First published in 1899, so can be challenging for modern reader, but
"... how can you make a person happy against his will? You can knock a great deal into him in the way of learning and what the schools call extras, but if you try for ever you will not knock any happiness into a being who has not got it in him to be happy. The only result probably would be tha you knock your own out of yourself...:

The chapters are named after months of the year. Again, Mrs. von Arnim takes the reader into the pages of a journal, and what a delight.
The first sentence reveals the thought behind the book," I want to be alone for a whole summer, and get to the very dregs of life. I want to be as idle as I can, so that my soul may have time to grow."
Love it!
This is a hot-bath-in-the-middle-of-a-deep-dark-winter-day sort of book.
It is only extraordinary in its simple celebration of one human being's life and because it contains gems of truth woven throughout the literary-party.

I came across this book through my love of "Walden", which the author of this book also loves. The book started out in the spirit that I expected, but it soon turned into something else. I thought it was too much about other people and socializing for a book that is supposed to be about solitude. It was well written, it just didn't interest me that much.

I am LOVING this book. Did not realize it was a sequel, but that’s what I get for blindly reading anything Cindy Rollins says she likes on Goodreads. It’s full of books and flowers.

“It is always best to allow a woman to do as she likes if you can, and it saves a good deal of bother. To have what she desired is generally an effective punishment.”

“Every now and then I leave the book on the seat and go and have a refreshing potter among my flower beds, from which I return greatly benefited, and with a more just conception of what, in this world, is worth bothering about, and what is not.”
A sentence straight out of my own autobiography!

“I prefer sitting here on the verandah and looking down through a frame of leaves at all the rosebuds June has put in the beds round the sun-dial, to ponder over nothing, and just be glad that I am alive.”

Speaking of the man who originally planted the garden where she lives, “ We have to thank him for the surprising beauty of the garden in May and early June…
Who would not join in the praises of the man to whom you owe your lilacs, and your Spanish chestnuts, and your tulip trees, and your pyramid oaks? "He was a good man, for he loved his garden" —that is the epitaph I would have put on his monument, because it gives one a far clearer sense of his goodness and explains it better than any amount of sonorous Latinities. How could he be anything but good since he loved a garden—that divine filter that filters all the grossness out of us, and leaves us, each time we have been in it, clearer, and purer, more harmless?”


“Living face to face with nature makes it difficult for one to be discouraged. Moles and late frosts, both of which are here in abundance, have often grieved and disappointed me, but even these, my worst enemies, have not succeeded in making me feel discouraged. Not once till now have I got farther in that direction than the purely negative state of not being encouraged ; and whenever I reach that state I go for a brisk walk in the sunshine and come back cured. It makes one so healthy to live in a garden, so healthy in mind as well as body, and when I say moles and late frosts are my worst enemies, it only shows how I could not now if I tried sit down and brood over my own or my neighbour's sins, and how the breezes in my garden have blown away all those worries and vexations and bitternesses that are the lot of those who live in a crowd. The most severe frost that ever nipped the hopes of a year is better to my thinking than having to listen to one malignant truth or lie, and I would rather have a mole busy burrowing tunnels under each of my rose trees and letting the air get at their roots than face a single greeting where no kindness is. How can you help being happy if you are healthy and in the place you want to be? … He pointed out that sorrow and sickness were sure to come, and seemed quite angry with me when I suggested that they too could be borne perhaps with cheerful-"And have not even such things their sunny side?" I exclaimed. "When I am steeped to the lips in diseases and doctors, I shall at least have something to talk about that interests my women friends, and need not sit as I do now wondering what I shall say next and wishing they would go." He replied that all around me lay misery, sin, and suffering, and that every person not absolutely blinded by selfishness must be aware of it and must realise the seriousness and tragedy of existence. I asked him whether my being miserable and discontented would help any one or make him less wretched.”

I didn't realize until I started reading it that this is a sequel to Elizabeth and Her German Garden. Imagine my delight when I discovered that was the case! It was published a year after Garden and has a similar playful, refreshing feel. And it shares the fact that it's written as if it is nonfiction, but is actually highly fictionalized.

