Mr. Skeffington by Elizabeth von Arnim

I found this book several years ago at an antique bookstore in Fredericksburg, TX, a very cute little town outside of San Antonio, full of boutiques and antique stores. Or maybe it was Boerne -- so many quaint places in the Hill Country, I can't keep them all straight. Anyway, I was pleased to find a first edition of a book by Elizabeth von Arnim, one of my favorite writers. Naturally it sat on the shelf for a good ten years before I finally decided to read it. 

Lots of Italian reprints of von Arnim's novels.
Nice cover but it really doesn't reflect the mood of the book.

So. Published in 1940, the book begins with Lady Frances (Fanny) Skeffington, who is recovering from a serious illness. She's on the verge of her 50th birthday, and is basically going through a mid-life crisis. In her early twenties Fanny married a rich older man, Job Skeffington, to save her beloved brother's estate, but finally divorced him after his multiple affairs with office girls. She never remarried but for the last twenty years or so has had multiple romances with various men. Now nearing 50, her stunning beauty has faded and she begins to consider her past life and relationships; also, she keeps having visions of her ex-husband Job. 

Nice cover on this French edition

First Fanny consults unsuccessfully with a famous London specialist, whom she finds insulting; then, she decides to revisit all her past lovers, which becomes more and more embarrassing as she acknowledges that they were really all attracted to her by her stunning beauty -- another Helen of Troy, much like Lady Ruby MacLean in The Loved and Envied. Time and illness have stripped her of her looks and most of her past lovers and friends are shocked at her appearance. 

Apparently this novel was much beloved and even adapted into a movie starring Bette Davis, but it isn't my favorite of von Arnim's novels. I found it really sad and kind of painful -- Fanny really needs to find validation from men, and she isn't getting it. (And most of her female friends were really pretty unpleasant). I don't know if it was supposed to be funny or if von Arnim was trying to make a point about women in the mid-century. This was her last novel and she herself had an unhappy first marriage, then an affair with writer H. G. Wells, and an unhappy second marriage. 

The other issue I had with this book was the anti-Semitism. Fanny's ex-husband Job is Jewish, and this is brought up multiple times in a rather uncomfortable way. (There's also another awful character who has recently returned from the South Pacific and is really racist, but he's clearly meant to be terrible).  Without giving away the ending, I will say that Fanny takes the high road, but I was really wondering how this would all pan out, especially with the backdrop of the War and Jews in Europe, which is finally acknowledged. So it all basically comes right in the end but the whole book was just kind of awkward and uncomfortable for me. I cannot imagine how this translates to a film, but it's available for rent on Amazon for only $3 so I might give it a try, though I honestly don't see Bette Davis as Fanny. 

So, not among my favorites of her novels, but I still have three left on the shelves unread -- The Caravaners, Vera, and The Jasmine Farm. I'm really hoping I like those better. 

I'm counting this as my Classic by a Woman Author for the Back to the Classics Challenge. 

#1920 Club: In the Mountains by Elizabeth von Arnim

I always love when Simon and Kaggsy host one of their year-themed reading clubs -- it's so interesting to see the range of different books published in a given year. This round they've gone for the centenary celebration of 1920. It was tougher than I thought to find a book I hadn't read, but I realized that In the Mountains, one of Elizabeth von Arnim lesser-known works, was published that year. It's really a novella, though it's out of print in English it's available online through Gutenberg.org and iBooks.

Set in 1919, this epistolary novel is the diary of an anonymous Englishwoman who has returned to her summer home in the Swiss Alps, after an absence of five years due to WWI. She retreats to her cozy home to rest and recuperate after the trauma of the war. She is trying to get back to some sense of normalcy and in the beginning she does little more than sit and contemplate. She does have two servants, Antoine and Mrs. Antoine, a caretaker and housekeeper. Some of the most amusing bits are the narrator dealing with the minutia of life. There's a part about Antoine's acquisition of livestock which I really enjoyed. 

Out of print in English, but I love the cover of this Italian edition.

