The Enchanted April is one of the most unenchanted books that I've ever read. That said, maybe reading it in April would have been a better choice, because this book was lacking magic and it was lacking substance. It very nearly sent me into a slump.

I had been looking forward to reading this and I had done a bit of research prior to me picking it up. It honestly sounded like something I would usually enjoy, plus, I do like the title. (But that's no reason to simply go out and buy a book.)

I have came away with the impression that Elizabeth Von Arnim believes that a woman is not entirely complete without the presence of a man in her life. This is of course despite the fact the man might just be a pompous, self-righteous fool, but never fear girls...we need those kind of men backing us up. I could also sense that the belief that a trip on holiday, in particular abroad is the key to happiness and will potentially solve all of ones problems. I agree it's pleasant to have a break from the daily grind, but a trip away doesn't solve one's issues; they are always waiting for you once you return.

The novel started promisingly, I admired how Von Arnim used this story to remind women that they are independent beings with a voice and their own minds; a husband does not own you. This was a revolutionary subject matter, especially in 1922! However, the tone changed in the latter half of the book when Mr Wilkins entered the story, and I felt like the author contradicted herself with the general feeling that a man is necessary in order for a woman to be happy. The characters changed their tones and ways more times than the weather, and it felt false, and totally unbelievable from where I was sitting.

I enjoyed the vibrancy of descriptions of the scenery and nature, but the story itself, was disappointingly predictable and yet another one for the charity bag.

Surely an appealing concept: four very different women, strangers at the outset, on a month-long hiatus in a sea-side castle in Italy. This venture is bound to go either extremely well or very badly. Elizabeth Von Arnim has presented us with a craftily written comedy of manners, helped along by deep insight into the personality, habits, and state of mind of each of the women. We follow their transformation, under the influence of San Salvatore—its sunny gardens, floral aromas, and stunning Mediterranean vistas—and how each character in turn is changed by the presence and personalities of the others.
I’m quite sure that some readers will find all of this too hopelessly romantic; and much of it certainly requires suspension of disbelief. But we must have understood to begin with what we were letting ourselves in for; and Von Arnim manages to overcome much of those objections by virtue of the intriguing complexity of her characters, the shameless charm of her setting and the appeal of her fluid prose. Von Arnim is very kind to her characters; I found it difficult to complain about what she does with them. This is a charming example of what can be done with admittedly lightweight material in the hands of a skilled writer.
I will now watch the film that was made out of this novel. I will be most interested to see how successfully the personalities and inner experiences of the characters can be brought out on the screen.

Loved this book, first published in 1922 and re-published in 2007 by the New York Review Of Books.

San Salvatore in Italy, as well as all the characters in the book, stole my heart.

Will write a review later.

I really enjoyed this charming book. Set in Italy in spring, it is full of beautiful descriptions and lush atmosphere. The four ladies are interesting and feel like friends. My only complaint is the ending. After so much emphasis being put on the women escaping their day-to-day lives and being independent, it kinda bugged me that it then turned into a ‘men to the rescue’ ending. Still a wonderful read tho.

Charming with gentle humor.

“And there they were, arrived, and it was San Salvatore, and their suitcases were waiting for them; and they had not been murdered.”

I was quite “enchanted” with my first experience reading Elizabeth von Arnim. Her subtle wit was sprinkled throughout this excellent 1922 novel published shortly after von Arnim herself stayed for a month at Castello Brown in Portofino. Four ladies from London, strangers with different backgrounds, decide to pool their resources and rent a medieval castle named San Salvatore on the coast of Italy for a month in April. And given this era of almost nonexistent female empowerment, I admired their pluck. Each woman has her own reasons for desiring a long getaway: depressing London weather, insensitive husbands, time to remember, time to think. As you can imagine, problems are bound to arise when four females of dissimilar personalities, ages and expectations are thrust together under one roof - everything from who gets which rooms to who plans the meals to who is allowed to invite “extra” guests. In the end, these women become friends and find what they each are seeking, but not exactly in the ways they’d planned.

If you’re not a fan of multiple POVs and a healthy dose of stream-of-consciousness, you probably won’t enjoy this book. But if you like meticulous character development, flora and wry humor, you probably will. Elizabeth von Arnim’s funny bone and her perfect grasp of the female psyche of this time period earned ‘The Enchanted April’ a solid four stars. Now to try another book by this interesting British author.

