This is the fourth book I have read by Elizabeth von Arnim. This is the first book she wrote in her literary career (1898) and it was quite the literary hit, going quickly into multiple printings and being published in different languages. She was 32 at the time, 7 years into her marriage to a rich, previously widowed, older count (who was 47, 15 years her senior). This novel was said to be semi-autobiographical in nature. The male character in the novel is called the “Man of Wrath”…I suppose it is based on her husband although in the book and as far as I can tell in their marriage he was not a wrathful man. He just had his head stuck up his ass. Very pompous and men-know-everything and women should be seen at times but rarely ever heard because nothing of sense comes out of their mouths (that is the attitude of the Man of Wrath). This attitude was found in two other characters I have come across in her oeuvre, Wemyss a despicable and evil sort in 'Vera' (1921) and Otto, just a male chauvinist pig like the Man of Wrath in 'The Caravaners' (1909).

I wouldn’t be at all surprised if I run into other male characters with “an attitude” concocted by her in a number of other books she has written — I have ordered some of them and look forward to reading them because I like her writing so much!

A charming memoir of young mother and wife Elizabeth Von Armin. She's content with herself, her family, her books and her garden and I could relate. Lots of highlight-worthy quotes if only I'd had my own copy and not the library's.

A favorite on New Year's resolutions: "And I find my resolutions carry me very nicely into the spring. I revise them at the end of each month, and strike out the unnecessary ones. By the end of April they have been so severely revised that there are none left."

On taking control of your life: "If your lot makes you cry and be wretched, get rid of it and take another; strike out for yourself; don't listen to the shrieks of your relations, to their gibes or their entreaties; don't let your microscopic set prescribe your going-out and comings-in; don't be afraid of public opinion in the shape of the neighbor in the next house, when all the world is before you new and shining, and everything is possible, if you will only be energetic and independent and seize opportunity by the scruff of the neck.

Vale, quizás cuatro estrellas hubiesen sido suficientes, pero es que yo no califico en base a calidad literaria de las obras sino en base a cuanto las he disfrutado. No soy crítica literaria, soy lectora.

Elizabeth y su jardín alemán es un libro que me ha encantado y resultado tremendamente delicioso porque he sentido una empatía casi total con Elizabeth con respecto a su especial comunión y sensibilidad para con la naturaleza.
Una lectura en la que la escritora ha conseguido transmitirme toda la felicidad, sosiego y optimismo que siente la protagonista, y que no aconsejaría a quienes no disfruten de las lecturas reposadas o la jardinería, porque de eso hay un rato.

Escrito con sencillez pero elegancia, sabiduría y un toque de ironía y humor, trata mayormente de la felicidad que Elizabeth halla en su jardín en contrapunto con las rígidas normas sociales que le rodean, y que nos va mostrando a través de sus reflexiones o mismo en las conversaciones que mantiene con sus dos invitadas y marido, su propia y particular visión de la vida, defendiendo la libertad de poder escoger la soledad si eso te hace feliz sin que te miren raro o por ello tachen la elección de excentricidad.

Su lectura para mi ha tenido el mismo efecto y sabor que una reconfortante taza de un buen té con pastas.

A lovely novel about an English noblewoman who lives in a house in Germany with a beautiful garden. Elizabeth dislikes her husband -- who she calls the Man of Wrath -- and she keeps a wicked and humorous commentary in her diary entries. She prefers to spend as much of her day as possible outdoors in the garden, even on the coldest days of winter, and gets labeled as eccentric by her neighbors.

The book has so many marvelous quotes that I would have made countless notes in the margins if I hadn't been reading a library book. Some favorites:

"The people round about are persuaded that I am, to put it as kindly as possible, exceedingly eccentric, for the news has travelled that I spend the day out of doors with a book, and that no mortal eye has ever yet seen me sew or cook. But why cook when you can get some one to cook for you? And as for sewing, the maids will hem the sheets better and quicker than I could, and all forms of needlework of the fancy order are inventions of the evil one for keeping the foolish from applying their hearts to wisdom."

"What a happy woman I am living in a garden, with books, babies, birds and flowers, and plenty of leisure to enjoy them! Yet my town acquaintances look upon it as imprisonment, and burying, and I don't know what besides, and would rend the air with shrieks if condemned to such a life. Sometimes I feel as if I were blest above all my fellows in being able to find my happiness so easily. I believe I should always be good if the sun always shone, and could enjoy myself very well in Siberia on a fine day."

