Elizabeth and Her German Garden

Book: Elizabeth and Her German Garden by Elizabeth Von Arnim
Finished: March, 2009
Pages: 250
Challenges:
** 18th & 19th Century Women Authors Challenge
** New Author Challenge
** Read and Review Challenge
** Read Your Name Challenge
** Themed Reading Challenge
** 20 in 2009
** Victorian Challenge
** Winter Reading Challenge

First Sentence: "May 7th--I love my garden."

Last Sentence: " I do sincerely trust that the benediction that is always awaiting me in my garden may by degrees be more deserved, and that I may grow in grace, and patience and cheerfulness, just like the happy flowers I so much love."

Synopsis (from Barnes and Noble)

Elizabeth and Her German Garden was the first book published by author Elizabeth Von Arnim. Originally published in 1898, the semi-autobiographical novel written about a rural idyll became a highly successful book which was subsequently reprinted twenty-one times within its first year. This witty and sacrcastic novel has kept the attention of readers for over a century, and once you read this title for the first time, you will be unable to stop rereading it for many years to come.

This was delightful. The author offers up doses of wit and sarcasm as she exposes her observations of human nature as well as sharing her love of her beautiful garden with the reader.

Quotes:

(written on September 15th): "There is a feeling about this month that reminds me of March and the early days of April, when spring is still hesitating on the threshold and the garden holds its breath in expectation."

(frustration at as a woman being prohibited from actually doing the physical labor of gardening and being forced to hire a gardener) : " 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."

The Awakening

Book: The Awakening by Kate Chopin
Finished: February 2009
Pages: 180
Challenges:
** A-Z Challenge
** 18th & 19th Women Authors
** Read and Review
** 20 in 2009
** New Author
** Winter Reading
** Victorian Challenge
** Themed Reading Challenge

First Sentence: " A green and yellow parrot, which hung in a cage outside the door, kept repeating over and over: Allez vous-en! Sapristi! That's all right!"

Last Sentence: " There was the hum of bees, and the musky odor of pinks filled the air."

This is a classic, first published in 1899. It is considered a precursor to the modern feminist movement. Edna, our married protagonist, feels herself falling in love with a young man not her husband while she and her family summer vacation at a small seaside resort. She senses he has awakened in her new feelings and thoughts she has never discovered about herself before. When she returns home she proceeds to re-discover herself by systematically walking away from the trapping of her adult life: her social position, motherhood and her role as a wife, by moving herself to a small little cottage. After being away for several months, her young lover makes an appearance back into her life, only he is not able to come to terms with her new found freedom and seems to be caught in all the traditions found in "polite" society. Unable to commit to Edna, she becomes hopeless.

Definitely not a cheery little book. But a book which takes us back to the days when women were still considered property and tools to help bring more success to the husband. There were no choices for a woman to make in society and if one did not fit into the "box" society created for women, they would naturally be left to lead a life of frustration and hopelessness.


A quote from page 259:

"It sometimes entered Mr. Pontellier's (the husband) mind to wonder if his wife were not growing a little unbalanced mentally. He could see plainly that she was not herself. That is, he could not see that she was becoming herself and daily casting aside that fictitious self which we assume like a garment with which to appear before the world."

From Wikipedia:
Immediately after its publication, reviewers frequently denounced the "unwholesome" content of this book, while simultaneously acknowledging that the writing style was outstanding. It was also condemned due to its sexual openness. The harsh reaction to the book probably was the determining factor in the publisher's decision to stop publication after only a single printing.

After its "rediscovery" in 1969, the book has been often praised for its treatment of women's issues, and for its lyrical style.

Cranford

Book: Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell
Pages: 212
Finished: May,2009
Challenges:
** 18 & 19th Century Women Writers
** Victorian Challenge
** Casual Classics
** Spring Reading Thing
** tbr
** Read and Review
** New Author
** Themed Reading

First sentence: "In the first place, Cranford is in the possession of the Amazons; all the holders of houses, above a certain rent, are women."

Summary from Amazon:
Novel by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell, published serially in Charles Dickens' magazine Household Words from 1851 to 1853 and in book form in 1853. Basing her tales on the village in which she was reared, Gaskell produced a gently comic picture of life and manners in an English country village during the 1830s. The novel's narrator (a young woman who periodically visits Cranford) describes the small adventures in the lives of two middle-aged sisters in reduced circumstances who do their best to maintain their standards of propriety, decency, and kindness. Using an intimate, gossipy voice that never turns sentimental, Gaskell conveys the old-fashioned habits, subtle class distinctions, and genteel poverty of the townspeople. Cranford quickly became one of the author's best-loved works.

"Cranford is a charming imaginary town filled with chatty females, most of them old spinsters, gossip and nostalgia, loves unfulfilled and remembered, and loves that find a place and a home at last."

My Thoughts:
I am not normally a great lover of classics---actually, when I manage to read them I find that I enjoy them. It is just that the act of reading them can be a chore at times. I am a lazy reader in that I don't like to have to look something up which I don't understand--in the middle of reading! That said, I tend to shy away from tackling this genre more often.
Cranford! Ah Cranford! What a genteel and slow paced life is led in Cranford. I found the story delightful and the characters, (largely comprised of spinsters and widows) to be delightful in their own quirky ways also. Miss Matty is the most sweet of them all, and it is no wonder that everyone in Cranford loves her so and rallies to support her in her hour of need. Although men are noticeably quite absent throughout most of the book, the topic of the vulgarity of men occurs amongst the ladies of Cranford. Men and marriage do find their way into the novel-and what kind gentlemen they are!

This is not a plot driven novel, but rather a character driven novel as we are transported back to a simpler time--proper behavior is expected and observed down to the very details of when it is proper to call on one another and what style of clothing to wear during that calling time. Gossip abounds, as well as sweet time spent reminiscing as we come to understand these old ladies through the remembrances of their youth.

Passage that made me laugh:

"My next visit to Cranford was in the summer. There had been neither births, deaths, nor marriages since I was there last. Everybody lived in the same house, and wore pretty nearly the same well-preserved, old-fashioned clothes. The greatest event was that the Miss Jenkynses had purchased a new carpet for the drawing-room. Oh the busy work Miss Matty and I had in chasing the sunbeams, as they fell in an afternoon right down on this carpet through the blindless window! We spread newspapers over the places, and sat down to our book or our work; and , lo! in a quarter of an hour the sun had moved, and was blazing away on a fresh spot; and down again we went on our knees to alter the position of the newspapers. We were very busy , too, one whole morning, before Miss Jenkyns gave her party, in following her directions, and in cutting out and stitching together pieces of newspaper, so as to form little paths to every chair, set for the expected visitors, lest their shoes might dirty or defile the purity of the carpet. Do you make paper paths for every guest to walk upon in London."


Twelve years after publishing Cranford, Gaskell has kind words for her most prolific work. "It is the only one of my books that I can read again; but whenever I am ailing or ill, I take Cranford and - I was going to say, enjoy it! (but that would not be pretty!) laugh over it afresh!"


Here is a great little biography of Elizabeth Gaskell.