The Enchanted April in Retro Reads

Apr 25, 2020 Carol She's So Novel꧁꧂ rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: classics

4.5 ★

The Enchanted April is an enchanting book!

Within the first couple of paragraphs I knew it was the book for me! I am still in Lockdown and I needed something that would help me escape the world's frightening realities. & mostly set in one of my favourite countries - what could be better?

Answer - not much!

A chance spotting of an advertisement leads to two virtual strangers, Lottie & Rose, deciding to rent an Italian castle together & have a month's escape from their dull, unhappy lives. The ...more

66 likes · Like · see review

Nov 12, 2018 Mela rated it it was amazing

Shelves: historical-period-1914-1945, historical-fiction, region-italy, group-virago-modern-classic, womens-lot, region-british, public-domain, historical-romance, psychological-and-philosophical, authors-to-explore

A brilliant novel where the core of its brilliancy are complex (not black and white), ordinary and marvelously chosen characters.

Caroline, Lotty, Rose, Mrs. Fisher - four different women. Each one tried to run away from something she wanted and needed the most.

As Emilia Barnes wrote it was calm, gentle, prettily written, thoughtful, wistful, with a comprehensive happy ending novel. I have also doubts, like Emilia Barnes. I worry a bit about Lotty and Caroline but I hope they managed after al ...more

15 likes · Like · see review

Feb 04, 2020 Bobbie rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

I just loved this charming, funny and enchanting retro book about four women, basically strangers, who rent a small medieval castle on the coast of Italy for the month of April. Each from different circumstances have different agendas and very different attitudes about this "holiday". It is definitely going on my favorites list. ...more

15 likes · Like · see review

Mar 31, 2017 Emmy B. rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: star-rating-4, period-1920s-and-30s, genre-classic, genre-romance, rated-sweet

This is the story of four women and how they escape the various things that plague their daily lives, and how they come to change and repair their lives, during a stay at an Italian castle. It's very much the sort of book you have to be in a specific mood for. If you are in need for something calm, gentle, prettily written, thoughtful, wistful, with a comprehensive happy ending, this might be the very thing for you. I enjoyed it more by the end than I did at the beginning, because it wasn't what This is the story of four women and how they escape the various things that plague their daily lives, and how they come to change and repair their lives, during a stay at an Italian castle. It's very much the sort of book you have to be in a specific mood for. If you are in need for something calm, gentle, prettily written, thoughtful, wistful, with a comprehensive happy ending, this might be the very thing for you. I enjoyed it more by the end than I did at the beginning, because it wasn't what I expected and it's a slow book, and I grew impatient. Some characters annoyed me ((view spoiler)) but by the end the story had won me over and I got into the spirit of it.

Spoilers ahead

I don't know if this is because of the time it was written, but in many ways I found myself unable to sympathise with the women in this book. The change that happens to them in the castle is also completely random, and spurred by nothing. Rose Arbuthnot is a religious woman who devotes all her life to the needs of the poor, whose husband is bored of her. Then she goes to the castle, misses her husband and wishes he would love her, and when he arrives she just throws herself at him and that solves everything apparently. Mrs Wilkins is spiritless and joyless at home, but at the castle, inspired by its beauty, she is full of spirit and joy and regains her loveliness, and when her husband arrives, he sees her beauty and because she is charming to him, so he is charming to her, problem solved. Caroline Dester hates being stared at and admired and cossetted by the world, and then in the castle she meets a man who doesn't know anything about her, literally nothing, just goes speechless at the sight of her tremendous beauty, and she decides, screw it, she'll just have him. And Mrs Fischer stops being a preposterous old hag, and decides to be nice for a change, because men have arrived.

