemorative set, on the hundredth anniversary of the publication of the first Anne novel. The two stamps at the top were designed in Canada, while the rest reference the 1979 anime Akage no An.

Canadian World, Hokkaido

Take a tour of this Anne of Green Gables theme park in Ashibetsu, Hokkaido.

Hanako Muraoka

NHK is currently airing a million-part morning drama about the life of Hanako Muraoka, the Japanese translator of Anne of Green Gables, entitled Hanako To An (Hanako and Anne). That's Hanako in the middle. Picture source. NHK site.

Evangeline Brandt "The Pact"

Overqualified, by Joey Comeau

All Maritime literature is about, at some level, alcohol.  When you read Joseph Howe, you have to bear in mind the punch bowl on the sideboard, or David Adams Richards, the stack of empties in the mud porch. Even Anne of Green Gables gets wasted on raspberry cordial. In Christy Ann Conlin's Heave, Serrie the recovering protagonist wonders exactly what it is Maritimers are supposed to do when they stop drinking.

Joey Comeau's Overqualified fits right in there.  The epistolary novel takes the form of a series of job applications, the applicant Joey Comeau's strategy being to lie in the resumé and tell the truth in the cover letters.  Though for "tell the truth" read "unveil manic fantasies of revenge".  Many of these letters have the belligerence you might meet in a tavern parking lot.  Biographical details sift out about a dead grandfather, a broken relationship, and a brother killed by a drunk driver.  By the end the narrator is no closer to a job, but you are closer to understanding why.

But aggressive truths are still truths.  Here he is applying to Absolut Vodka:

You don't know what I mean, do you, Absolut?  Your commercials are all pretty pictures and clever design. They're very attractive.  I'm applying for a job, because I don't think you understand what it means to be cool or strong or invincible.  You of all people should know.  That is what alcohol does.  It makes you strong.  You can fight anyone.  You can seduce any woman.  You can drive faster than death.