The silence and solitude is therapeutic for the narrator but after a while she longs for human contact, and I found this passage to be particularly timely:

I suppose, however, for most people complete freedom is too lonely a thing, therefore the absence should only be just long enough to make room for one to see clear again. Just a little withdrawal every now and then, just a little, so as to get a good view once more of those dear qualities we first loved, so as to be able to see that they're still there, still shining. (August 4)

Eventually, the author has some random house guests, two English sisters she who literally stumble their way into her yard, looking for a pension, and quite quickly, she invites them to stay. I liked this as it reminded me a bit of the four women sharing the villa in Enchanted April. I didn't expect it, but this book had quite a few parallels with the self-distancing we're all experiencing:

Yet the days are packed. Mine, at any rate, are. Packed tight with an immense monotony.

Every day we do exactly the same things: breakfast, read aloud; lunch, read aloud; tea, go for a walk; supper, read aloud; exhaustion; bed. How quick and short it is to write down, and how endless to live. At meals we talk, and on the walk we talk, or rather we say things. At meals the things we say are about food, and on the walk they are about mountains. The rest of the time we don't talk, because of the reading aloud. That fills up every gap; that muzzles all conversation. (August 25)

(This is essentially my life right now, except we don't read aloud, we're reading silently or watching TV. Or on our phones, sadly).

The sisters, two widows named Mrs. Barnes and Mrs. Jewks, then become the focus of the novel. Mrs. Barnes, the elder, is very buttoned-up about their family history and situation so close to the end of the war, and I could see parallels with some of the current racism in our country. But the best part of the novel was the witty dialogue and lovely descriptions of life in the Alps. I did get to visit the Alps when I was in Germany, once on a day trip to Interlaken, and another on a trip to Innsbruck, Austria. I didn't actually visit any chalets but the scenery was stunning. 

Near Wengen, Switzerland

View from the top of Grindelwald in the Swiss Alps 

After a bit of a slow start, I really enjoyed this novel and finished most of it in one sitting. It really picked up after Mrs. Barnes and Mrs. Jewks arrived, and though it doesn't quite have the charm of The Enchanted April, I could see hints of that book which was published only two years later. My only quibble with In the Mountains is that we never really learn that much about the narrator -- aside from never learning her name, we know very little about her family history, her life, or what happened to her in the war. We learn about one significant wartime loss, but that's it. What was her role in the war? Did she lose a husband or sweetheart? She never says. I wonder if she is supposed to represent an everywoman, or that the she is so neutral so that the reader can more easily identify with her. In the Mountains is considered one of von Arnim's lesser novels but I'm very glad I read it. Thanks to again to Simon and Kaggsy for hosting this event, I'm looking forward to the next one!

I'm counting this as my Classic with Nature in the Title for the Back to the Classics Challenge, and as my book set in Switzerland for the European Reading Challenge. 

Father by Elizabeth von Arnim

The Italian cover. Great photo, but wrong era, it's off by about 50 years.

"There came a moment, she imagined, in the lives of most unmarried daughters, and perhaps in other people's too, when they must either bolt or go permanently under." 

It's funny how some authors are so strongly identified by a single work, when they often have lots of other books which are largely ignored. I feel like Elizabeth von Arnim is one of those authors.  She's so well know for her delightful novel Enchanted April, yet so many of her other books are hardly discussed and mostly out of print.

Author Elizabeth von Arnim

One of those novels is Father, published in 1931. It's sadly fallen out of print, like many of her novels (except in Italian -- most of her books seem to be in print int Italy -- because of Enchanted April ? Of course I'm only guessing.)

Anyway, I've now read nine of her books and Father is near the top of my rankings, by far one of my favorites. Set between the wars, it's the story of Jennifer Dodge, the thirty-three year old spinster daughter of a famous writer. On her mother's deathbed some 12 years before, Jennifer promises to look after her father. Inevitably, she give up her youth and possibilities of any of her own hopes and dreams, devoting herself to Father so that his work is not disturbed.

The only image I could find of an English-language edition

All this changes when Father comes home one day and announces that he has remarried -- to Netta, a nineteen-year-old beauty, a girl young enough to be his granddaughter. Naturally, Jennifer is stunned -- then elated! With a new wife, surely she will be in the way? Now she can escape and have a chance at her own life. Though her father never paid her a cent for her hard work, Jennifer has a tiny income of her from her late mother, and decides to find a tiny cottage where she can garden and live happily in the country.

