Oh, there is not another book maybe more appropriate for this beautiful sunny april. I know, we are in lockdown and times are hard, but let's look at all the beauty of our Italy: it is absolutely the best thing to do.
There is not anyone else like Britons or Americans in grade to do that. It's more simple for foreigners to be passionate, estimators of the beauty that there is in our country.
I was deciding what ebook to read when I noticed this free ebook that days ago Fazi Editori presented to all the readers closed in lockdown: Un Incantevole Aprile
Again the thematic of the travel, like the possibility of a renewal, mental and physical.
The holiday is lived again by the protagonists of this novel not like a superficial escapism, but like the rediscovery of the self and the most important priorities in the existence.
Mrs.Wilkins is a nice lady, she lives in Hampstead, but she is absolutely sad; she doesn't love her existence, she is not appreciated by her husband; no one would want to start a conversation with her; her opinions can't interest anyone; her husband is bored in her company.
One day, in a public place, reading The Times she notices a suggestive ad: someone was renting a castel in the riviera Ligure. Oh; Italy! What a dream being there, what a dream passing a month distant from this boring existence, from her husband, the attorney mr. Wilkins, and the rest of the people she knows.
While she was fantasizing, giving some physical shape at her dream, the arrival of Mrs. Arbuthnot. Once sat, she was reading the same ad, and she was rereading that ad. Mrs. Wilkins knew this lady, very appreciated; a lady who spent most of her time with poor people, alleviating their problems, their sufferances. She suggested her the trip together. They were too good and that was why they were so miserable, so unhappy, she added.
Although the big difference of social class, status, but also character of the two ladies, they decided to go on.
Not only they will receive an enthusiastic answer from mr.Briggs the owner of the italian castle but also, thanks to an ad the answer of two other ladies with which to share the expenses of the castle.
One of them, pretty old, Mrs. Fisher, was a lady who mainly lived in the past. Her past, all buried friends and connections, were great writers of the Victorian age, like Browning and Carlyle, just for naming two of them; the another one was a rich young girl, Lady Caroline.
All these ladies after all left their comfort zone for staying alone. Mrs Fisher at first wanted to stay isolated, she thought, in a sunny spot of Paradise; Lady Caroline was running away from married men who found her terribly beauty. She was tired of that predators.
Once arrived, they all enjoyed the dreaming land, the beautiful, relaxing, warm place; they started to appreciat food, sun, flowers, gardens, trees, the beautiful sea close to Genova, and the enchantment of a country, Italy, in grade to present to everyone a personal dream. This dream as mrs Wilkins noticed, once her soul was rinvigorated in spirit and body by light, sun, and a tremendously suggestive landscape and seascape, was the one of love. And this Paradise needed to be shared with loved ones.
I don't want to spoil too much of this classic of literature. Just some observations: Arnim picked up and centered the characters of all these women, giving to each of them a precious unicity; the book presents several hilarious moments, and psychologically is absolutely interesting; it presents to all of us a mirror of british society, their reserved characters, but also their possibility of an integration with other ones when they feel that they are in good company.
Then, of course, there is the castle of San Salvatore, with all its magnificence; I found absolutely beautiful the description of gardens, flowers, trees, created by the author.
Sometimes life become a grey land where nothing is anymore interesting. These four ladies fell a great frustration, and all of them needed a new re-start in some direction; it was for this reason that they decided to go all alone in a different corner of the world escaping away from their comfort zone. They were tired; tired of the appearances that they had to play, tired of absent husbands, tired of too many men without any consistency close to them, or just tired, without to know that, of their past.
This trip will be a profound discovery for all these women, with their cultural differences, with their different vision of the existence, and the end will be surprising, because they will leave San Salvatore having found what they were searching for, discovering that, maybe, they did not want exactly to escape from their grey existence in Hampstead or London, just they needed to re-connect their souls with themselves and their loved ones. Sometimes solitude, sometimes a new place, sunny, warm and friendly can give back a best version of the self and it is what happen to these protagonists.
Anna Maria Polidori
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