"A woman's tongue is a deadly weapon and the most difficult thing in the world to keep in order, and things slip off it with a facility nothing short of appalling at the very moment when it ought to be the most quiet."

"I don't love things that will only bear the garden for three or four months in the year and require coaxing and petting for the rest of it. Give me a garden full of strong, healthy creatures, able to stand roughness and cold without dismally giving in and dying. I never could see that delicacy of constitution is pretty, either in plants or in women."

"The passion for being ever with one's fellows, and the fear of being left for a few hours alone, is to me wholly incomprehensible. I can entertain myself quite well for weeks together, hardly aware, except for the pervading peace, that I have been alone at all ... I like to have people staying with me for a few days, or even a few weeks, should they be as undemanding as I am myself, and content with simple joys; only, any one who comes here and would be happy must have something in him; if he be a mere blank creature, empty of head and heart, he will very probably find it dull. I should like my house to be often full if I could find people capable of enjoying themselves. They should be welcomed and sped with equal heartiness; for truth compels me to confess that, though it pleases me to see them come, it pleases me just as much to see them go."

"The dullest book takes on a certain saving grace if read out of doors, just as bread and butter, devoid of charm in the drawing room, is ambrosia eaten under a tree."

"I wish with all my heart I were a man, for of course the first thing I should do would be to buy a spade and go and garden, and then I should have the delight of doing everything for my flowers with my own hands and not waste time explaining what I want done to somebody else. It is dull work giving orders and trying to describe the bright visions of one's brain to a person who has no visions and no brain."

"Relations are like drugs -- useful, sometimes, and even pleasant, if taken in small quantities and seldom, but dreadfully pernicious on the whole, and the truly wise avoid them."

…the place I was bound for on my latest pilgrimage was filled with living, first-hand memories of all the enchanted years that lie between two and eighteen. How enchanted those years are is made more and more clear to me the older I grow. There has been nothing in the least like them since; and though I have forgotten most of what happened six months ago, every incident, almost every day of those wonderful long years is perfectly distinct in my memory...

I loved all the gardening parts in this story. The human-interest parts, and Elizabeth's rather dysfunctional marriage and friends, weren't as enjoyable, but I truly enjoyed her talks about learning how to garden and the little incidents with her children and servants. I totally identified with her desire to fill her life with nothing but garden, library, tea, and loving her little daughters! Perhaps she isn't eccentric after all...or does that make me eccentric?

Elizabeth has a privileged life and has moved from England after her marriage to her German husband. She is uninterested in the expectations that she spends her many hours sewing, visiting neighbours, organising her household and supervising her servants. She wants only to escape into her wilderness garden and plan its transformation. She is a novice gardener but is passionate in her choice of plants, seeds and bulbs and she learns from her planting success and occasional mistakes. She has a gardener, as convention dictates, but she wishes she could take up the spade and trowel herself. Elizabeth is often frustrated by the elderly gardener too as she tries to instruct him that she doesn't want planting regimented but loves the more naturalistic style. He is not really interested or knowledgeable but carries out her wishes. Elizabeth has three children and she mentions them as the April, May and June babies and their ages range from three to five years. She loves them being around her but the governess plays a major role in their lives. She mentions her husband wryly as The Man of Wrath and he is an indulgent husband to what he feels is Elizabeth's eccentric behaviour. He is a man of few words apart from occasional outbursts where he spouts his controversial views, especially about women. I did feel that his arguments were often to antagonise his overly vocal female visitors. The writing is lovely and Elizabeth's enthusiasm and energy leaps off the page as she works at creating her perfect idyll.

Весьма духоподъемно

Review of the audiobook.

This book made me wish I had more of a green thumb. I thoroughly enjoyed my time with Elizabeth in her garden and I can see rereading this in years to come.

Elizabeth and Her German Garden is a memoir by Elizabeth von Arnim (a.k.a. Marie Annette Beauchamp) who wrote the charming book I earlier read, titled The Enchanting April. I was eager to read about her German garden and was disappointed that I did not enjoy it as much as I had hoped.

Undoubtedly, Elizabeth’s love for gardening and her German garden is the strongest attraction of this memoir. In an old house where she lives which was once a convent, Elizabeth spends all her time reading in the garden and planning how to tame the wilderness of a garden she has initially inherited and turn it into a haven. It is an idyllic life made possible by her privileged background and access to governesses, maid servants, and itinerant gardeners. This, being the late 19th century, it seemed unusual for a woman to be sworn off all manner of housework. In her words, ”‘... all forms of needlework of the fancy order are inventions of the evil one for keeping the foolish from applying their heart to wisdom.” She is an unconventional woman of her time.

