Wow...I hated that

Extremely misogynistic characters, catty jealous women and a complete lack of plot!

Get in the bin xoxo

Although this book is a short novel, it is semi-autobiographical. I read the book for a book discussion group led by Rob, librarian extraordinaire. He had some wonderful background information on Germany just before and during the time in which the book was set. I had never heard of this book, but it apparently was a bestseller in the early twentieth century. Rob also told us a bit about the author, who was an altogether interesting person. Although I was not familiar with this book, I had heard of another of her books, "Enchanted April", which was made into a wonderful film. This novel is short (just 100 pages), but I found it necessary to skim the many descriptions of flowers and plants; I am just not that much into gardening. The author has given us a little window into late nineteenth century Germany, a time of large houses and many servants. You can almost feel the restlessness of an intelligent woman like Elizabeth, who turns to gardening as something to do, even though she is not really allowed to do the physical digging in the dirt. For a much better review than I could provide, I would advise you to read that of Tadiana, who has included photos and German word translations.

“It makes one very humble to see oneself surrounded by such a wealth of beauty and perfection anonymously lavished, and to think of the infinite meanness of our own grudging charities, and how displeased we are if they are not promptly and properly appreciated. I do sincerely trust that the benediction that is always awaiting me in my garden may by degrees be more deserved, and that I may grow in grace, and patience, and cheerfulness, just like the happy flowers I so much love.”

After a glorious and grueling holiday season this was the perfect book to read. Witty, delightful, peaceful! I loved reading it on our porch with the sun shining through the winter trees and felt I could chat with Elizabeth quite nicely.

Loved this witty novella recounting an upper-crust German lady's life indoors and out. The descriptions of her garden are delicious and her sweetly sarcastic depictions of her family and friends even more so.

Delightfully narrated on audio by Nadia May.

I loved this book! Oh, it was so refreshing and fun. I am well on my way to being a firm fan of Elizabeth von Arnim -- in fact, I have bought a couple more of her books already. I love how she makes me laugh!

This is really a journal in which she talks about her efforts to create the perfect garden in the home she shares with her German husband and their children. Her garden is her retreat, her pet project, and her creative oasis for several years. She has grand plans for it, but her series of German gardeners never quite seem to either approve of or understand those plans. Still, she loves her garden. I love to garden myself, and even though I don't have to deal with intractable gardeners, my little flower garden never quite does what I want it to either. Gardens foster patience, I think.

But don't think that this book is boring because it's about a turn-of-the-century Australian who likes flowers and is married to a German. It is hilarious. Witty, wry, friendly, salty -- just altogether marvelous. It reads like a series of letters from a sarcastic and yet kind friend, and I loved getting to read it in the springtime when my own flower gardening is underway.

What a lovely book! I so appreciate period nonfiction that is sly and a little snarky; it helps make the people of the age seem more human, and likely ancestors for modern people. This really delivers: Elizabeth refers to her husband as "The Man of Wrath" throughout the book; houseguests who overstay their welcome are subtly edged out the door with offhanded remarks about ghosts and/or visits to the mosquito-infested Baltic Sea. Elizabeth is certainly a product of her environment, that being the nobility, but I had a hard time telling what was supposed to be sarcastic and what was supposed to be serious--the common opinions of the day are so ludicrous as compared to now that it was easy to confuse the two voices. Passages about the sort of people in who are in the servant/peasant class, and about the place of women in society, were both hard to discern. I skimmed them as lightly as possible, however, to get back to delightful ramblings about garden beds, the countryside, a delightfully overstuffed library, skating on the canals, and her three daughters, referred to as the June, May, and April babies throughout. It was nice to see her express genuine affection for and enjoyment of her children in an era and class in which children were generally thought a nuisance. This was a very pleasant read and I hope to read more of her.

Delightful but with sarcastic ondertones, especially about social life and marriage. Loved it.

2.5* I've only read a couple books now about gardeners, and it's been a revelation. I thought they would be gentle souls, overflowing with the peaceful and patient influence of nature - well! overflowing alright! With vitriol toward mankind - if Elizabeth and Beverly Nichols are the norm, anyway. I don't know if I liked or disliked her - but I enjoyed her naked honesty - this must have been refreshing at the time this book was published. She's shallow and speaks with the prejudice of privilege, and yet I can't help but respect someone who talks about spending all her clothes money on manure - and who calls her husband "Man of Wrath".

This is a book to disappear into and I did. Where Virginia Woolf said that women need a room of their own, von Arnim makes a strong case for a garden as that most necessary of settings. As Voltaire before her said that happiness lies in the cultivation of a garden; as Cicero said that if you have a garden and a library you have everything you need; as the garden was where Jane Austen went and refreshed herself and as gardens frequently featured in both her novels and her letters, Elizabeth von Arnim is in good company in that little subculture of writers who seem to enter into magical worlds in both their books and in their gardens.

In her writing style, too, I heard echoes of Austen. The book (a biographical novel) is infused with words of love for her garden but gently filled with ironic comments about her babies (her three children, the eldest of whom is five and no baby), her husband (termed only The Man of Wrath), her friends (whom she doesn’t need often, her preference being solitude – in her garden), her horticultural indulgences, as she calls them, and many other details that made up von Arnim’s life of privilege. Like Woolf, however, she was also ahead of her times, voicing defiant feminist views and caring little what everyone else thought.

There was not a page in the book that didn’t make me smile, hardly a paragraph that didn’t include some ironic comment. This is what she had to say about working in a garden (when she was expected to languish prettily indoors):

It is not graceful, and it makes one hot; but it is a blessed sort of work, and if Eve had had a spade in Paradise and known what to do with it, we should not have had all that sad business of the apple.

I managed to read a bit of this book in my own garden the other day, when we finally had a spot of what might be termed summer. With the roses in bloom, and with their fragrances wafting hither and dither, it was the perfect setting for this lovely little book.

This was very enjoyable and had me smiling at times. It also had me, as a new gardener myself, looking forward to spring again and experiment with new plants and flowers in my backyard. It definitely will be reread again and again. :)

This 1898 novelized memoir of a year in the life of a rather remarkable woman is a delight, a tonic for miserable days and bad moods. The book recounts the joy Elizabeth found in her country estate, her efforts to develop a garden on the neglected grounds, and time spent with her family and visiting friends.

It is an aristocratic life; one of Elizabeth's greatest travails is finding a gardener who is both skilled and committed to her vision. Contemporary books written from a point of privilege tend to annoy me, but I was willing to ignore Elizabeth's occasionally less-than-kind comments on the "servant class", since the book was, after all, written 125 years ago.

Elizabeth loves her garden, her privacy, her children, her friends, and her husband - in that order. She unabashedly describes her pleasure in having the house to herself for months at a stretch, leaving the rest of her family in Berlin while she is (in theory) overseeing renovations but in fact spends all her time enjoying the overrun gardens, fields and forests.

The writing is witty and confidential, drawing the reader in to Elizabeth's views on cooking (why do it yourself when you can hire someone to do it for you?), reading (a pleasure for her, though frowned on by the German upper class), and guests (some are tolerable, others less so, and even the best of them tiresome after a few weeks). She is defiantly independent, but does struggle to come across as pleasant and accommodating.

But it is her self-deprecating efforts to plan and implement a garden that are a real treat. The Pomeranian climate and landscape are not as receptive to gardening as are England's, but Elizabeth persists doggedly, learning from her mistakes and reveling in her successes. All with that same wit and charm.

In a rating system that allowed 1/2 stars this would probably be a 4.5, but I prefer rounding up to down, so it's a five for me. BTW, the narration on this version is excellent.