Granted, when you read the book (or listen to it, as I have done), the problems and their solution doesn't seem as abrupt as that, but when you think of it, they are. The problems that plagued the Arbuthnot marriage aren't solved at all. She is still devout, and he still writes books about adultery. We are never told which one of them is giving up their preoccupation to make this marriage work, we're just told that their physical passion has reunited them, but how can you hope for a truly happy ending knowing that this fundamental disagreement in values still exists? And what happens when the Wilkinses return to England? Won't she again be out of her depth and lose the confidence and beauty that she'd regained in Italy? We don't know how this will play out but since Mr Wilkins hasn't changed, and since his good opinion of his wife was borne merely out of her ability, entirely accidental, to introduce him to a member of the prominent Dester family, how much time will pass when they are back when he remembers that she can't further his career at all anymore? And then what? The change in Lady Caroline is certainly the most abrupt. She wants nothing but to be left alone at last, but then, inspired by how lovey-dovey everybody else is, she gives in to the owner of the castle, even though they don't know each other at all, and there is no difference between his blind adoration of her beauty and the blind adoration she got back in England. I buy Mrs Fischer's change most of all, because she felt most like a real person, even if she starts out caricature-ish to begin with.

All in all, it is a little hard to trust in the happy ending, and not to believe that all this good-will and change for the better happened simply because they were all on vacation, and that will all wear off eventually, and go back to normal.

This isn't to say that I didn't enjoy the book, just that it's flawed and made me dubious about the fates of the characters. Still, I'd recommend this as a calm, escapist read, with some amusing moments. ...more

7 likes · Like · see review

Jul 28, 2017 Linda Dobinson rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favourite-classics, modern-classics

I only discovered Elizabeth von Arnim recently. From the Introduction to this book I learned that she was born Mary Annette Beauchamp, was cousin to the writer Katherine Mansfield and married a Prussian Count. In her day she was a very popular and successful writer with several of her novels being best sellers. One novel 'Vera' was compared to the writing of Jane Austen. Therefore I find it surprising that she is so little known today.
This book is a joy. The writing is witty, playful and insight I only discovered Elizabeth von Arnim recently. From the Introduction to this book I learned that she was born Mary Annette Beauchamp, was cousin to the writer Katherine Mansfield and married a Prussian Count. In her day she was a very popular and successful writer with several of her novels being best sellers. One novel 'Vera' was compared to the writing of Jane Austen. Therefore I find it surprising that she is so little known today.
This book is a joy. The writing is witty, playful and insightful. The story is about four unhappy women who meet when they agree to share the expenses of renting a small mediaeval castle in Portofino, Italy. The novel is set where it was written in 1921 but the real life name Castello Brown is change to the more romantic San Salvatore.
The women are - middle-class Lotty Wilkins, 30, and Rose Arbuthnot, 32 who both live in Hampstead. Aristocratic Lady Caroline Dester, 28, and well off Mrs Fisher, 65. The personalities of these ladies are as different as their backgrounds - some more endearing than others!
Lotty Wilkins (my favourite) - Lotty is 'negligible' (p2). Negligible to her solicitor husband Mellersh who is fastidious, somewhat domineering and of whom Lotty is a little afraid. Negligible to her acquaintances who seldom speak of her and do not notice her at parties. Negligible to her sister-in-law who thinks she should be left at home. When Rose first meets Lotty her impression is of a 'shabby, lank, loosely-put-together person' (p6).
Rose Arbuthnot is religious and efficient. The daughter of a clergyman she is active in her local church where she 'analysed, classified, divided and registered the poor' (p3). But her religious beliefs have caused an estrangement between her and her husband Frederick. Since marrying, Frederick has embarked on a writing career. He writes the memoirs of the mistresses of kings. This is 'one of the standing distresses of her life' (p22). Because these women were sinful Rose believes the money Frederick earns is tainted.
Lady Caroline Dester wants to be alone. She has become 'embittered' (p112). Lady Caroline is very beautiful and people always want to stare at her and touch her - 'every man, educated and uneducated, old, young... rich and penniless... it made no difference at all what they were, or how long and securely married' (p111). Even Costanza, the cook at San Salvatore can't resist patting her on the shoulder. So San Salvatore is her escape from doting family, doting friends and even her clothes and the tyranny they impose - '(they) gave one no peace till they had been everywhere and seen by everyone' (p64).
Mrs Fisher (she is given no Christian name) is stuck in the past. She also wants to be alone, but where Lady Caroline wants to forget the present, Mrs Fisher was to 'sit quiet in the sun and remember' the past (p33).
The daughter of an eminent critic she knew many eminent Victorians - Thomas Carlyle, Thackeray, Tennyson, Mathew Arnold, Robert Browning, Meredith. Her house in Prince of Wales Terrace (Lady Caroline does not know where this is and neither do I) is filled with their signed photographs. She thinks and speaks of the present and young people in negative terms - 'It was astonishing, it was simply amazing, the superiority of the past to the present' (p96), 'the tinkling present' (96)', 'trivial and barren young people' (p96), 'this generation of puniness' (p100), 'Thackeray would have made mincemeat of this generation' (p108), '...the pose of the modern young woman. It seems to me pitiful, positively pitiful, in its silliness' (p115).
She is also imperious and miserly, she could live in a better area of London and keep a Rolls-Royce but refuses to spend the money.
Obviously Italy - 'But it was Italy. Nothing it did could be bad. The very rain was different - straight rain, falling properly on one's umbrella; not that violent blowing English stuff that got in everywhere '(p45) - works its magic on these ladies.
That this book is a joy cannot be overstated and I recommend it. ...more