The bulk of the book is her funny and insightful musings throughout the summer (and into the fall) about books, solitude, nature, gardening, and family life. I didn't love this quite as much as Garden thanks to an extended section about the immorality of village young people, which felt more snide than funny. But it's definitely a book I'll be rereading. It did make me laugh aloud repeatedly.

I now have read everything she or her dear friends wrote. What an amazing group of women

I love Elizabeth Von Arnim. Not everyone can write a 190 page book about spending time in her garden and make it this wonderful. We get her reverence for the flowers and trees and growing things, but interspersed with dialogue and activities from her children, (the babies) her husband (the Man of Wrath), and her own witty, hilarious thoughts on other people and the world at large. I always finish one of her books charmed to my toes. High on my list of people I wish I had known.

4*

This is very much an extension ofElizabeth and Her German Garden, and as such a lot of what I liked and disliked about that one still applies here. Ultimately, though, I like it well enough to maybe eventually reread it!

Sequel naturale de n  Il giardino di Elizabethn, questo romanzo rappresenta una sorta di autofiction, in cui Mary Annette Beauchamp diventa Elizabeth e vive col marito, un conte tedesco che lei chiama The Man of Wrath (che qui è tradotto L'Uomo di Rabbia, e non L'Uomo della Collera) e le tre figlie - di cui nell'altro romanzo non si sapevano i nomi, ma venivano chiamate rispettivamente la figlia di aprile, la figlia di maggio e la figlia di giugno - che qui diventano direttamente April, May e June, nella campagna tedesca.
Elizabeth chiede al marito di poter restare per un'estate da sola in campagna - nel senso di non ricevere quelle visite che nel Giardino di Elizabeth l'avevano tanto esasperata, anche se, alla fine, è costretta a fare alcune eccezioni, che sono appunto ciò che le rovina l'idillio che un'estate senza mondanità rappresenta. Naturalmente, la mancanza di personaggi da mettere alla berlina fa risultare questo romanzo leggermente meno ironico del precedente, ma comunque estremamente godibile.

Imagine the most annoyingly pleasant person you know. Now add like 150mg of Prozac, a few tabs of acid, and some damn good tea while strolling through the most delightful little garden you ever did see. That is Elizabeth von Armin in this book. And I dig it.

At times she's entirely too pleasant to relate to, but there were moments in this simple book when I was like "Yes. That. That. That's what I've been trying to say." Always lovely to find an author who can do that for you.

"I have a large heart in regard to things that grow, and many a weed that would not be tolerated anywhere else is allowed to live and multiply undisturbed in my garden."

Well this is definately one of my favorite books ever. I kept checking to see how much was left and winced to see the right side of the book dwindling. Yes it's true that this seems to be a book about nothing. Well, let me set you all straight, this book is about just who exactly, deep inside, for real and goodness' sake this woman was. And who she was, first of all, brave, for sharing it all with us. She was also very funny and had this beautiful sense of just what beauty is. I loved her witty sarcasm and astonishment at ignorance and customs the village poor that she, as lady of the "big house" felt responsible for. She tells of a few summer months and the things that she loved, people she loved and was annoyed or irritated by. She speaks to my soul, she made me laugh, made me think. She speaks mostly of her garden, which must surely have been a sight to behold. Like my other favorite book of hers, Enchanted April, this one whisks me away to a dreamland for grownups filled with beautiful flowers whose scents I can almost perceive. I know this will be one I turn to again and again when I need comfort or soothing.

The Solitary Summer Elizabeth von Arnim

To the man of wrath
With some apologies and much love

Opening: May 2nd.—Last night after dinner, when we were in the garden, I said, "I want to be alone for a whole summer, and get to the very dregs of life. I want to be as idle as I can, so that my soul may have time to grow. Nobody shall be invited to stay with me, and if any one calls they will be told that I am out, or away, or sick. I shall spend the months in the garden, and on the plain, and in the forests. I shall watch the things that happen in my garden, and see where I have made mistakes. On wet days I will go into the thickest parts of the forests, where the pine needles are everlastingly dry, and when the sun shines I'll lie on the heath and see how the broom flares against the clouds. I shall be perpetually happy, because there will be no one to worry me. Out there on the plain there is silence, and where there is silence I have discovered there is peace."

gardening (sequel/companion to 3* German Garden)
summer 2013
ebook> project gutenberg

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5991