A quaint, feel-good classic you may not have heard about. Mrs Wilkins and Mrs Arbuthnot meet at their London women’s club and daydream about renting the Italian villa they’ve read about in an advertisement. But what if they could make it a reality? They’re only in their early thirties, but by the standards of the time (1922) they’re already fading into midlife obscurity.

“Nobody took any notice of Mrs Wilkins. She was the kind of person who is not noticed at parties. Her clothes, infested by thrift, made her practically invisible; her face was non-arresting; her conversation was reluctant; she was shy.”

Here’s their chance to get away from their oppressive or neglectful husbands and have an adventure. They rope in two other women, old and crotchety Mrs Fisher, who’s always going on about the famous authors she used to mix with, and Lady Caroline (“Scrap”), who just wants to be left alone but can’t seem to convince anyone of her misanthropy because she’s so darn pretty.

I loved the novel’s setup and the early chapters when it’s just Lotty (Wilkins) and Rose (Arbuthnot) delighting in the Italian landscape and pace of life. But before long it all grows sluggish and repetitive, and – how annoying – it takes the arrival of three men, including the husbands, to shake things up. I did really like Lotty and her coming out of her shell, though.

Another favorite passage:

“Colour, fragrance, light, sea; instead of Shaftesbury Avenue, and the wet omnibuses, and the fish department at Shoolbred’s, and the Tube to Hampstead, and dinner, and tomorrow the same and the day after the same and always the same…”

I loved this book, which is obvious from my rarely given ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ rating. I adored the movie (one of the few I've seen more than once) and I also enjoyed the play on Broadway! Enchanted April is filled with the charm and beauty of Italy, beautiful language, humor and perhaps best of all the essence of female friendship. The author, Elizabeth von Arnim (1866–1941) writes with a feminist's sensibility, wit and whimsy. She is a wonderful novelist (published a total of 21 novels and was famous in her day) who is far too under-read today. As a matter of fact, I just now learned her most famous book, in her own time, was Elizabeth and Her German Garden, so I just purchased it on my Kindle for 99 cents. I have not as yet read it, but hopefully, I will.

For Downton Abbey fans, Elizabeth and Her German Garden was the book that in Downton Abbey, the character, Molesley who is Mathew Crawley's valet, gave to saintly servant Anna (who is at that point mourning an absent Bates) a book,
in the hopes that an intimate tête-à-tête about the book will be conducive to romance. Anna hurriedly suggests a book group. Perhaps more than you needed to know in a review of The Enchanted April, but I thought it was a fascinating aside.

I will end this review with a line that I love to quote from The Enchanted April: - "TO THOSE WHO APPRECIATE WISTERIA AND SUNSHINE SMALL MEDIEVAL ITALIAN CASTLE on the shores of the Mediterranean to be Let furnished for the month of April. "

'Have you noticed how difficult it is to be improper without men?'

Light and glamorous, The Enchanted April is an immersive testimony to the transformative power of peace and natural beauty. And a holiday, of course.

Saturated with wit and warm humour, von Arnim’s novel offers a reader perfect escapism, just as she offers to her richly drawn characters. None is devoid of charm, but perhaps the most wonderful are the dishevelled but perceptive Lotty, and the bored, beautiful Caroline. In fact, this is very much a character study, combining profound layers of observation with nostalgia, regret and, at last, hope. Each of the four central women are quietly dissatisfied with their lives, each miserable and lonely in her own way. One by one, they succumb to the stunning ambience of the Italian Riviera and find their spirits stir and revive.

The novel is also an interesting, and somewhat contradicting, commentary on marital obligations. Von Arnim herself was married no fewer than five times which is perhaps enlightening to learn before embarking upon The Enchanted April. The women who are most desperate to get away from soggy London, and evidently the most miserable, are coincidentally the only two to have husbands. Both Lotty and Rose are estranged from and subservient to their respective spouse. Von Arnim even discloses that Lotty is afraid of Mr Wilkins. The reader is overjoyed when Lotty and Rose secure their trip to paradise (sans husbands) but then quite possibly confused and even angry at their following actions. Invite your husband then, why don’t you?! But The Enchanted April is a celebration of charity and goodness, if in moderation. Ultimately, this apparent contradiction within the novel agitates me slightly: the outset is promising, being almost vaguely feminist. It does, however, never quite fulfill what it may well have offered in this facet - perhaps that’s why Rebecca West was a tad condescending of Von Arnim? (Or was it their rivalry over H. G. Wells?!)

