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The Literary Life Podcast
Episode 272: Best of Series – “The Enchanted April” by Elizabeth von Arnim, Ch. 1-11
01:43:04
Welcome back to The Literary Life podcast with Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins and Thomas Banks. This week we are bringing you another episode from the vault, this time part one of our series on by Elizabeth von Arnim. Thomas gives some...
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- [00:01]
Angelina Stanford
Welcome to the Literary Life Podcast. We've grown quite significantly since our debut in 2019, and we've had many requests to highlight older episodes that new listeners may have missed, as well as revisit listener favorites. To honor that request, I present to you this episode of the Best of the Literary Life Podcast.
- [00:22]
Thomas Banks
This is not just another book chat podcast. Lifelong reader Cindy Rollins joins teachers Angelina Stanford and Thomas Banks for an ongoing conversation about the skill and art of reading. Well, explore the lost intellectual tradition and discover how to fully enter into the great works of literature. Learn what books mean while delighting in the sheer joy of imagination. Each week we will rescue story from the ivory tower and bring it to your couch, your kitchen and your commute. The Literary Life is for everyone because in the words of Stratford Caldecott, to be enchanted by story is to be granted a deeper insight into reality. Join us for an ever unfolding discussion of how stories will save the world. This is the Literary Life Podcast. Hello and welcome back to the Literary Life Podcast. We are returning after a short break from our very exciting and I must say successful Literary Life conference. We had our fourth annual one and so we just finished that up and now we are back with a three part series on a lovely book, the Enchanted April, which we are so excited to introduce you to today. So with me, I'm Angelina Stanford, and with me are my usual cohorts. I'm not going to say who of these four ladies I think each of you are, but I do want to assure people I am in no way married to either Merleursch or Frederick. So with me are the mysterious Mr. Banks and Cindy, the Farrah Fawcett of Charlotte Mason Rollins. Welcome, gang.
- [02:19]
Angelina Stanford
Good to be back. It's been too long.
- [02:22]
Cindy Rollins
It's very good to be back. Yes. I love this book. So this is fun.
- [02:27]
Thomas Banks
It is fun. And I. So it is a. This is really funny, but we did plan it this way. But God's been kind to actually give me my dream here. We are recording this today on an absolutely gorgeous April day. It had been kind of dreary in March here, and April has just been beautiful and a delight and dare I say, enchanted. Yes, I went there. I went there. So this, I just thought this was the perfect April read, especially with them mentioning Easter and the big Easter themes of this book. And here we are. You will be listening to this after Easter. We recorded it before Easter, but I just think it's the perfect book. And I'm so excited to talk about this with you guys today. But before we do that. Let's share some commonplace quotes. If you're new to the podcast, we. We like to start off each episode sharing something from what we're reading or something that is appropriate for the book. So who. Mr. Banks, would you like to get us started?
- [03:23]
Angelina Stanford
Yes. Let me pull up my commonplace right here. Mine is from a minor poet named Frances Cornford. She was a writer in the early 1900s. And this poem, I'm going to quote, the whole thing, which is all of four lines long, is called an epitaph for a book reviewer. So here we go. Whoso maintains that I am humbled now, who await the awful day is still a liar. I hope to meet my maker brow to brow and find my own is higher.
- [04:03]
Thomas Banks
The Critic. This book has something to say about the critics, too, Sydney. I'm excited to point that out.
- [04:10]
Cindy Rollins
Yes. We are not fans of the Critic here.
- [04:14]
Thomas Banks
The critics. You have to say it like that.
- [04:17]
Cindy Rollins
The critics.
- [04:19]
Thomas Banks
Exactly. I love that that got put into this book, but I won't get ahead of myself. We'll get there in a minute. Cindy, do you have a enchanted commonplace quote for us?
- [04:30]
Cindy Rollins
I do, but it's actually more. It's like a toss away from my talk that I didn't get a chance to use from the Literary Life conference that just passed. But it's still available if you want to buy. But I just thought this went really well with some of the things I talked about in that talk. So this is Wendell Berry from the Art of the Commonplace, and he says the sufferer is by definition a customer. And I like that because I talked about in my talk about who is vulnerable to snake oil. I mean, obviously snake oil was originally promoted for health. People have bad health and they're desperate, and they'll just do anything to help themselves. And snake oil, that term has come about from people trying to take advantage of that kind of attitude. But as Barry says, the sufferer is by definition a customer. We are all customers when we're suffering.
- [05:34]
Thomas Banks
Oh, that.
