oh my, Pollyanna

     I believe it's after you have said it one hundred times yourself and have heard it for the one thousandth* time, that you decide it's time to look up the reference. In this case it began with a quick glance at Wikipedia: Pollyanna is a best-selling 1913 novel by Eleanor H. Porter that is now considered a classic of children's literature, with the title character's name becoming a popular term for someone with the same optimistic outlook.
     Hmm. Wonder if it's good. What if we put all the people who are reading Pollyanna right now into the same room? It would probably be a pretty small (but cheery) room.
     I download Pollyanna for free, and then I spring for the Audible version for 99 cents. Why not.
     The excruciating timbre of the narrator's voice is why not, but despite that, I listen to all five and a half hours -- while I cook, while I do email, even practicing some ukulele. It's Pollyanna, for god's sake; it's not like it's hard to follow. When the book ends, at the point when most people would have had more than they wanted of Pollyanna and her story, I, naturally, order the DVD from Netflix. When a book is fresh in your mind sometimes you want to see how closely the movie follows it. You want to see how they mess with the plot, how true they stay to the original dialogue. 
     The next night, because that's how ridiculously quickly the Netflix elves deliver Pollyanna, I watch the Masterpiece Theatre version as I cook, do email, and practice ukulele. With quiet delight, I recognize some dialogue, but they insist upon making Nancy and Tim fall in love, fight, then (spoiler alert) reconcile, when Nancy and Tim didn't have to go through all that in the book. They were just friends. And in the book there was no scene of handsome Tim chopping wood, shirtless and in his suspenders. Perhaps I should have put a spoiler alert in front of that, too.
     Today the original version of Pollyanna should arrive, Elves willing, because the British rendition wasn't enough weirdness. No, now I am going to put myself through the 136-minute American movie, produced before they edited dialogue for our collective ADHD. With this molasses-on-film version, I might even be able to read along. 
     At least in the film adaptations they don't ejaculate, thank god. In 1913, people apparently ejaculated in the middle of conversations all the time. It wasn't even embarrassing to them back then; they all seemed quite comfortable with it. "'This is sheer nonsense!' ejaculated the man, decisively." Or "'Your--aunt!' he ejaculated." By the time someone had ejaculated for the tenth** time in the middle of the story I was otherwise enjoying, I couldn't hear "again that spasm crossed his face" or read that someone had stiffened, moaned, or gasped without feeling kind of mortified. 
     I have to hand it to Pollyanna, though. Even with all of that going on around her, she was a really, really good sport. 

*Here I have inserted the word I find the most difficult to pronounce without a running start, with apologies.
**At least it wasn't the thouthanth.