May 2023: Elizabeth von Arnim

Elizabeth von Arnim (31 August 1866 – 9 February 1941) is our May author.

Born in Australia, married first to a German aristocrat then to a British politician, she is considered an English author.

Her most popular work is The Enchanted April.

What are you reading by her in May?

Besides The Enchanted April, I've enjoyed just about everything I've read by von Arnim. Father and Elizabeth and her German Garden are particularly good. The only book of hers that I didn't enjoy is The Caravaners.

Right now on my shelf I have Vera and Expiation, but I'd like to read one of the earlier ones, maybe The Adventures of Elizabeth in Rugen or Christopher and Columbus, if I can find copies.

I love her work Elizabeth and her garden is fabulous; story of a young woman married to a strict pastor and how she manages to make a great life for herself tho I think my fav is Christopher and Columbus, about two orphaned german sisters who are sent away to America. Charming, funny and just a marvelous read

an interesting aside, (After von amin's first husband's death, she had a three-year affair with the writer H. G. Wells, then later married Frank Russell, elder brother of the Nobel prize-winner and philosopher Bertrand Russell.)

I have not read The Adventures of Elizabeth in Rugen , might just read that

I've got Vera on deck.

I absolutely loved The Enchanted April. I think the next von Arnim for me will be Mr. Skeffington.

>5 Tara1Reads: Mr Skeffington (1940) is an interesting book, especially in light of the beginning of WWII. I'll be interested to see what you think of it.

I was much younger when I read that and didn't like it all that much.Wonder if I should try again now,with older, I mean, wiser eyes

>7 cindydavid4: I thought it was a cautionary tale about how Jews (Mr Skeffington is Jewish, if I remember) were being treated at that time, and that the world should take notice. Here's what I wrote as my reaction to the book at that time:

After I closed the book, I started wondering if Von Arnim had a larger perspective in mind. Was Fanny representative of Britain, or perhaps many European monarchies of the time: financed by wealthy Jewish bankers. Fanny's divorce comes just at the beginning of WWI--a change in the axis of power in Europe for Britain and Germany. Fanny has a devastating illness--perhaps the Great Depression/Great Slump, which changed the country's position, despite youth, religion, title, and some of the other aspects represented by her ex-lovers. And finally the Jews of Europe-- who made Britain's and Europe's wealth possible (as Job made Fanny's), but are now left penniless and ghosts of their former selves. I think Von Arnim in 1940 might have been trying to warn Britain and western Europe that in order to save themselves, they will need to save the Jews.

I may have put all kinds of interpretation into it that wasn't there, but it helped me sort out the book's purpose.

Interesting; will read it for sure

>7 cindydavid4: scratch that; its a snooze fest DNF

Ok a month ahead of time but....Heres the review for an introduction to Sally

why did you choose this book
I love Von Arnim and the Author Group is reading her for May. I thought Id read all of her books but not this one, decided to try it

synopsis w/o SpoilersBeautiful young Sally Pinner is the best that the common stock of England has to offer, but her good looks drive all the men wild and her father to distraction. When a young Oxford student becomes smitten and asks for Sally's hand in marriage, it seems like the answer to everything. But that doesn't count on his mother, her father, his mother's fiancee, an heiress, a 90-year-old duke ... and anyone else who comes under Sally's captivating spell. But far from being a willing seductress, guileless Sally is utterly unconscious of the effect she has, and can only say in her defense "I can't 'elp it!" This book is a merry escapade and a clever vehicle for Elizabeth von Arnim's wit and warmth.

What kept you reading? Von Arnim's comic sense, human insight and heady skill with satire did it all really. A great come down on marriage,relationships, 'helping'and figuring it all out

The story is like Pygmalion written 20 years later, but it has a different twist; what if Eliza likes her accent just fine, what if she doesn't want to be taught, she just wants her husband and a baby or two

A thought kept running through my mind while reading Could being to beautiful have a downside?

quote: Now wasnt that kind? Surely it was very kind thought Mrs Luke. And was'nt it loving? Surely it was all together loving. Yet Salvatia said never a word.

quote: Sally was ready and down before he had the time ,hardly, to be sure she was going to keep him waiting. So that he resented this too because he wasn't able to be angry with her pver something definite and legitmate. He wanted a legitamate excuse for being angry with her for it was really all her fault that they had been insulted and turned out. Of course it was

anything wrong? you did need a map to keep the characters straight but it gets easier as it goes on.

recommended to anyone who loves a good romp, a fun read and a satisfying end

5*

I have The Pastor's Wife on my shelf, so that is what I will read. I have previously read The Enchanted April and enjoyed it, even though it was slow moving.

