“Were it only that some enchantment would step in for us all, to change what we have into what we wish for. To bridge the awkward gap between all of our many befores and afters. Because, for every after found, a before must be lost.” -- Lotty
Elizabeth von Arnim's The Enchanted April is The Secret Garden for adults, or an early Midsummer Night's Dream. Shed cynicism and enter through the iron gate to fall under the spell of the magical glories of an Italian Spring. Between these e-pages is where wishes come true for Lotty Wilkins, Rose Arbuthnot, Mrs Fischer, and Lady Caroline Dexter during one special month between the World Wars.
Each of these four women goes to Italy for a different reason. Rose Artbuthnot feels estranged from her husband Frederick, whose life choices, she feels, abrade her deepest beliefs; Lotty Wilkins is discomfited from having been too good for too long, and despairs that she has been a rug under the feet of her husband far too long; Lady Caroline Dexter is filled with ennui, and exhausted from being stared at and "grabbed" by every man in her circle because of her extraordinary beauty; and the elderly Mrs. Fischer just wants to bask in the sunshine, recalling her halcyon days spent lunching in her father's house with such eminent Victorians as – Tennyson, Carlyle, Browning, and Ruskin.
At least, that's what they think they want. How often does the sublime tamper with the everyday? When does the romantic idyll exceed one’s wish for refuge and shelter? For the reader, count on the fingers of one hand when a book of escapist fiction is a book you never want to escape from. Like the four heroines in the novel I rambled in my imagination among the rooms and gardens of the medieval castle drunk on the imagery, seduced by the beauty, and staggered by the unexpected satisfaction I enjoyed from what I thought would be little else than a diverting story.
The reader can’t escape the resonances of irony, knowing that the book is written and set in the glimmering years sandwiched between two ravaging world wars. For one enchanted April peace, tranquility, and bliss prevail, serving to underscore the past and coming horrors. We are, like the women in the story, enraptured by the profound fragility and transience of life, but nourished and renewed by the vitality of it in full bloom.
Flowers, verdant nooks, solicitous forests, tumbling and growing color dazzle the mind’s eye as we read. Even the nights sparkle. Echoes of laughter, ghosts of hope and dreams crowd the pages. The castle represents more than a vacation spot one fantasizes about; it becomes a powerful good sorceress, granting the heart's true desires and working wonders of spiritual healing. The castle changes you in spite of yourself. And for the better. It’s as if the flower scented air inhaled by the castle’s transient inhabitants were enough to transform anyone who breathes it into a better self. Happiness for all is there for the inhaling.
Arnim uninvasively explores the simple idea that love and beauty are transfiguring upon the unconscious mind and even upon the resistant personality. She gives us a novel about the differences of one woman’s unhappiness from another's; of how women’s unhappiness is different from men’s; about the rebellion of unhappy women against men without “the hint of polemic”; of how the need for freedom is entwined with the longing for love; and how ultimately generosity in all things may be the key to unlocking humanity and personal peace.
Abundance in freedom and flowers endows every inhabitant of this Italian castle with blessings, and the reader closes the book both refreshed and desirous that there really may be such a villa, such a garden, and such an April awaiting you, if you’ll only respond to an enticing ad. Yes, you can finish this book and set it aside, but you’ll never loose the spell of enchantment that entwines your imagination in its net. It's useless to struggle, one must simply see.
When, on the first of May, everybody went away, even after they had got to the bottom of the hill and passed through the iron gates out into the village they could still smell the acacias.
Please share your favorite scene, character, descriptive passage, or let us know why you especially liked or didn't like this novel. I look forward to reading what you have to say about The Enchanted April in the comments below.
We will meet in two weeks (THU, Nov. 3rd at 2 PM ET) to begin talking about our next selection. Please vote for your choice below, and I'll announce the decision in a special post. Thanks!
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The Shakespeare Manuscript by Stewart Buettner. FREE Kindle