The garden is lusciously described and its beauty extolled. Being a non-gardener, Elizabeth goes about tending her garden by trial and error, and makes special effort to learn from her mistakes. I had the pleasure of looking up the images of the vast array of flowers she planted (e.g., ipomaea, hollyhocks, sweetpeas, pansies, tea roses, etc.). Given my love for gardens, I read her gardening exploits with relish. I shared her enthusiasm: “How I long for the day when the tea-roses open their buds! Never did I look forward so intensely to anything, and every day I go the rounds, admiring what the dear little things have achieved in the twenty four hours in the way of new leaf or increase of lovely red shoot.”

The memoir is written in the form of diary entries in which Elizabeth records not just the growth of her garden but also her relationship with her husband (whom she called ‘The Man of Wrath’), her three children, and the friends who come to visit and stay at her house. There are some lovely anecdotes of her interactions with her three young children that are quite delightful and humorous.

What is not so pleasing is how she, her husband, and her preferred friend (Irais) conducted themselves toward a young English acquaintance (Minora), a student of art who hails from a humbler background. There is some mean laughing behind Minora’s back, which I found repugnant. When Minora was first introduced as an intelligent and hardworking woman, the Man of Wrath had this to say, “Then she is not pretty. Only ugly girls work hard.” and “I do not like clever girls, they are so stupid.” I want to box his ears. He is a creature of a time in history when women were despised. It sounded like the dark ages as ‘Reading is an occupation for men, for women it is a reprehensible waste of time.’ It seems legal in those days to inflict corporal punishment on one’s maid servants. Elizabeth herself regards her gardener with appalling disdain, ”It is dull work giving orders and trying to describe the bright visions of one’s brain to a person who has no visions and no brains, and who thinks a yellow bed should be calceolarias edged with blue.” Not nice, is it?

Elizabeth, thankfully, is quite aware of her transgressions. She expresses hope that the ‘benediction’ bestowed by her garden will help her grow in grace and patience. I hope so, too.

The Diary of an Introverted Woman

(I read the free, Kindle classic offered via Amazon. Unfortunately at the time of my review, that version was not an option on Goodreads.)

If you enjoyed The Enchanted April due to its lovely setting and reflective thoughts of the characters, then you will also enjoy Elizabeth and Her German Garden.

What a wonderful story. We follow the main character during her time spent, mostly alone, in her garden. It's on a hill and far away from town and any social responsibilities. For many days she is alone with her three young children, the housekeeper, another servant, and her reluctant gardener.

This story was first published anonymously and was wildly successful. Elizabeth - born Marie Annette Beauchamp was later known as Elizabeth Von Armin. *** If you pick up this free Kindle version, be sure to back up and read the forward. It gives additional information regarding Von Armin and her life. For some reason the Kindle ebook opens at chapter one. There is a section before this.

I loved The Enchanted April and also loved this ebook. We spend time with a woman who gives personality to the flowers, listens to the conversations of the owls and frogs, and longs to just be left alone to soak up the solitude. She's rejuvenated by her surroundings and avoids being in the house. Her husband is labeled The Man of Wrath when he comes and interrupts her peace. It's all in fun and a nice, leisurely story.

'My days seemed to melt away in a dream of pink and purple.'

If you have a tiny bit of knowledge of gardening and flowers it may help you enjoy this title more - but perhaps it isn't necessary.

There are plenty of other people in this book as well. We find out how Elizabeth deals with nosey town ladies, relatives, and unwanted visitors. If you are an introvert yourself, you will find your head nodding in agreement at all of her thoughts and feelings.

There are a handful of sentences in German. This free Kindle ebook does not show the translation. I was fine with that, but if you'd like to know exactly what is said, try the ebook - Elizabeth and Her German Garden [annotated].

People routinely antsy for spring and a time when they can dig in the dirt will appreciate this book. Those who wish they could escape to a garden for months on end will certainly enjoy this story.

I initially thought this author's writing would be a little too flowery for me, but not a bit of it. This is the second book of hers that I've read and I love her writing style. Yes, in this one, as would be expected, it's heavily descriptive of her beautiful garden, but "heavily" is surely the wrong word, because there is such a lightness of touch, and all interspersed with the most witty observations of characters and people generally. Elizabeth von Arnim is a real find for me, and I'll definitely be reading more of her books.