I read Pastors Wife and Eliz and her German Garden about the same time so get them confused, both fun reads

>8 kac522: and >10 cindydavid4:

I hope it's not a snoozefest! It's on its way to me from the library. The description here on LT and on the Virago website do not mention any of the characters being Jewish. My library's website does not even have a description of the book. So I might or might not be in for another Jewish read this month! We'll see. Some of my library holds have been taking awhile to come in.

>14 Tara1Reads: I'll have to take a look at the book again. It was published in 1940. I'm not sure that it's ever clearly stated that Job Skeffington is Jewish; he is a wealthy banker who has left his ex-wife Fanny a substantial legacy. The book is told from Fanny's point of view, who re-visits her relationships with her ex-lovers, and is finally re-united with Mr Skeffington. I found Fanny very annoying at first, but by the end she somewhat redeems herself.

I enjoyed the book, and after finishing it, besides the obvious look at women & aging, I felt that it was a larger perspective on the attitude of Western Europeans (especially the aging British empire) toward European Jews. European countries and monarchies over the 19th & early 20th centuries had been saved by the wealth of Jewish bankers, but the Jews as a people were abandoned during the Holocaust. I felt this was von Arnim's warning call to pay attention to what was happening (remember this is only 1940). But I may have been reading a lot into it.

>14 Tara1Reads: You may very well like it (note, I didn't get far into it) the book I reviewed above wasnt a snooze fest at all and several of the books Ive read have been delilghtful. Now reading the cavanners and while funny its becoming a one note song. But with her, you usually can expect a good read!

Wasting no time with this month's author, I finished The Adventures of Elizabeth in Rügen (1904).

This is a fictional story about Elizabeth (from Elizabeth and her German Garden) as she goes on a traveling holiday around the German island of Rügen, located in the Baltic Sea. Von Arnim visited this island in 1901, and the original book has a map of her routes. Carrying her travel guide, main character Elizabeth describes many real places, particularly the landmarks, inns, beaches and majestic views of the sea.

Between these descriptions of the real Rügen, von Arnim cleverly weaves in a fictional story of our heroine Elizabeth and her maid Gertrud traveling the island and accidentally meeting Elizabeth's cousin Charlotte and Charlotte's estranged husband. Some of the dialogue is laugh-out loud funny. A sort of "chase" ensues, as Charlotte is determined to give her husband the slip, and these escapades take us through the highlighted places of Rügen. Lots of fun and a perfect kick-start to my May reading.

>17 kac522: in in the middle of reading jithat one and yeah laugh out loud funny is right. Made me even feel sorry for her husband, a little

In

I just read The Enchanted April, my first read by this author. My review was:

This is a low key story set shortly after the First World War of four ladies who are strangers to each other on holiday for the month of April in a small castle in the Italian countryside. Mrs Wilkins and Mrs Arbuthnot both see a newspaper advert at the same time and decide to share the costs with two other ladies, the young Lady Caroline Dester and the elderly Mrs Fisher. Each of these four ladies is looking for peace and solitude but is unable to find in the beautiful Italian sunshine due to the presence of the others and their thoughts and feelings about their outside lives. Various men intrude themselves, or are invited, onto the scene. This is very much a novel on thoughts and feelings and an inner desire for peace and contentment and what the characters try to do to achieve that.

I have finished Vera, and it's very different from The Enchanted April. I found both Lucy and Wemyss pretty annoying at first, but once they were on their honeymoon and he showed his domineering attitude, things started to become creepy. And the ending is truly sinister.

I am currently on page 140 of Mr. Skeffington. I am not enjoying it that much but not completely hating it. I'm pretty sure I know where it's going but we'll see. I will be back to post my thoughts once I've finished the book.

I have finished Mr. Skeffington. It was okay. I enjoyed the humorous overtone. There were a lot of comedic scenes especially the scenes with Miles and Muriel Hyslup, the clergyman and his sister, and then the scene with the bald Edward pinning on Fanny's fake hair ringlets. But I didn't find it to be laugh aloud funny.

I struggled reading this book which is the complete opposite experience that I had with The Enchanted April. So I'm not sure if I was in the wrong mood, frame of mind, etc for this writing style or if it is an issue with the book. Mr. Skeffington does have an average lower rating than most of von Arnim's other works so maybe it is the book. Or a combination of both. But I found the book slow going for being so short. There were a lot of overly long sentences with numerous inserted clauses added between dashes and commas. I would get lost in the middle and forget the meaning of the main sentence. Re-reading those long sentences over again is what slowed me down. So maybe it was me and I didn't have the right amount of reading stamina etc to read this right now.

