.SOMETIMES RAW.

My great friend Ursula (movie-night soon!) recommended “The Enchanted April” by Elizabeth von Arnim and I have to say that it was a delightful little story that I highly recommend.

What the book is all about:

Four women, previously unknown to one another, leave a dreary winter in England behind to take a one-month April holiday in a small, charming Italian castle after responding to an advertisement in a newspaper. The descriptions of the landscape are very lush and made me wish that I could make such an escape myself after a seemingly never-ending winter. 

“By the end of the week the fig-trees were giving shade, the plum-blossom was out among the olives, the modest weigelias appeared in their fresh pink clothes, and on the rocks sprawled masses of thick-leaved, star-shaped flowers, some vivid purple and some a clear, pale lemon.”

The novel is also sprinkled with humor throughout as the four very different personalities either bluntly clash with one another or surreptitiously try to avoid one or another of the group. I often found myself smiling at some of their little antics and remarks. Each woman begins with her own struggle, discontent, and preconceived notions of what is expected of her as a female member of society.

Lotty Wilkins and Rose Arbuthnot lived a life of relative obscurity in the Hampstead section of London. Both were virtually ignored by their husbands and had the longing to get away from it all. One day, Lotty Wilkins noticed an advertisement in The Times to rent an Italian villa named San Salvatore in April for 60 pounds. Mesmerized by the idea she recruits Arbuthnot to join her. Later, the women ask Lady Caroline Dester and a Mrs Fisher to join them as well, making the pair into a foursome, and, more importantly, making the castle rental into an affordable getaway. 

Even though Wilkins and Arbuthnot made the initial arrangements, Mrs Fisher and Lady Caroline shrewdly arrive at the castle first to claim the better rooms for themselves. The latter two women enjoy a higher standard of living than the former and want to ensure that they have an enjoyable holiday. Almost instantaneously, San Salvatore works its magic on all four women. An air of happiness overtakes them and rather than being bitter with their station in life, they talk of love being in the air. Wilkins and Arbuthnot originally came to the castle to get away from their husbands, but within a week, both women write their husbands asking them to join them in this enchanting setting. 

Within the month, all four women are the best of friends, although this takes time, especially with Mrs Fisher. Mrs Fisher, the elderly widow, leaves England for Italy with the notion that “Hardly anything was really worthwhile, except the past… She had not come away from these friends (in London), these conversable ripe friends, in order to spend her time in Italy chatting with three persons of another generation and defective experience; she had come away merely to avoid the treacheries of a London April.”

And finally, the beautiful, unattached Lady Caroline, never without a suitor to her own exasperation, believes “Worse than jokes in the morning did she hate the idea of husbands.”She wishes to be left completely alone and yet she seems to attract everyone to her, and her coldness and biting remarks towards others go unnoticed due to her overwhelming beauty. “People were exactly like flies. She wished there were nets for keeping them off too. She hit at them with words and frowns, and like the fly they slipped between her blows and were untouched.”

Ultimately, no one is immune to the enchantments of Italy and companionship and each undergoes their own individual transformations. They learn the value of friendship and that “Beauty made you love, and love made you beautiful.”

I thought the writing was basic yet descriptive and the plot to be straightforward with few twists and turns along the way. Von Arnim was writing from personal experience and recreated the Portofino castello where she enjoyed a monthlong holiday. This book was originally published within a year of her excursion, so the memories were fresh, especially the descriptions of the sea air and ever changing flowers. These amazing descriptions of time and place ended up working for me much better than the plot developments. I felt it was a breath of fresh air and a great reminder that a little respite and new acquaintances can help immensely to renew a dampened spirit.

I read a bit about the author Elizabeth von Arnim who strikes me as an interesting person. A writer brought up in influential circles, she married no less than five times in her life, and also enjoyed an affair with writer H.G. Wells after he ended his own affair with Von Arnim’s rival Rebecca West. When one of von Arnim’s disastrous marriages ended in 1921, she decided to spend a month at Italian castello Portofino as a way to clear her head. The idea for The Enchanted April has been born.

*Because it is all fun and games until you are in a bathroom stall.

You step inside the bathroom and shut the door.

You lock the door.

Get a good look at yourself in the dim lighting. You look great. Remember this because you’re about to look more vulnerable than a baby antelope at the watering hole during lion lunch hour.

Unsnap (why are there always snaps?) the top two snaps. Then, re-snap them.

You go back to the door. Double-check to make sure that it is locked. Jiggle the handle. Shake it.

Once you’re sure it’s locked, unsnap all the snaps and zipper (there’s always a zipper too), and slide your arms out of the sleeves. Unpeel yourself, you big, stupid banana.

Look down at your chest: you’re either wearing the bra you’ve had for too long and that you tell people you wash, but you’ve never washed it, because you’re worried it’ll lose some of the comfort it brings you. Or you’re completely naked. There is no in-between.

Hold the top of the jumpsuit under the back of your thighs so that it’s not touching the floor (gross) and also not touching the toilet (gross). This will be difficult but necessary.

You forgot to build a “toilet seat nest” to sit on. Build it now while holding the jumpsuit.

Bend your legs and assume a sitting position. You are ready.

