A Fun Five Minutes

At lunchtime yesterday I went into the Amnesty International Bookshop on Mill Road, Cambridge.  Normally I try to resist the temptation, although it is  a mere three minute walk from my office.  I could probably buy up half the shop if I went in there every day.

Once I get in there, a feeling of intense excitement comes over me, similar to that which I feel on entering a large library.

All the books are beautifully categorised and each category is alphabetically ordered, so that it is easy to find a book one wishes to buy.

The till lady recognised me, and remembered that two years ago I asked to be notified when any book by Barbara Pym came into stock.

She pointed to a pile of Barbara Pym books which had just been donated, and were still sitting in a pile waiting to be shelved.  Since I made the request, I have bought almost all of her books, from various sources, but there was still one left I had not read, so of course I had to have it.  Next she showed me a biography of Barbara unknown to me, so I bought that as well, although it was a rather poor quality paper back.

We tried to remember the title of an edition of Barbara Pym's letters and diaries,  both of us failed.  We chatted about our reading habits, the relative pleasures of second-hand versus new books, and what might be the merits of the Kindle.  We agreed that, although all books look the same in the Kindle, and there is no pleasure in holding and looking at it, yet it has advantages.  Notably the free down-load of many classics and other out-of-copyright books.  I mentioned that a friend had downloaded some Dickens material which is unavailable outside academic libraries.

Via our use of libraries, we got on to the subject of HG Wells.  (I am currently reading David Lodge's recent and partly imaginary biography, on loan from my local library). "The man was obsessed with sex," was my verdict.  We were unanimous in our disparagement of HG.  She summed him up as "an unpleasant old goat!" which I thought completely apt.  Leading on from this train of thought, I spotted what is probably the only novel by Rebecca West which I have not read, so naturally that was also added to my purchases.

About to leave the shop, highly pleased with my haul, I suddenly remembered what I had come in for.  Ordnance Survey maps for my holidays this year.  Needless to say, there were none suitable for my planned journeys.  But I went out of the shop with a pile of books and a feeling of warmth, well-being, and the pleasure of having communed with a fellow book-addict.

The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim

This is an almost perfect book.  Actually, I can think of not one thing to criticize, and much to praise highly, so perhaps it IS a perfect book.

Elizabeth von Arnim led a very interesting life.  She was born in Australia, and was Katherine Mansfield's cousin.  She married a German Count, and wrote her most famous book, "Elizabeth and her German Garden" (1898) about their castle in Prussia.  I have read that book, and could appreciate its charm, but frankly, it IS mostly about gardening, and I am not a gardening fan.

This book came along much later in her life (1922).  She had by this time lost the German castle to debts, been widowed, had an affair with HG Wells (more of him in a post soon), and married a second time, this time the elder brother of the philosopher Bertrand Russell.  Her second husband was by all accounts mad, and the marriage scarcely lasted three years. 

So this book was the fruit of much experience.  Whereas her idyllic life as a Countess, young wife and mother in the "German Garden" was only faintly touched with darker shadows (the husband was referred to as "The Man of Wrath"), this book  represents an escape from husbands altogether.

Two unhappily married wives decide to rent a castle in Italy for a month's holiday.  This was an astonishingly radical idea for 1922.  Neither had any income of her own, but each had a small "nest egg" which they decided to supplement by advertising for two more tenants to share the rent. 

One of these, an elderly widow, is not a very nice person.  In fact, she starts off as decidedly unpleasant.  She provides a balancing act to the other, a young  aristocrat of superlative beauty, who merely wishes to escape from "grabbers" (men of any age, who, on encountering her, fall in love with her and become perfect nuisances).

All four are transformed and re-born under the magical and benign influence of the extraordinary castle and its remote setting, in the perfect climate of the Italian Riviera in April.  (It is thought that the book is based on the author's experience of staying at Portofino, indeed a wonderful location).

The old lady mellows and develops charm, the young beauty reviews her life, and decides that it has been rather shallow up to now, and she must do something with it.  The two wives are reconciled with their rather awful husbands, who both show up at the castle during the month.

The whole book is written with the most beautiful sense of humour. Almost everything described in it, except the scenery, is screened by an amused authorial irony.  Husbands of every description, the problems of beauty, loneliness, the Italian language, aging, selfishness (as exhibited by the two sub-tenants) are all pointed out as objects of wit with the very lightest touch imaginable.  On top of that, some really original insights into aspects of the female condition, which would not become mainstream until many decades later, are slipped in here and there as throwaway lines. 

A book to savour and enjoy,  although nothing much happens.  At the end, they all go home again.