ralentina reviewed The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim
An interwar Eat Pray Love
4 stars
Four British women, each miserable in her own way, rent an Italian castle together. They don't know each other, don't particularly like each other, and are only motivated by the desire to leave behind the rain and their husbands / suitors. Ms Wilkins is a young housewife, married to a stingy man, who often loses the thread and cannot filter her thoughts. Ms Arbuthnot is a religious woman who feels abandoned by her husband, and seeks refuge in her pious work. Lady Caroline is a young aristocrat, so beautiful that men cannot help fall in love, to her great frustration. Mrs. Fisher is an elderly woman who lives stuck in her memories, preferring the company of dead intellectuals and politicians she met in the past to that of any living person. The Italian sun transforms all of them, but the undeniable cheesiness is only kept at bay by the author's …
Four British women, each miserable in her own way, rent an Italian castle together. They don't know each other, don't particularly like each other, and are only motivated by the desire to leave behind the rain and their husbands / suitors. Ms Wilkins is a young housewife, married to a stingy man, who often loses the thread and cannot filter her thoughts. Ms Arbuthnot is a religious woman who feels abandoned by her husband, and seeks refuge in her pious work. Lady Caroline is a young aristocrat, so beautiful that men cannot help fall in love, to her great frustration. Mrs. Fisher is an elderly woman who lives stuck in her memories, preferring the company of dead intellectuals and politicians she met in the past to that of any living person. The Italian sun transforms all of them, but the undeniable cheesiness is only kept at bay by the author's light sarcasm and humor.