Margaret Atwood on Anne of Green Gables

Anne's popularity in Japan (and she's been extremely popular) used to be a mystery to me. Then I went to Japan, and was able to ask a Japanese audience to explain Anne's fascination for them. There were 32 answers, all duly recorded by a nice lady who wrote them down, typed them out, and sent them to me. Here are some of them.

Anne of Green Gables was first translated by a Japanese author who was very well known and well loved already. Anne was an orphan and there were a lot of orphans in Japan right after the second world war, so many readers identified with her. Anne has a passion for apple blossoms and cherry blossoms - the latter are especially dear to the hearts of the Japanese - so her brand of aesthetic sensibility was very sympathetic. Anne had red hair, which - before the past 20 years or so, when even middle-aged Japanese ladies may sometimes be spotted with blue, green, red or orange hair - was thought to be extremely exotic. Anne is not only an orphan, but a poor girl orphan - the lowest of the low on the traditional Japanese social ladder. Yet she wins over that most formidable of Japanese dragons, the bossy older matron. (In fact, she wins over two of them, since she adds overbearing, opinionated, but good-at-heart Mrs Rachel Lynde to her collection basket.)

Anne has no fear of hard work: she's forgetful because dreamy, but she's not a shirker. She displays a proper attitude when she puts others before herself, and even more praiseworthy is that these others are elders. She has an appreciation of poetry, and although she shows signs of materialism - her longing for puffed sleeves is legendary - in her deepest essence, she's spiritual. And, high on the list, Anne breaks the Japanese taboo that forbade outbursts of temper on the part of young people. She acts out spectacularly, stamping her feet and hurling insults back at those who insult her, and even resorting to physical violence, most notably in the slate-over-the-head episode. This must have afforded much vicarious pleasure to young Japanese readers; indeed, to all Anne's young readers of yesteryear, so much more repressed than the children of today.