6 likes · Like · see review

Apr 19, 2018 Elizabeth A.G. rated it really liked it · review of another edition

The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim is a charming and humorous story of 4 English women previously unknown to each other and of varying social class and age who are enticed to escape their rather drab, unhappy lives in their urban city for what they dream will be an adventure with new experiences, freedom and happiness. They rent an old castle in Italy which is situated high upon a mountain and which has lush gardens and overlooks the sea. Von
Arnim's descriptions of the landscapes are en ...more

3 likes · Like · see review

Aug 12, 2023 Tuesdayschild rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: classic, 2023-read, gentle-read, 2023-audio, audio

3.5 stars
I'm not having a very good run with my recent book selections, maybe some books are just better when read in summertime (it's winter here). 😉

I didn’t know if I was going to enjoy this audiobook or not, it seemed like the storyline was going to be about discontented wives heading for divorce from their, admittedly, troublesome husbands; one controlling and cold towards Lottie, the other is having affairs and is disinterested in Rose.
The women are looking for a way to take a break from t ...more

1 like · Like · see review

Jun 25, 2017 Eileen rated it it was ok

2.25 stars (ok)

Based on the plot summary, I was looking forward to a girls' trip at an Italian medieval chateau surrounded by a beautiful landscape with women who would be making an effort to maintain a positive attitude in both enjoying their surroundings and supporting each other in their life struggles. Instead, I felt as though I arrived to find not much of the surroundings, a subdued mood with uninspiring activity, numerous petty issues, and the early arrival of significant others. The vibe ...more

1 like · Like · see review

Mar 18, 2017 LeahBethany rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites

What a little gem of a book! I loved being able to escape along with these ladies to paradise. For me, it put things into perspective, especially this line:
"How funny of her. So funny to worry about such little things, making them important."
Another line that resonated with me - "Oh, but nobody helps anybody in heaven. That's finished with. You don't try to be, or do. You simply are."
All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. ...more

1 like · Like · see review

Apr 18, 2017 Caroline rated it really liked it

Lovely story idea and really well written. Took me a few pages to get into but once I did, enjoyed it.

Like · see review

Apr 23, 2022 Brittan Weaver rated it it was amazing

I just love this beautiful book. I first watched the movie, but prefer the book even though the movie didn’t stray from the books plot at all. I just appreciated reading the deeper complexities of each character and watching them unfold and be even more multi faceted. Now I’m off to rewatch the movie. A fun way to be transported this April. Hope I can get to Italy again soon :)

Like · see review