Se letto con superficialità, Il giardino di Elizabeth può sembrare un romanzo disimpegnato, una rassegna botanica anche molto particolareggiata, un memoriale di piccole amarezze e piccole gioie quotidiane. Ma, se affrontato in un'ottica diversa, con un'attenzione particolare al pensiero di una donna che cercava di ritagliarsi un proprio spazio e di cercare se stessa al di là del ruolo sociale che le era stato assegnato, possiamo guardare a questo libro come a un importante documento, peraltro estremamente gradevole e suggestivo per tutti gli amanti della natura e della tranquillità, sulla condizione della donna.
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“I am always happy (out of doors be it understood, for indoors there are servants and furniture), but in quite different ways, and my spring happiness bears no resemblance to my summer or autumn happiness, though it is not more intense, and there were days last winter when I danced for sheer joy out in my frost-bound garden in spite of my years and children. But I did it behind a bush, having a due regard for the decencies.”
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Elizabeth and her German Garden is a short fictionalised memoir of the author’s married life and establishment of her garden in Nassenheide, Pomerania. Elizabeth von Arnim was born in Kirribilli Point, Australia and was cousin to the New Zealand writer Katherine Mansfield. She met and married Count von Arnim-Schlagenthin when on a tour of Italy with her father. If you’re a gardener then you will love this book for Elizabeth’s lists of plants, her eulogising over flaming azaleas and her irritation with under-performing tea roses. What really drew me to this book, in spite of the typical contemporaneous attitudes to servants and women, is Elizabeth herself. Her humour and sarcasm leap and drip off the page. She refers to the Count throughout as “the Man of Wrath” and when he makes a pointed remark about her duty, she notes, “What a comfort it is to have such wells of wisdom constantly at my disposal! Anybody can have a husband, but to few is it given to have a sage, and the combination of both is as rare as it is useful.” Life holds many irritations for Elizabeth, in fact anything that interrupts her time in her beloved garden other than her three babies; April, May and June, named for the months of their birth. She understandably chafes against the societal constraints of the time and there is a particularly telling passage about “the subtle significance of sofas.” When paying calls to other ladies of society, your social position is clearly yet silently signalled by where you are placed on the sofa. If you happen to be seated on a chair opposite the sofa, then you have no position at all.

I picked up 'Elizabeth and her German Garden' a number of times, but kept putting it down after a few pages. I have no idea why, but this time I took the plunge and devoured this absolute beauty in one day. Elizabeth is me, she is my mentality, my thoughts and my feelings about the outside world. Her life revolves around her garden, to the quiet disapproval of her husband. If there is a choice between being inside and keeping an eye on the servants or being outside in her gorgeous garden, potting seedlings, thinking and reading her beloved books then she will take it. She also spends some time with her 3 children, adorably named April baby, May baby and June baby who fill her heart with joy. Elizabeth isn't much for socialising, and so when she is forced into hosting one of her few friends and the cousin of another over Christmas, quarrels are overflowing. If only Eliabeth could escape to her joyous garden once more.
I just adore von Arnim's writing. She's really wonderful to read. I would now love to read 'The Solitary Summer' to see how the next portion of her life plays out.

Como ya os he contado en más de una ocasión este año estoy teniendo grandes descubrimientos literarios y a pesar de haber leído a Elizabeth por primera vez el año pasado con “Vera” (mi favorita), no ha sido hasta leer “Un abril encantado” que he sabido que quería leer todo lo posible de esta escritora. Le tocaba el turno a "Elizabeth and her German Garden”, un libro autobiográfico que fue publicado en 1898.

Elizabeth, se muestra en este relato desde una posición acomodada dado su alto nivel de vida, poseedora de una gran finca en Alemania. Su perspectiva quizá roza la altanería siendo en varias ocasiones despreciativa de algunas de sus visitas o de sus propios vecinos por su estatus social. Eso no hace que el escrito pierda su gracia pues su personalidad tan marcada brilla por su fina ironía y su simplemente exquisito sentido del humor que es admirable.