Minnie, the cook, suggests her home county of Sussex, and Minnie's copy of the local church paper provides two possibilities. After has Father whisked Netta off on a Norwegian honeymoon, Jennifer gets on a train to explore two cottages owned by neighboring vicarages. The first attempt is a disaster, and at the second, the spinster sister of the vicar agrees to rent Rose Cottage to Jennifer, simply out of spite to her brother, with whom she's just had a tiff.

Great cover, but it doesn't represent the characters AT ALL.
These people are far too glamorous and sophisticated.

Alice Ollier, the vicar's sister, quickly regrets her decision when it occurs to her that is distinctly possible that her brother James might fall in love with Jennifer! There's almost a bit of screwball comedy involved as Jennifer begins to settle into Rose Cottage and Alice attempts to thwart her. What would happen to 40ish Alice if James brings home a bride? Meanwhile, Jennifer's idea of a peaceful existence is frustrated by the sudden appearance of the child bride Netta -- apparently there's trouble in paradise. Jennifer's father is also none too pleased at her decision to -- gasp -- want a life of her own! The nerve!

Parts of this are quite funny, but there's an undercurrent of sadness in this novel, as it's mostly centered on men's expectations of the women in their lives, and people trying to manipulate one another. The character of the father in particular made me want to jump into the book and throttle him -- I have rarely read such a well-drawn, frustrating character. He is absolutely self-centered and self-absorbed. And I wanted to give Alice a good talking-to as well.

A French-language edition.
She looks like a dutiful daughter, but about 20 years too early.
This is clearly Edwardian.

I chose this book off my stack because I thought the title would make it a perfect fit for the Classic About a Family category in the Back to the Classics Challenge. It didn't turn out to be quite what I expected -- it is about families, but it's just as much as about the Olliers as it is the Dodges. I hope I'm not giving the impression that I didn't like this novel, because I really liked it, and it will probably be one of my top reads of the year.

I'm counting this as my Classic About a Family for the Back to the Classics Challenge. 

Christopher and Columbus by Elizabeth von Arnim: One Book Down, 99 to Go

Halfway through the first month of 2018, and I have completed exactly two books. That's it. If I plan on completing my goal of 100 books this year, I need to get cracking.

In my defense, I was traveling for a week right after Christmas (will post photos soon), and we had a houseguest for another week, which included more travel (day trips to Trier, Luxembourg, and Strasbourg). But now the weather is cold and windy, and it's a good time to hide in my burrow and read those stacks of books.

So. My first book of 2018 was Christopher and Columbus, a rather oddly titled humorous novel by Elizabeth von Arnim. It was the first book on my 2018 TBR Pile Challenge list, so that was a good place to start. And though it is a charming book, the only explorers are in the metaphorical sense.

Published in 1919, Christopher and Columbus is the story of 17-year-old twin sisters, Anna-Rose and Anna-Felicitas. It's set in the early part of WWI, and the twins, orphaned, half German and half English, are living rather uncomfortably in England with an aunt who loves them and an uncle who does not, in a town where the presence of anything remotely German is suspect. Though their mother was very English and they mostly grew up in England, they look German, sound German (a great many mentions of their inability to lose the German "R"); and have a German last name -- von Twinkler.

Not surprisingly, the unhappy uncle by marriage decides that the anti-German sentiment is too high, and the twins must go. He packs them off to America, which has not yet entered the war, with 200 pounds and letters of introduction to friends in Boston and California. On board ship, though they are traveling second-class, Anna-Rose and Anna-Felicitas find a savior and protector during a ship's emergency -- Mr. Twist, a thirtysomething bachelor without much hair but with lots of money. This sounds like it could become sordid very quickly, but in fact, Mr. Edward Twist is a kind and noble soul. Though he made pots of money inventing a dripless teapot, he is taking a break from driving an ambulance for the war effort, returning to America to visit his widowed mother.

Elizabeth von Arnim. Not Mr. Twist's mother.

Mr. Twist notices their vulnerability and takes the twins under his wing. He keeps a close eye on them the remainder of the trip, and tries to escort them to their new home in America. Things don't turn out as planned, and naturally the twins turn to him for help in an unfamiliar country. I wish I could say hilarity ensues, but not really. It's mostly charming and gently funny, but there's always an undercurrent of how vulnerable these girls are, how much anti-German prejudice exists, and obviously, the possibility that this tale could quickly become rather sordid. Indeed, many times there are hints and allegations that Mr. Twist is up to no good -- by other characters, not by the author (the only exception is Mrs. Twist, his manipulative mother, who decides that it is the twins that are up to no good. This is resolved in one of the book's most satisfying scenes).