- [05:35]
Cindy Rollins
Somebody fix it.
- [05:36]
Thomas Banks
Yes, that we're always looking for a way to. To buy our way out of our present unhappiness. I have definitely noticed that as well. You know, it's interesting that you bring up your talk. I think this book has a lot to say about the way that virtue is created, and it's not through didactic morality lessons at all. I love everything this book has to say, but.
- [06:00]
Cindy Rollins
Well, you could almost say that these women were suffering and they were, you know, very ripe, and it wasn't SN oil, but it was. Something was held out to them and they were ready to accept it.
- [06:11]
Thomas Banks
Something. Something real. Yeah. You know, it's funny about the snake oil thing. A while back, Mr. Banks actually told me the history of the snake oil salesman and that the snake oil salesman got in trouble because they claimed to be selling snake oil oil from snakes that would kill you. And did the government investigate and they find out there was some kind of. No real snake oil was in the bottles of snake oil?
- [06:36]
Angelina Stanford
Yeah. Wow.
- [06:38]
Thomas Banks
That's. That's how you got the expression snake oil as a fraudulent thing.
- [06:41]
Angelina Stanford
I don't remember exactly when this happened, but I'm guessing it was before the Pure Food and Drug Act.
- [06:46]
Thomas Banks
During that, you read to me some case. It was a court case where they actually found. No, there was not enough snake oil in this product for you to claim it's pure snake oil.
- [06:59]
Cindy Rollins
Oh, man, I could go so many places.
- [07:01]
Thomas Banks
No, I mean, this pause. Let's just say, gang, that's a pregnant pause you just heard between the three of us as we're like, nope, don't go there. Don't go. Go there.
- [07:09]
Cindy Rollins
But we'll just sit on that. We will just sit here quietly and not say anything.
- [07:13]
Thomas Banks
Today's trivia for you. You now know the history of the snake oil salesman expression. Okay, so my quote, I'm going to do the short, pithy one. I win the short quote award this time. If we were having an unofficial competition. Because I just kept thinking about this as I read this book. So it's Dostoevsky's famous quote from the idiot. Beauty will save the world.
- [07:41]
Cindy Rollins
Wow.
- [07:42]
Angelina Stanford
Apt for this book.
- [07:43]
Cindy Rollins
Very good.
- [07:44]
Thomas Banks
And I think that that's an expression that a lot of people struggle with. And I think that this book is absolutely dealing with how beauty transforms. And we're going to have a lot to say about that, because in the. Shall we call it the triumphant of ruling virtues, truth, beauty and goodness. Beauty gets the short strip. Like, we have lots of people out there saying there's no more truth in the world. You know, we have more relativism. We don't know what's true. We have people saying there's no more goodness in the world. Everybody's so evil. But we hardly have anybody saying the world is ugly. That's our problem. We always fail to see the connection of beauty. And I once heard someone give a talk in which he said actually he was reading from another book. And I wish I could remember what book he was reading from, but he was reading from another book and it was a quote about truth, beauty and goodness. And that when a culture rejects beauty, as ours has. Right. In the utilitarian movement, we've become. And we're going to talk about that because that comes up in this book. We've become very utilitarian and in a lot of ways deliberately ugly. But we no longer cultivate beauty in the way that we did. And he said, you can't be surprised when you reject beauty that you lose truth and goodness too.
- [08:57]
Cindy Rollins
Wow. I just, I see so many times people are promoting something really ugly and they, and they, they, they don't understand that that's not going to get them where they want to go. Or, or if you promote something beautiful, then someone comes back and says something like, well, that's not fair. Because, you know, it's almost like beauty is some sort of elitist concept. And yet it's, you know, God has placed beauty really everywhere.
- [09:29]
Thomas Banks
Well, you know, this book is very charming and it's so lovely that I think it can be easy to miss all the layers that are going on here. And we're hoping that we'll bring some of these layers out. But I was so struck by the way that the women at the beginning of the story wrestled with. Is beauty self indulgent?
- [09:46]
Cindy Rollins
Yeah, a lot of guilt going on.
- [09:48]
Thomas Banks
Is it wasteful to want to have beauty in your life? That's the heart of the utilitarian argument, and I think we're going to totally get into that.
- [09:56]
Cindy Rollins
Couldn't this perfume have been sold and given to the poor?
