Elizabeth and Her German Garden is a semi-autobiographical account of a year in the life of Elizabeth von Arnim in the garden of her house in Pomerania.  It is a book which is in equal parts an elegiac description of her physical surroundings and a keenly observed, wryly detached depiction of the people who inhabit that world with her, most of whom are apparently rather unwelcome.

At only 207 pages in the edition I read, and that with large type and larger margins, it is a short book but full of excellent content.  Whether she is discussing plants or people, von Arnim’s writing is a delight to read, and my copy of the book is littered with tiny bits of paper marking pages with particularly lovely passages.  Her musings on governesses are typical of her style which is both insightful and often amusing:

I wonder why governesses are so unpleasant.  The Man of Wrath says it is because they are not married.  Without venturing to differ entirely from the opinion of experience, I would add that the strain of continually having to set an example must surely be very great.  It is much easier, and often more pleasant, to be a warning than an example, and governesses are but women, and women are sometimes foolish, and when you want to be foolish it must be annoying to have to be wise. 

One of the things that struck me about this book was the faint air of sadness about it.  I think it came across particularly because of reading Perfume from Provence quite recently, which also has a section on the trials and tribulations of creating a beautiful European garden.  Whereas Winifred Fortescue’s happiness and enthusiasm burst from the page, Elizabeth appears to have a rather unhappy life and to be trying hard to create her own happiness along with her garden, although her attempts are often frustrated.  I initially thought that The Man of Wrath must be a teasing, affectionate name for her husband, but the more she spoke about him, the more apt the name seemed, while Winifred Fortescue and Monsieur are obviously perfectly matched and gloriously content together.  Had Perfume from Provence not been so fresh in my mind, this impression might not have come across so strongly, but as it is the tone felt slightly wistful.

I long more and more for a kindred spirit–it seems so greedy to have so much loveliness to oneself–but kindred spirits are so very, very rare; I might as well cry for the moon.  It is true that my garden is full of friends, only they are dumb.

In spite of this, Elizabeth and Her German Garden is not a sad or depressing book.  Von Arnim has a great sense of comedy and the book is filled with wit and charm.  Thankfully von Arnim seems to have been rather prolific, so I have plenty more of this to look forward to in her other novels.

Elizabeth and Her German Garden by Elizabeth von Arnim.  Published by Virago, 1995, pp. 207.  Originally published in 1898.

Title:

Author: Harry Bingham

Published: Harper, 2006, pp. 442.  Originally published 2006

Blurb: Misha is an aristocratic young officer in the army when the Russian revolution sweeps away all his certainties.  Tonya is a nurse from an impoverished family in St Petersburg.  They should have been bitter enemies; and yet they fall passionately in love.  It cannot last and, as the political situation grows ever worse, Misha is forced to flee the country.

Thirty years later, Misha has survived the war and seeks to rebuild his life in the destroyed city of Berlin.  Then, one snowy winter’s day, he glimpses a woman who resembles Tonya.  Can this be his lost love?  Drawn into a dangerous double game of espionage and betrayal, the two lovers struggle to find each other, as the divide deepens between East and West…

When, where and why: I have no idea when or why I bought this, but I’ve definitely had it for long enough to it to become book 31/50 for my (rather optimistic, given the date) Books Off the Shelf Challenge.  I decided to read it as one of the categories in the challenge in which I’m taking part on Goodreads was to read two books by different authors which shared a common word in the title.  After the success of The French Lieutenant’s Woman I decided that ‘lieutenant’ was my word and so this book came out of hibernation.

What I thought: Initially I found this book quite disappointing.  After reading Anna Karenina earlier this year I was looking forward to a return to Russia in this book, but Harry Bingham doesn’t do the landscape justice and the vocabulary and description never quite got there: it didn’t feellike Russia.  The story also starts off with a string of unbelieveable events, which doesn’t help matters: Misha, a former aristocrat, instantly trusts and takes into his confidence Tonya, a member of the working class, whose cousin is an important figure locally in the revolution and has just been round to seize more of his family’s belongings.  Sounds completely realistic to me.  Naturally, Misha and Tonya fall in love, but this is portrayed without any preamble or sense of development, so I wasn’t invested in their relationship in any way because it came out of the blue.

Fortunately, this section of the story is quite short and the narrative picks up a great deal once it relocates from revolutionary Russia to post-war Berlin.  I’ve read a lot of historical fiction books surrounding the Second World War but I think this is the first one which deals with the aftermath of the conflict rather than the fighting itself, so it was very interesting from that perspective.  This second part of the novel follows the separate lives of Misha and Tonya as they try to cope in the ruins of a city governed by four different armies (although only three, the British, the Americans and the Russians, are of any relevance to the book), never giving up hope of finding one another again.

I enjoyed the fact that, after such a swift romance in the initial stage of the novel, Harry Bingham doesn’t give Misha and Tonya an easy ride after this.  There are continuous near-misses as the two are almost reunited again only to be foiled by circumstance, and this allowed me to develop the interest in seeing their relationship succeed which was absent from the portion set in Russia.  I also liked Bingham’s decision to give both Misha and Tonya lives outside of their love for one another: I find novels where the characters fall in love instantly, are separated after a few months and then spend the rest of their lives waiting for one another deeply unrealistic, so I was happy that the book didn’t go down this route.  Instead, Misha and Tonya both marry and have families and, although these are naturally conveniently out of the way by the time the two lovers try to find one another again, I appreciated this nod to realism.

Sadly, I thought that this novel went full-circle: it had a bad beginning, a good middle and reverted to a bad ending.  I found the way that Bingham provided a brief historical outline of the rise and fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of separation between East and West Germany in the complete absence of any plot to be lazy.  It would have been netter if the lapsed time had been implied by a dated chapter heading, as in other places in the novel, or fleshed out so that these events seemed relevant to the characters.  Left as it was I thought it was a bit sloppy really.  It’s a shame this book was so let down by its introduction and conclusion.

Where this book goes: This one is staying put for now, but it’s a marked man now.  I have a collection of books tagged that I wouldn’t mind losing if I need to get rid of some prior to moving house, and The Lieutenant’s Lover is headed there.

Tea talk: In this book, Tonya’s cousin remarks to her: “The greatest empires of the world have always been tea-drinking.  The Chinese.  The Mughals.  The British, of course.  Now it’s our turn.  The rise of the Russian tea-drinking empire”.  What else could I drink in honour of the Russian tea-drinking empire but Russian Caravan?