Book Review: The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim

The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim

Four British women flee the rainy, dull end of winter at home for a month-long holiday in a small castle in Italy. Mrs. Wilkins saw an ad in the newspaper that caught her eye, promising flowers and sunshine. She noticed another patron at her club, someone she barely knows from church, staring at the same spot in the paper. Miraculously she talked to Mrs. Arbuthnot about the ad and they started making plans to go without their husbands. The cost was pricey, so they advertised for other women to come, winding up with older, widowed Mrs. Fisher and younger, single Lady Caroline Dester. Having little in common other than the desire to get away seems like a recipe for disaster but the Italian castle's atmosphere brings out the best in them as they get past their inner barriers and open themselves to beauty and love.

On the face of it, this looks like the sort of book I would never be interested in--the inner monologues of unhappy women brought together by circumstance. Instead of wallowing in their misery (I am looking at you, Joy Luck Club), they have a transformative experience that is unexpected and delightful (for the reader and the characters). They learn about their suffering, which comes from a combination of external factors and their own choices and dispositions. They realize they can change as they learn more about each other and open theirselves up to goodness. The tale is so sweet and uplifting, I am glad to have read it.

Recommended.

This book is discussed on A Good Story Is Hard to Find Podcast #350. Check it out!

Sample quote, Mrs. Wilkins describing her home life:

"The great thing is to have lots of love about. I don't see," she went on, "at least I don't see here, though I did at home, that it matters who loves as long as somebody does. I was a stingy beast at home, and used to measure and count. I had a queer obsession about justice. As though justice mattered. As though justice can really be distinguished from vengeance. It's only love that's any good. At home I wouldn't love Mellersh [her husband] unless he loved me back, exactly as much, absolute fairness. Did you ever. And as he didn't, neither did I, and the aridity of that house!" [p. 109]