The Enchanted April, Elizabeth von Arnim

Read by The Book Club April 2025

Notes by Helen Scott

Why not read ‘The Enchanted April’ in April I thought. Especially when a review said it was ‘unrelentingly positive’.

April is often a grey and drear month. It is clear that winter is passing but as the weather oscillates between sun and rain so we often oscillate between hope and despair – will the brighter weather ever come? Elizabeth von Arnim wrote ‘The Enchanted April’ shortly after leaving her second husband, Frank Russell (brother to Bertrand), returning to live in Switzerland and beginning an affair with Alexander Frere, who later became Chairman of Heinemann. Perhaps it was this romance, perhaps the beauty of Switzerland, which rubbed off on her writing and makes ‘The Enchanted April’ a novel which lifts you out of the gloom and reminds you that the world is not such a bad place after all, as it moves carefully from the cold winter’s gloom of London at the start to the bright, Italian spring garden at the end.

The story is of four women, strangers to each other at the start, who go to stay in an Italian Castle. It is very Oscar Wilde, commented one Book Clubber, throwing out lots of ideas and then carefully pulling them all back together again. Written in 1922 the story is very much of it’s time. The characters are well drawn, highlighting the subservient role of women and the behavioural differences according to their station in life. The First War and the Spanish Flu had just decimated the male population leaving many women wondering who was left to marry. Von Arnim draws the characters in pairs: one lonely, one wanting to get away from friends and family; one wealthy, one hard-up; one married, one not. With little in common they begin by calling each other ‘Mrs Wilkins, Mrs Arbuthnot, Lady Caroline’ but as the frost recedes so they move to Rose and Lotty and Scrap – although Mrs Fisher remains as Mrs Fisher, perhaps as a mark of respect to an older woman.

I tried to read this with a feminist hat on but it was really too delightful to try very hard. Perhaps I will go back to that. I was slightly irritated when Mr Wilkins turned up and immediately took over the financial and organisational reins, although as another Book Clubber pointed out that released the women to their own devices – getting lost in the Italian Hills or reading.

The garden – and ownership of the garden - is a strong theme in this book, drawn very evocatively. You can smell the roses and see the flowers as the garden comes into bloom. I wasn’t surprised to find that von Arnim’s first novel was ‘Elizabeth and her German Garden’ – and I have had several messages since Book Club from people who know and loved this book too.

Did we all enjoy it? All except Moira* and she was going to go away and give it another try. Another Book Clubber came in to see me after the meeting to tell me she had found it very irritating too. Ha well – the rest of us loved it. It gave us a moment of escape and lightness and that is a thing worth having.

We scored it as 8.5/10.

* I can say this without giving away identity as the majority of our Book Club are called ‘Moira’. I’m thinking of making it a condition of joining.