Overall, I enjoyed this book, though I did find the twins a little twee. They didn't seem to have much character development other than their fondness for each other, and for their beautiful golden ringlets. Yes, it's the nineteen teens, but these girls felt more like 12 year olds than 17 year olds. Plus, there is the underlying ick factor of these 17 year old girls -- Mr. Twist may have had the noblest of intentions, but there are other men in the book who clearly do not. There's also some racism regarding people of color they meet along the way, all of whom are in service positions, particularly a Chinese cook. The book does make some very good points about the anti-German sentiment which is not as surprising given the anti-immigrant feeling in the world today.

Of course, everything turns out all right in the end. I've now read six of von Arnim's works, and would rate this about the middle of the pack. If you are a fan, you will probably enjoy this book, but I don't know if I'd recommend it as a first read if you've never read her before.

The Pastor's Wife by Elizabeth von Arnim

Another beautiful Virago cover.
I thought it was Seurat but it's actually "La Couseuse" by Theo van Rysselberghe.

The other day I was looking for audiobooks set in other countries that I could download for the European Reading Challenge, and I came across one of my all-time favorites, The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim. I definitely want to read it again (or listen) but it occurred to me that Elizabeth von Arnim spent much of her life in Germany and set many of her books there, and that I could choose one of those toward both the European Reading Challenge. Also, many of them are available for free digital download -- another win-win!

I downloaded three or four of her books, and randomly chose The Pastor's Wife, published in 1914. Here's the setup: young Ingeborg Bullivant, aged 22, is alone in London, sent by her family to visit the dentist. Her father, a rather overbearing bishop, has given her ten pounds and insisted she has a bad tooth dealt with; Ingeborg has been miserable for days and unable to help her father. Though taken for granted at home, she is an indispensable, unpaid secretary for her father, chaperone for her beautiful young sister, and basically does everything for her mother, who doesn't seem to get up off the couch much.

The dentist solves Ingeborg's problem at once and all of a sudden she's alone in London (supposedly chaperoned by an aunt) with 10 pounds burning a hole in her pocket. On a whim, she signs up for a week's vacation tour to Lucerne, Switzerland, where she meets Robert Dremmel, the pastor of a rural German church. He promptly falls in love with her and after an unconventional proposal, they are engaged -- honestly, I think she's just too polite to turn him down. To the dismay of her family, she marries this unsuitable German and leaves home, where her new husband benignly ignores her and is obsessed with improving the soil for the local farmers. She really only gets his attention when she's producing babies. After several years of this stifling life, Ingeborg meets a visiting artist who is quite taken with her and tries to tempt her into running away with him to Italy.

I really enjoyed this book but parts of it were much darker than I expected. Some of the situations are quite funny and others are incredibly heartbreaking. All the men in Ingeborg's life take her for granted and assume they know what's best for her -- they think of Ingeborg only as how she can be useful to them, and not one iota of what she wants and needs. Von Arnim also had quite a bit to say about women and pregnancies in the Edwardian era -- there's a lot of discussion about procreation that I wasn't expecting. I would not be surprised if it wasn't rather shocking for the time period (much like my previous read, The Wreath by Sigrid Undset).

One thing I didn't like about this book was how naive Ingeborg was. I realize that she had a very sheltered upbringing as a bishop's daughter, and was then stuck in a small town as a pastor's wife, but she read books and newspapers, and would had some idea about the morals of the time. And the way the men in this book treated Ingeborg made me want to throw the book across the room.

I've now read three of Von Arnim's works of fiction, and I've noticed a recurring theme of women who are breaking the boundaries of conventions. In Love, the main character shocks everyone by having a love affair with a man young enough to be her son; in The Enchanted April, the four women break free and go off by themselves to rent an Italian villa for a month (not so shocking, really, but pretty gutsy for the time). Elizabeth Von Arnim was actually married to a German aristocrat and had a rather unhappy marriage. I don't know many details of her life but I do know some of her early works are semi-autobiographical and I wouldn't be surprised if Herr Dremmel was loosely based on her own husband.

I'm counting this as my German read for the European Reading Challenge.