My Book Boyfriend: Gilbert Blythe

My Book Boyfriend is an awesome weekly meme hosted by Missie at The Unread Reader, all about fictional boys who make us swoon. This week I've chosen another one of my early loves: Gilbert Blythe from L. M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables. 

About Gilbert

• He's the bully-turned-rival-turned-friend-turned-love-turned-soul-mate of one of my favourite characters of all time, Anne Shirley.
• He's described as a "tall boy, with curly brown hair, roguish hazel eyes and a mouth twisted into a teasing smile."
• He's pretty much perfect: smart, confident, witty, friendly... not to mention patient and devoted - he never stops trying to earn Anne's trust, respect, forgiveness and (eventually) love, despite her being a mean grudge-holder.
• He's selfless, too, giving up his teaching position in Avonlea because he thinks Anne needs it more. Awww.
• He's played by Jonathan Crombie in the amazing 1985 TV adaptation. Because I grew up watching this and only read the books as a teenager, Gilbert has never looked like anybody else to me.

Swoon-worthy quotes

As Anne of Green Gables focuses on the early teen years of Anne and Gilbert, there isn't too much to REALLY swoon over (that comes in later books - but if I delved into them we'd be here all month). Still, there are quite a few lovely, iconic scenes:

"Gilbert Blythe was trying to make Anne Shirley look at him and failing utterly... Gilbert Blythe wasn't used to putting himself out to make a girl look at him and meeting with failure. She SHOULD look at him, that red-haired Shirley girl with the little pointed chin and big eyes that weren't like the eyes of any other girl in Avonlea school. Gilbert reached across the aisle and picked up the end of Anne's long red braid, held it out at arm's length, and said in a piercing whisper: 'Carrots! Carrots!'"

"Gilbert had also sprung from the boat and now laid a detaining hand or her arm. 'Anne,' he said hurriedly, 'look here. Can't we be good friends? I'm awfully sorry I made fun of your hair that time. I didn't mean to vex you and I only meant it for a joke. Besides, it's so long ago. I think your hair is awfully pretty now - honest I do. Let's be friends.'"

"But suddenly, as her dilated, frightened eyes gazed out over the audience, she saw Gilbert Blythe away at the back of the room, bending forward with a smile on his face - a smile which seemed to Anne at once triumphant and taunting. In reality it was nothing of the kind. Gilbert was merely smiling in appreciation of the whole affair in general, and of the effect it produced on Anne's slender white form and spiritual face against a background of palms in particular."