208 pages
"Elizabeth von Arnim's novel tells the story of four dissimilar women in 1920s England who leave their damp and rainy environs to go on a holiday to a secluded coastal castle in Italy. Mrs Arbuthnot and Mrs Wilkins, who belong to the same ladies' club but have never spoken, become acquainted after reading an advertisement for villas for rent in a newspaper. They find some common ground in that both are struggling to make the best of unhappy marriages. Having decided to seek other ladies to help share expenses, they reluctantly take on the waspish, elderly Mrs Fisher and the stunning, but aloof, Lady Caroline Dester. The four women come together at the castle and find rejuvenation in the tranquil beauty of their surroundings, rediscovering hope and love." ~from Wikipedia
This is another delightful book by Elizabeth von Arim.
I loved it.
On the surface it is a bit "fluffy," but it also digs deeper into the roles and feelings of women in the 1920s.
Some of my favorite quotes:
"Heaven is in our home."
"It isn't," said Mrs. Wilkins, again surprisingly.
Mrs. Arbuthnot was taken aback.
Then she said gently,
"Oh, but it is. It is there if we choose, if we make it."
"I do choose, and I do make it, and it isn't," said Mrs. Wilkins ~Lotty & Rose
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She stared. Such beauty; and she there to see it. Such beauty; and she alive to feel it.
Her face was bathed in light. Lovely scents came up to the window and caressed her.
A tiny breeze gently lifted her hair.
Far out in the bay a cluster of almost motionless fishing boats hovered like a flock of white birds on the tranquil sea.
How beautiful, how beautiful.
Not to have died before this... to have been allowed to see, breathe, feel this....
She stared, her lips parted.
Happy? Poor, ordinary, every day word.
But what could one say, how could one describe it?
It was as though she could hardly stay inside herself, it was as though she were too small to hold so much joy,
it was as though she were washed through with light. ~Lotty
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For a long while she past she had been aware that her life was a noise, but it had seemed to be very much about
something.... but suppose it was only a noise about nothing? ~Caroline
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She wanted to be alone, but not lonely. That was very different; that was something that ached and hurt
dreadfully right inside one. It was what one dreaded most. ~Caroline
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Was it possible that loneliness had nothing to do with circumstances, but only with the way one met them?
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Kind ladies smiled, reason or no. They smiled, not because they were happy, but because they wished to
make happy,.
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The more he treated her as though she were really very nice, the more Lotty expanded and became really very nice.
and the more he, affected in his turn, became really very nice himself; so that they went round and round, not in a
vicious but in a highly virtuous cycle. ~Lotty & Mellersh
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It was true, she liked him most when he wasn't there, but then she usually liked everybody most when they weren't there.
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"Just a rather red, rather round man?" whispered Lotty. Scrap bowed her head.
"He isn't." whispered Lotty.
"Rose sees through all that. That's mere trimmings.
She sees what we can't see, because she loves him." ~Lotty & Caroline
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2010 total: 24