Fanny is not a sympathetic character with her wealth and vanity. I would like the spoilers in >8 kac522: and >15 kac522: to be true because that adds a layer of meaning the book is otherwise lacking. Without that added depth, the book is nothing but a trifle about a vain woman upset she is no longer as beautiful as she once was now that she's weeks away from turning 50. I was glad that von Arnim had Fanny grow some throughout the book so that she is somewhat changed for the better in the end.

>8 kac522: and >15 kac522: I think that's a really interesting idea. I didn't pick up on that at all while I was reading the book. I waited until I was finished with the book to read the messages here on the thread. I can see von Arnim writing as a warning for what was happening to the Jews during WWII. Other than saying Mr. Skeffington was blinded when he went to Vienna, the ending doesn't directly say what happened to him or why but it strongly implies he was tortured. Mr. Skeffington seemed to have some PTSD since he was flinching at every noise in the last scene in the book. I was glad he had the dog because not only did the dog protect him from falling out of the chair flat onto his face, but the dog could bark and warn him when people were coming near. But back to the point at hand. From my understanding, outsiders did not have knowledge of what was happening to the Jews until 1942. And since the book was published in 1940 that would be remarkably prescient of von Arnim! From looking at her Wikipedia page, von Arnim's first husband was a German count and they lived in Germany for awhile. By 1901 she was living in London but Germany seems to have made an impression on her though since she was still setting books there years after she moved out of the country. The Adventures of Elizabeth in Rugen was published in 1904. So it's definitely possible that from her time in Germany she had some insight into what was happening within the country even years later. She could've known what the general political attitude and atomsphere of the country was while she lived there and then kept up with the happenings of the country after she left. This actually relates to The Chosen by Chaim Potok. In both the book and the movie, the time period is the 1940s and the characters get to see the end of WWII and then they start finding out about what had been happening to the Jews all along during the war. It's crazy to me how slowly that information got around when it went on for years affecting millions of people across multiple countries. You have a thought-provoking idea for sure and makes me curious about von Arnim's other works that I haven't read!

>22 Tara1Reads: I have to admit it was an idea that didn't come to me until I closed the book. I didn't get on with Fanny at all, either. But she seemed to epitomize the British sensibility of the time for me.

Although the full horror of the camps was not known, certainly there were very obvious signs in Germany that Jews were slowly losing rights, were getting arrested and questioned, and that writers, scientists and intellectuals were fleeing. It would make sense that von Arnim, amidst her literary and intellectual circle and living in France until 1939, would have paid close attention to what was happening in Germany. In 1939 she fled Europe for the U.S. and died here in 1941.

>22 Tara1Reads: I think there were many people in power around the world knew what was happening, and chose to do nothing.

An interesting online exhibit from the U.S. National Holocaust Memorial Museum: What Americans Knew:

https://exhibitions.ushmm.org/americans-and-the-holocaust/topics/what-americans-...

Follow the arrows to see all the slides.

Von Arnim, of course, was living in France in the 1930s and had lived many years in Germany. The Anschluss in March 1938 and Kristallnacht in November 1938 were much closer to home for her.

>22 Tara1Reads: Just the fact that the book is titled Mr Skeffington, and not "Fanny" is something to think about, too.

I'm about half way through The Pastor's Wife and it's good.........but I'm BUSY!

I've just finished reading Christopher and Columbus and have added it to my Favorites List.

oh I loved that book!

I finally completed The Pastor's Wife I'm not sure what to think of this book. Was it meant to be serious or a play on the absurd? Ditto the main character, Ingeborg. I loved von Arnim's The Enchanted April, but this is not a "lovely" book. The book is about a woman's place in society and ends with a "triumphant tragedy." This was also a commentary on "church" people who have absolutely no idea what it means to follow Christ, IMHO. So sad at all the heartache these good church people caused. This took place mostly in Prussia, but the "church" was no different in any of the settings. Although a novel, it is said to be autobiographical. I found the book a bit tedious and too long! 3 stars 497 pages

I just re-read The Enchanted April in the last 6 months. I love it’s subtle phrasings and humor and I’ve collected some of her other works. My catalog says 7, but I can put hands on only 4 today.
I don’t think I ever finished Elizabeth and Her German Garden, but I should.
I can’t find Fräulein Schmidt and Mr. Anstruther, but my notes say it’s written in epistolary form.
I read Introduction to Sally a long time ago. It started hilariously, but my mouth eventually cramped with all the tongue in cheek.
I can’t locate Mr. Skeffington and have only vague memories of it.
I recently purchased The Princess Priscilla’s Fortnight and became absorbed with the story of the lady who first bought this copy.
https://www.librarything.com/topic/348006#8047746
I really must read The Jasmine Farm soon. It’s got a delightful first page.