The Enchanted April discussion

One rainy February afternoon....

Just finished Chapter 4. I'm really enjoying this so far. It's made me giggle out loud several times. Traveling to Italy: "Mellersh at Calais, where they restored themselves with soles because of Mrs. Wilkins's desire to eat a sole Mellersh wasn't having—Mellersh at Calais had already begun to dwindle and seem less important. None of the French porters knew him; not a single official at Calais cared a fig for Mellersh."

I'm a couple of chapters in. I've not read this book before. Nor have I seen the film. I think I avoided both because I assumed that they would be a bit too chick-lit / chick-flicky - terms I really dislike, but I can't think of better ones at the moment - but in period costume. Not that I have anything against period costume. It's just that I prefer that sort of thing at the more serious end of the film / literary spectrum.

However, I'm enjoying the book. There's a lovely yearning quality to the characters I've encountered so far. And I'm looking forward to them being in Italy. I love Italy and I've been yearning for it a bit myself lately!

Yes, I agree, Kim. I've never read the book or seen the movie either, and I avoided both for the same reason you did. I'm finding this wonderfully insightful and amusing though. :D

I wasn't expecting the humor. I was surprised Mrs. A is not yet thirty-three, I pictured her more in her 50's based on her thoughts and description.

Loved this: 'Mrs. Wilkins, on the contrary, had no doubts. She was quite certain that it was a most proper thing to have a holiday, and altogether right and beautiful to spend one's own hard-collected savings on being happy' (p. 39). Hear, hear!

She may be easily flustered and often misunderstood, but Mrs. Wilkins has surprising inner strength. Approaching Mrs. Arbuthnot at the club like that took a great deal of courage.

By the way, the Kindle freebie has several typos, as someone pointed out in one of our feeds a while back. It's the sort of thing that drives the proofreader in me to distraction—I switched to a paperback from the library yesterday.

Thanks for the note on the Kindle freebie. It would drive me a little crazy too. I'm going to start with my print edition tonight and use my kindle edition as backup :)

Well, I'm already finished. :) Like Hana with Wives and Daughters, I just got sucked in. It was highly enjoyable for me, with a few interesting differences from the 1992 movie.

lol Tadiana! I'm just getting started, but I'm having those same sensations of wanting to race ahead to see what happens.

Having read Elizabeth and Her German Garden last year, I was expecting, or at least hoping for some of the same acerbic wit and deft characterization and I'm finding it again. But it's even more delightful this time because I'm sensing a compassion for her characters--what Kim describes so well as "a lovely yearning quality."

Diane Lynn, I was also taken aback at Mrs. A's age. Von Arnim has a way of dropping these little surprises into the story. When we first meet Mrs. A she is given to citing the vicar, whom I immediately assumed was her husband. Then in the second chapter I realized that was wrong and discovered, quiet shockingly, that her husband, and Mrs A's trial, is quite something else.

Even though I laughed, I don't at all like the sound of those "two rooms near the British Museum, which were the scenes of his exhumations, and there he went every morning, and he came back long after his wife was asleep." Hmmm....

Yes, Mrs. A has given some unexpected surprises already. I loved disccovering that her husband writes (I can't rememeber if it is before chapter 4 or not, so I'll put it in spoiler tags) (view spoiler)[books about mistresses! (hide spoiler)] They don't sound that trashy to me, but poor Mrs. A. and poor Frederick. I feel sorry for him too, even though it's fairly clear he is up to no good. I don't exactly blame him...

I have exactly the same conflicted sensibility about Mr. and Mrs. A. I'm wondering how on earth they ever got together!

Truthfully, Mr. A's books sound like the sort of thing I gobble up without shame for lunch, dinner and afters :D

I feel for both of them. It sounds like they started out with love, but they were pulled apart by his tawdry career choices and her use of religion as a shield and a sword.

Exactly! You put it so well.

Jaima wrote: "Yes, Mrs. A has given some unexpected surprises already. I loved disccovering that her husband writes (I can't rememeber if it is before chapter 4 or not, so I'll put it in spoiler tags) [spoilers ..."

LOL I love that her husband writes too. If only we could read one of his books. lol