As you are peeing, cold and alone, you consider the history of your choice: you’re wearing a garment originally designed by men for men to be worn in factories around dangerous machinery, by fighter pilots or people jumping out of planes or by specialized police and security units. But you think you look so damn cool with a jumpsuit or worse, romper (the shorter version), on. The jumpsuit you’re wearing tonight was purchased on Amazon with a gift card your mom gave you.

The door handle jiggles. You’ve never known fear until then. There is only one stall and the line outside is long. Pressure is on you. You start to sweat. Thinking straight is difficult at this point.

You say some combination of words to let the potential intruder know that the bathroom is occupied. Your voice is at a higher pitch than you’ve ever reached before.

You pee faster.

You reach for toilet paper while still managing not to let the jumpsuit fall to the ground. (gross!) You are so brave.

Somehow, the door opens, and someone (a man, damn these unisex bathrooms!) walks in. He backs out with apologies, but not before you make full eye contact. He has seen you. There’s nothing you can do or say. Everything will be different from now on.

You finish, jumpsuit yourself back up, wash your hands, and get back out there. You see him, the person who saw you. He is sitting at the bar with friends. He looks at you, smiles and waves you over. You blush but end up talking to him. He tells you he always wondered how women pee with a jumpsuit on. You are both telling the story of what just happened, and, for a moment, there is a sense of unity. The jumpsuit has made you one. Then you tell him a list off 33 things why life is easier if you have a penis. He laughs and you know he is a person with humor.

You keep drinking until, once again, it’s time. But he will guard the stall when you go in.

And now, one of my favorite topics: books. What are you reading these days? There is no shortage of amazing books right now and I am here for it. Both fiction and nonfiction, from hilarious to poignant, here’s what I have been reading…

Save Me the Plums by Ruth Reichl
Confession: I don’t care about food. Don’t get me wrong — I eat food, I make food. Sometimes, I’ll get unnaturally excited about a bucatini cacio e pepe. But I am not one of those people for whom reading about flavors and textures and ingredients holds any weight. That’s how good Ruth Reichl is: she’s a writer, who just so happens to focus on food. And anything she writes, I will read. Reichl’s latest memoir chronicles her time as the editor-in-chief of Gourmet, and covers everything from wavering over accepting the job to not knowing how a magazine works to worrying how to be a boss to the very real guilt of balancing career and parenthood. She approaches every subject in her frank, friend-who-tells-the-best-stories-and-keeps-no-secrets way. The result is compulsively readable, much like — sorry, can’t help myself — a dish you want to gobble up. If you like books by Stanley Tucci, go read Ruth Reichl.

Southern Lady Code by Helen Ellis
At first, I did not want to read Southern Lady Code. The cover was cute. It came recommended by people I trust. But I am not a Southern lady, and I feared the humor would be lost on me. I could not have been more wrong. Southern Lady code is “the technique by which, if you don’t have something nice to say, you say something not-so-nice in a nice way.” This essay collection had me howling — truly howling — with laughter. One evening while reading, my boyfriend put his book down to say, “WHAT are you laughing at?” which prompted me to read an entire chapter aloud. Ellis describes everything, from puzzles to airplane etiquette to riding the subway with a panty liner stuck to her back, in a way that is very, very funny. Run, don’t walk. 

The Farm by Joanne Ramos
Full disclosure: I just started The Farm last night, but you know those books that immediately draw you in and suddenly you can’t think of anything else? Joanne Ramos, formerly a staffer at the Economist, wrote this debut novel — a cracking, chilling but also human page-turner about Jane, a Filipino immigrant, who goes to “The Farm,” a retreat where for nine months, you get organic meals, daily massages and big money. The catch? You can’t leave the grounds, you’re constantly monitored and you’re cut off from your regular life, while you focus on producing the perfect baby — for someone else. If you liked The Handmaid’s Tale, I think you’ll love this book. Can’t wait to read it in bed tonight.

Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri
A few weeks ago, when I wrote about my newly discovered love of short stories, I was thrilled when people chimed in with favorite collections. The author that got the most shout-outs was Jhumpa Lahiri. Lahiri won a Pulitzer for her first book, Interpreter of Maladies, and a movie was made from her novel, The Namesake— but I decided to start with her 2009 collection Unaccustomed Earth. Like most of her writing, Lahiri focuses on the Bengali immigrant experience in America, zeroing in on themes of belonging, family and home. What is most impressive to me is there’s often nothing exceptional about the setting or person. But man… she gets it. A big thank you to those who recommended this beautiful book.

Normal People by Sally Rooney 
This is one of those novels that a) you don’t want to ever end b) when it ends, you can’t bring yourself to read anything new because you want to live in the story for as long as possible. Rooney, who is 28, broke onto the scene two years ago with her critically acclaimed (and wildly popular) Conversations with Friends. Her second book follows two Irish high school kids who hail from different worlds: Connell is working class and popular, Marianne is wealthy and weird. Once they head to Trinity College in Dublin, the ever-present tension of these basic truths informs their love story as it evolves from secret and sexual to deep and beautiful to intense and life-saving.

What are you reading right now? Have you read anything great lately? I’d love to hear…