Elizabeth and her German Garden

By Elizabeth Von Arnim


I read this when I was a kid and am rereading it online - free. I LOVE this book. Anyone else read it and loved (or hated) it?
Mobi

Do you have a link to it? I wonder if it's available for MS Reader download at the University of Virginia Library...

Actually, it's available on a couple of different web sites:
I am reading it on this link
http://vonarnim.thefreelibrary.com/
or here
http://www.web-books.com/Classics/Nonfiction/Biography/Elizabeth/ElizabethP1.htm

but you can download it herehttp://www.web-books.com/Classics/Nonfiction/Biography/Elizabeth/Home.htm



This is a biography and I found it very charming, but others might find it dull by today's standards. This was the first book that really got me hooked on gardening and what a garden could mean.
Hope you like it,
Mobi

I have an ancient copy and LOVE it. Thanks for sharing!

Thanks for sharing, I have it marked as a favorite and plan to read it all.

Since it was a classic and free, I copied the pages into Word and formatted them into an eBook readable on the MS Reader (.lit format). If anyone's interested in a copy, e-mail me and I will send it to you as an attachment. That way you can read it offline or on a pocket PC if you'd like. :)

GW, I would love it. you have mail

Kim, please send it to me. I would love reading it.

Gardenwife, please inlcude me.

Thanks in advance!

tiG and Ellen - got yours out. Ursula, please write me via DG so I can have your e-mail address to reply to. Attachments cannot be sent through DG. Thanks! :)

Thanks so much Kim. I can't wait to start reading it.

Mobi, thank you so much for that link. I am reading this book now and looked over their other classics as well. There is some great reading to be had at that link!

Thanks from me, too, Mobi. It's a charming story and I'm enjoying it immensely!

I would love to have met her - what a character! I laughed aloud at her description of her poor, unhappy gardener and at how she snuck out to dig a hole herself, but rushed in to "languish" behind a book so no one would know what she'd done. What a riot she must have been.

Wouldn't she have loved Dave's Garden? Here she was, in a foreign country, isolated and forced into a role she despised, with no one to share her love of gardening with. Just think of what a boon the web would have been to someone in her situation!

LOL GW do you think " The Man of Wrath" would have had a problem with her joining us?

Probably!

I love how she calls him the Man of Wrath. And how she is making all kinds of mistakes, just like me!
Mobi

...And how she rationalizes, "The people round about are persuaded that I am, to put it as kindly as possible, exceedingly eccentric, for the news has travelled that I spend the day out of doors with a book, and that no mortal eye has ever yet seen me sew or cook. But why cook when you can get some one to cook for you? And as for sewing, the maids will hem the sheets better and quicker than I could, and all forms of needlework of the fancy order are inventions of the evil one for keeping the foolish from applying their heart to wisdom."

Love that woman!

GW,I must admit that that is the passage that caught my attention and drew me into reading more about this rebellious and intriguing personality. It made here instantly recognizable as a very thought provoking personality and someone whom I would enjoy having as a friend.

Yes! Oh, that we had maids and cooks, huh?

Instead of maids I tend to take the Erma Bombeck approach to house work ... do not write in the dust and it is less noticable .... and for cooking there is take out and eating out in addition to frozen or canned ... AND The Man of Wrath in my household better know how to do laundry or at least how to get it to the Fluff and Fold all of which are modern versions of the servants of old. But our version does not gossip or pry when our spend the days in the garden and dig our own hole for a plant ;~)

They don't pry because their afraid we will make them do it!
One thing I find interesting in this book is that while Elizabeth may be high minded and more modern in her thinking, she still is a prisoner of her class. i.e. not being able to dig in her garden, and is not truly respected by men or women in her class. Thus she is in a gilded cage.
She cannot go on her own, she depends upon her husband, who she never tells us she loves and I rather get the notion she prefers him gone. At times she comes across as superior not realizing she is in the same boat - just in a little nicer section.

I'm afraid I WOULD be the maid or cook.
Mobi

I haven't had time to read past the first chapter but she does indeed seem to wish her Husband would stay away and that she is all too aware of the restrictions upon her freedom that socity demands of a woman of her position or class. But she flails against those barriers with humor and wit. She was ahead of her time but still bound to it and by it.

We like to think of ourselves as enlightened and free but we to must conform to society. Some do it meekly and happily and others draw lines in the sand and will only conform to their set point.

Hers may have been an arranged marriage or a marriage of convienience. This sounds awful to us who think marriage must be based upon a romantic love but was common in the past and still takes place in parts of the world.

How many women have you known that have stayed in a marriage for financial reasons, or for the sake of their children, or because their religious beliefs teach them that it would be a sin against God to leave. Are these women any less caged? Some cages are furnished better than others but a cage is a cage.

I agree and well put. I know more than a few women in marriages for those reasons. I conform to some customs, grudgingly, and others I will not. I am also quite sure had I been born in a different part of the world, my life would have been mapped out for me due to my gender.

I believe that Elizabeth Von Arnim was Australian and married a German count. She made a very good marriage. I doubt if love had anything to do with it. Parts of her life I am very drawn to and parts I could never stand. I do like that she tries very hard to prioritize her life to her needs as well as her family. Later on in the book she talks of going over seed catalogers when she should be attending her house. I have done that very thing!

Her garden is her refuge and her fantasy. She dreams about being alone and unfettered by her responsibilities. Trying to reduce the complications in her life. Goodness, I do the same thing.

I think that most gardeners are drawn to the garden for the separation from the other parts of our lives. I sometimes find myself wishing my husband shared my love of it but at other times feel glad that he does not and that it is a place of my own.

The garden is my retreat and solitude, my peaceful place and my place for contemplation and reflection. It helps satisfy my desire to nurture and to create. It is part artistic expression and part meditation. It is nice to share it with others for short spells but when the visitor leaves it is mine alone and I am happy there.

I enjoy seeing other peoples gardens and can enjoy communing with nature in the wilds but in MY Garden I am wrapped in a cocoon that is custom made by my own design and no other place can compete with that feeling.

edited for careless spelling



This message was edited Jan 14, 2004 1:44 AM