A little more saccharine than what I would usually reach for, but a spoonful of sugar does indeed make the medicine go down. Sensual and engrossing. Now it’s back to grey and humid London for me.

3.5 ⭐️

Една от онези книги, които като видиш и искаш да четеш веднага, за да се пренесеш в замъка с глициниите край Портофино

Would be an excellent book club choice!

The Enchanted April is a gentle and amusing story about four women, strangers really, seeking a change of scenery, a respite from their daily lives, who share the financial burden of renting an Italian villa for a month-long holiday.

As the ladies stake their claim on various rooms and gardens of the villa, their personal flaws emerge. Their inter bickering was unexpected and it was the most pleasurable part of the story for me.

Mrs. Lottie Wilkins, in her 20s, is the wife of an overly ambitious lawyer whom she finds tiresome. It is she that initiates the idea of this holiday. Lottie’s spontaneous and a bit of an airhead, but she tries hard.

Next came Mrs. Rose Arbuthnot, traditional and pious, the forgotten wife of her scandalous writer husband. She just wants to be valued by someone.

By way of advertisement, they find Mrs. Fisher, an elderly entitled woman who is not very amicable. She has a controlling personality and likes to order people about. I thought of her as the grouchy grandma type.

And finally, there is Lady Caroline Denston, a 28-year-old socialite who is shallow and snobbish and kind of spoiled, though admired for her great beauty. She just wants to have time to figure out what she should do with her empty life.

Upon settling in and spending time in and around the villa, soaking in its charm, they each feel a sense of renewal and, thus, gain a new outlook on their lot in life.

“All the radiance of April in Italy lay gathered together at her feet. The sun poured in on her. The sea lay asleep in it, hardly stirring. Across the bay the lovely mountains, exquisitely different in color, were asleep too in the light; and underneath her window, at the bottom of the flower-starred grass slope from which the wall of castle rose up, was a great cypress, cutting through the delicate blues and violets and rose-colors of the mountains and the sea like a great black sword.
She stared. Such beauty; and she there to see it. Such beauty; and she alive to feel it. Her face was bathed in light.”

The twist infidelity occurs off pagethat came near the end was shocking and I wished it had had more to it. Perhaps a confrontation of some sort, instead it was politely hidden away with an excess of manners. Three of the women’s stories were settle satisfactorily, but the fourth I wished for more or knowledge that she, too, ended up happier, changed.

Overall, this was an enjoyable, light read with minimal angst. The pacing fit the laid-back surrounding of a holiday. This would be a great choice for book club discussions.

*Note: The audio book with Nadia May narrating was excellent, recommended.

2022: After reading the print and copying down quotes, I upgraded this to 5 stars. The middle of the book had me in spasms of laughter. I'm in bed, trying not to wake my husband, but unable to keep from gasping and snorting while I read. A refined, affronted elderly dame, Mrs. Fisher spews forth fabulous lines, á la Downton Abbey's Dowager Countess.

Towards the end, Frederick could have been unmasked, as it were, by Lady Caroline, aka Scrap. But she shows mercy and discretion. He braces himself for a disaster. von Arnim writes: But he was reckoning without Scrap. Oh, this transported me to the end of Lés Misérables where we find the words, But we reckoned without God.



2020: Frederick had been the kind of husband whose wife betakes herself early to the feet of God.

My sister texted me that quote from Elizabeth von Arnim's charming book, and my interest was inflamed. However, I was knee-deep in Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago with a looming due date. But one can only ingest grim and grime so long, due date or no. I metaphorically tossed the Gulag aside for a dose of April. Then I chose the wrong audio. "No," my sister insisted, "you must listen to Helen Taylor's narration in Librivox." I restarted with Helen Taylor's lovely Oxford accent and gulped it down in two days.



While I listened, the book's atmosphere made me recall this photo I snapped of women reading on Monhegan, an island off the coast of Maine a few summers back.

And while the book is cozy and charming, it was not predictable in the way, perhaps, many cozy novels tend to be. Indeed, I'm curious about this new-to-me author: are her other works as good?