Elizabeth And Her German Garden (Virago Modern Classics)

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Elizabeth von Arnim liberally sprinkles her stories with German words and phrases that she doesn't bother translating, so I got to play German translator for our group read. From time to time her husband, dubbed the Man of Wrath, makes an appearance, putting a damper on things but doing little to earn his moniker. Her emotional strength, her joy, and her solace, when comfort is needed, all come from her garden, into which she pours her creativity despite receiving little encouragement for this from the people in her life. This, being the late 19th century, it seemed unusual for a woman to be sworn off all manner of housework.

Sitting in her garden, be it summer or winter, she can then tolerate unwelcome guests, discourses in disciplining women, and the judgmental British tutor. I have brought in armfuls, the picking is such a delight, and every pot and bowl and tub in the house is filled with purple glory, and the servants think there is going to be a party and are extra nimble, and I go from room to room gazing at the sweetness, and the windows are all flung open so as to join the scent within to the scent without; and the servants gradually discover that there is no party, and wonder why the house should be filled with flowers for one woman by herself, and I long more and more for a kindred spirit-- it seems so greedy to have so much loveliness to oneself--but kindred spirits are so very, very rare; I might almost as well cry for the moon. I enjoyed it, but towards the end the tone of the writing and the 1st-person narrator started grating.This marriage also ended in separation in 1919 when Elizabeth moved to America, where she died on 9 February 1941, aged 74. In the beginning I found her eccentric, but charming, but the more I read, the stronger was the feeling that her tone switched from funny to flippant and patronising either somewhere along the line or it had always been so. She is also somewhat affected - of course the book was written over a hundred years ago, and does not refer to her family by their names.

In it, you'll find a warm, funny, quirky young woman given to such paroxysms of bliss over flowering things and natural beauty that it's impossible not to get swept up.The Persian Yellows have gone into their new quarters, and their place is occupied by the tearose Safrano; all the rose beds hare carpeted with pansies sown in July and transplanted in October, each bed having a separate colour. Minora (one of her visitors) was angry at this, and at last pulled off her glove, but quickly put it on again. 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.

In 1898 she started her literary career by publishing Elizabeth and Her German Garden, a semi-autobiographical novel about a rural idyll published anonymously and, as it turned out to be highly successful, reprinted 21 times within the first year. Elizabeth (though her true christened name is Mary) who married a German count twice her age had little in common with her husband. It is not graceful, and it makes one hot; but it is a blessed sort of work, and if Eve had had a spade in Paradise and known what to do with it, we should not have had all that sad business of the apple. 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. If that sounds less affectionate than disturbing, you may have a hint of what will develop in future books from Elizabeth's struggle to work through her unsatisfying home life.As a novel it really doesn't have a whole lot of structure, but its charm comes precisely from the juxtaposition of the freedom and beauty of the natural world with that of a wealthy aristocrat who cannot escape all of her duties. Elizabeth is the young wife of a minor Prussian nobleman whose estate in Northern Germany near the Baltic is the setting for the garden she is planning. 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). To find out what personal information we collect and how we use it, please visit our privacy policy.

Initially I didn't realise this was a satire, so the thoughtless cruelty to the baby owls horrified me. Born Mary Annette Beauchamp in Sydney, Australia, she was raised in England and in 1891 married Count Henning August von Arnim, a Prussian aristocrat, and the great-great-great-grandson of King Friedrich Wilhelm I of Prussia. 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. 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). The purple ones are the most charming and go well with every rose, but I have white ones with Laurette Messimy, and yellow ones with Safrano, and a new red sort in the big centre bed of red roses.

Elizabeth's uniquely witty pen records each season in her beloved garden, where she escapes from the stifling routine of indoors: servants, meals, domestic routine, and the presence of her overbearing husband . She expresses hope that the ‘benediction’ bestowed by her garden will help her grow in grace and patience. The name Elizabeth von Arnim reveals and conceals so much of this often-forgotten author, writing at the beginning of the twentieth century.