ENCHANTED APRIL in JULY

I recently read THE ENCHANTED APRIL by ELIZABETH VON ARNIM, a Penguin classic first published in 1922. It’s been a while since I read a Penguin classic and I found this delightful, full of wry humour and keen observations about love, longing, and how beauty in our surroundings can change our perspective, not only about ourselves, but how we feel about others, even those who are absent.

Four women, strangers to each other, escape a dreary London, their mundane lives, a couple of husbands, to spend April in a castle on the Italian Riviera. Once there, in the ‘simple happiness of complete harmony’, one woman realizes it is ‘better to feel young somewhere rather than old everywhere’.  They find their minds ‘becoming more luminous in the clear light of April at San Salvatore’.  Another took off her goodness “like a heap of rain-sodden clothes, and she only felt joy”.

Such is the writing, prose of that time, with much head-hopping and an omniscient narrator, less common these days because both writing and reading styles have changed.

One might argue these were women who tried to pursue independence but ultimately abandoned it. But you have to consider the era when this story takes place, and this is, most of all, a story where ‘Beauty made you love, and love made you beautiful’.

*

Some of the writing and amusing observations in the book:

“You didn’t take your clothes to parties; they took you. It was quite a mistake to think that a woman, a really well-dressed woman, wore out her clothes; it was the clothes that wore out the woman – dragging her about at all hours of the day and night. No wonder men stayed younger longer. Just new trousers excite them.”

Isn’t it true that for some (many? long?) periods in our lives, women are a slave to their clothes. The endless fussing over What to wear and Does this look good on me and I’ve spent so much on this outfit I need to make it earn its keep. And oh holding on to those clothes because someday they just might fit you again. How much time and energy and mental space we give to our clothes. And men? Almost nothing. I was asking my sis-in-law the other day for a picture of the wedding they attended. But really, I didn’t want to see the bridal couple, I just wanted to see the bride because no one cares about what the groom wears (except perhaps his mother). I wish it wasn’t so, but clothes, even though they can be fun and make us feel fabulous, are also an endless source of frustration, expense, angst and discomfort. The bride’s dress was lovely. The groom wore a tux. Or a suit, or something…

“…if you have once thoroughly bored somebody it is next to impossible to unbore him.”

True, isn’t it? Once you’ve sat beside someone at an event, a captive audience to tedious droning about trivialities, and your mind has been sufficiently numbed, wouldn’t you do anything to escape them again, giving them no chance to redeem themselves into becoming unboring? Once you’ve designated someone a bore, it sticks.

“Old friends … compare one constantly with what one used to be. They are always doing it if one develops. They are surprised at development. They hark back; they expect motionlessness after, say, fifty, to the end of one’s days.”

Besides old friends, I suppose this is also true of family members, who expect you to be who you were. But old friendships and relationships also have an enduring solidity in them, a grounding that contributes to our sense of belonging, and the very best ones are happy when you evolve and change and grow. Also, this book was written in 1922, when fifty was OLD. No one is staying motionless after fifty (or sixty or more) these days. We’re trying and learning new things with a sense of freedom and confidence that you just don’t have before fifty because you haven’t lived long enough to acquire it.

“…goodness, the state of being good, was only reached with difficulty and pain. It took a long time to get to it; in fact one never did get to it, or, if for a flashing instant one did, it was only for a flashing instant. Desperate perseverance was needed to struggle along its path, and all the way was dotted with doubts.”

I wouldn’t know what it is to be a person who sacrifices themselves to doing good deeds, because no one could ever accuse me of being a Mother Teresa type. But I imagine it is difficult to keep sacrificing your own needs daily for the sake of others. What am I saying? Mothers with dependent children do that every day. And yes, there are ALWAYS doubts of whether you’re doing the right thing or enough of the right thing. It’s a struggle. But I no longer have dependents, and I do not aspire to do good deeds if they cause me difficulty and pain. I’m all for comfort and ease. That goes for my choice of clothes too.

And one final quote: “no one, however old and tough could resist the effects of perfect beauty.”

And ultimately this is a book about the power of being immersed in beauty and how it sparks something in us, changes us, makes us look at our lives differently. We know that at a deep level, we understand that, and that is why we are always seeking beauty.