Una parte importante es sin duda el jardín, aquel que mima y preserva con sumo cuidado y cariño. Resulta evocador leer las minuciosas descripciones que nos hace de sus flores, de sus respectivos cambios y del empeño que le pone a su cuidado. Para ella, este es un lugar de paz y tranquilidad, un lugar de evasión donde sentirse protegida y donde poder disfrutar de la soledad que tanto adora.

Leer a Von Arnim supone para mí entrar en una zona de confort de la que no quiero salir. Lea lo que lea de ella, siempre hallo algo que me gusta, que me reconforta o que por lo contrario me rompe. En esta ocasión he reído y me he relajado, no dejan indiferente las reflexiones de la autora y las discusiones que tiene con su marido. Sin duda os recomiendo su lectura, ahora me siento aún más cerca de ella, la entiendo y comprendo mucho mejor.

A short, interesting, subtly subversive novel. I'd definitely recommend it.

When you are leading a very urban life nowadays, spending time daily in either the subway and/or in the car, and keeping an eye on the watch constantly, reading a book about white blossoms, dandelions, blue hepaticas, snow-drop anemones, violets and bright celandines, silvery-pink peonies and delicate lilacs, seems to me as far off as reading about Life in Mars.

This is a delightful book but also naughtily mischievous.

I really enjoyed this book. With spring just arriving and me a new gardener, it was fun "watching" Elizabeth in hers.

I was told the narrator of this novel was charming. Where was her charm though? She was an entitled selfish woman. Nothing charming about her

Πώς να ερωτευτείτε έναν κήπο.

How to fall in love with with a garden.

0,4 estrellas

A favoritos!

Es posible que una corta novela como Elizabeth y su jardín alemán sea capaz de llegar tan hondo al alma femenina. Una historia llena de sentimiento e introspección. Absolutamente reflexiva, no sin cierto aire irónico. Elizabeth es feliz con sus pequeñas hijas e incomprendida por su marido "el hombre airado" con su desdén y aires de sabio; quien ni siquiera es capaz de pagar los bulbos y semillas a su esposa a la cual considera excéntrica. Nada es perfecto. Ni siquiera en un jardín idílico. Su vida transcurre a principios de la Alemania del siglo XX donde el papel de la mujer estaba limitado a la atención de la casa y la cocina. A esto Elizabeth se revela como la verdadera alma independiente que es.

Amar la naturaleza y la paz interior, esas son las reflexiones de esta hermosa novela.

Short review: What a crock of über-privileged shit!

Slightly longer review: I went into this knowing that "Lives of the rich and privileged" is not the genre for me, and after struggling for 30 pages, had this preference resoundingly confirmed. Had there been an element of authorial knowingness about the main character's disdain for her servants, that would have been some kind of redeeming quality, but the reason given for Elizabeth's (both the character's and, presumably, the author's) dislike of "boxing the maids ears" is not because it is abusive and manifestly wrong in principle, but because she herself would feel "wretched" to have her tranquility disturbed by the necessity of chastising intransigent staff.

It's a pity, as behind the aristocratic elitism there seems to be a good story being told about an introverted, socially anxious, bookish woman who prefers the company of nature and children to bourgeois society and men. She's just stuck too far up her own arse for me to keep that in sight.

I've been reading this author just for her descriptions of gardens, like this one on yellow flowers.
"I want to have a border all yellow, every shade of yellow from fieriest orange to nearly white, .....I want it to be a succession of glories from May till the frosts, and the chief feature is to be the number of "ardent marigolds"—flowers that I very tenderly love—and nasturtiums. The nasturtiums are to be of every sort and shade, and are to climb and creep and grow in bushes, and show their lovely flowers and leaves to the best advantage. Then there are to be eschscholtzias, dahlias, sunflowers, zinnias, scabiosa, portulaca, yellow violas, yellow stocks, yellow sweet-peas, yellow lupins—everything that is yellow or that has a yellow variety."
When she leaves the garden, I lose interest. I have trouble keeping characters straight. But as a gardener the flower bits are worth the read.