- [09:59]
Thomas Banks
Oh, you're exact. That's a perfect example. The I also, the phrase I wrote in my notes was extravagant beauty. And I think that you see the effect that it has on people. But you're absolutely right. It's the same kind of thing. Using the perfume to, you know, anoint Jesus with and bathe his feet with. And that was so wasteful. We could have, we could have used that. That's exactly the beauty versus utilitarian argument right there. I think you nailed it. A few years ago, when I started really thinking through the connection between beauty and truth and goodness, I started suggesting in my classes that the more we perceive the loss of truth and goodness in our culture, that our gut reaction is to start fighting for truth and goodness. But that may be what we need to do, is start fighting for beauty.
- [10:47]
Cindy Rollins
Yes, that is a really good idea. It's a lot harder than it sounds. I mean, not that we can't find beauty pretty much immediately if we just walk out the door, but it's complicated. What is beautiful and what isn't. And it could. Philosophically, you can get in deep water pretty fast.
- [11:10]
Thomas Banks
And we see that these ladies at the beginning of the book are struggling so hard. They're drawn to beauty, they want it. And then they're. But they're telling themselves that's not. That's not a valid desire, and it's not worth spending money on, which I think really gets to a lot of the heart of our struggles today. But before we get to the book, I'm chomping at the bit here. Let's just talk a little. Let me give you some context for this book. So this book first got on my radar maybe 20 years ago. Cindy, at least 15. So Cindy and I were in an online homeschool moms Yahoo group. Those don't even exist anymore. That's how. So back when we'd had our dinosaur, we used our rotary phone and we called each other on Yahoo. Yahoo. But this book was getting a lot of buzz in that group. I don't know if you remember that, Cindy. Everybody was talking about that. And I was looking for a light read. And so I downloaded it for free on the Kindle off of Project Gutenberg. And I had never heard of it before. And I loved. I mean, it was one of these rare experiences where you just can't put it down. And it's so beautiful. And I loved it. And I hope. I hope some of you take encouragement from this, because I know some of you think, oh, she's always thinking about all this smart stuff when she reads. That's not necessarily tr. I mean, I have to. On the podcast or I'm teaching a class because you guys expect me to say something. But when I read this by myself, I didn't stop and think about anything. I just, like, jumped in and felt the beauty of the whole thing. And I was deeply moved by the book and loved it. And I didn't even bother trying to articulate it. I just adored it. So when Mr. Banks and I got married and I learned about him that he loves minor female authors from this period like you do. You have a whole.
- [12:54]
Angelina Stanford
Like, there are some.
- [12:55]
Cindy Rollins
Yeah.
- [12:56]
Thomas Banks
Set of that. Like Barbara Pym. And you're just Rose McAuley. Rose McAuley, like, on and on. He's just mentioning to me these minor authors from this period. And I. And I said to him, you know what book I think you would love? I think you would love the Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Ornament. And let me tell you, it is very rare that I mentioned a book that he has not read and he.
- [13:13]
Cindy Rollins
Had not read it.
- [13:15]
Thomas Banks
So I said, well, don't read it. We'll do a podcast on it. And so I just have to tell you, I'm beside myself with delight to see that he was not able to stop at the assigned chapters. And he continued reading, and he keeps telling me how much he loves the book and he's reading me quotes from it and laughing.
- [13:30]
Angelina Stanford
I'm most of the way done. Yeah, it's. Yeah, it's. It's a very humane book and also really funny. I. I honestly did not expect this book to be this comical. And I. Yeah, I can't go into specifics now, but, yeah, it's. It's made me laugh.
- [13:43]
Cindy Rollins
There are. There are a lot of throwaway lines that are very funny.
- [13:48]
Angelina Stanford
Oh, well.
- [13:48]
Thomas Banks
And we just love Mrs. Fisher's lines. And you know one of my favorites. Oh, did you know Keats? I did not know Keats or Shakespeare.
- [13:59]
Angelina Stanford
Is by far my favorite character. But no, this is like if Jane Austen had lived 100 years later, you could imagine her writing this.
- [14:07]
Thomas Banks
It is kind of Jane Austen. Kind of Jane Austen, yeah. Which is just very insightful into the nuances, the very subtle nuances that demonstrate a person's character and who they are. You are also feeling a lot of E.M. forster vibes, same time period. This is written in 1922. There is a kind of Howards in feel to it as well, I think, and we'll.
- [14:30]
Angelina Stanford
We'll go into it in a bit, but there actually is a personal connection between Forster and Von Arnim.
- [14:46]
Thomas Banks
I'm going to bring briefly interrupt this best of episode because it was recorded.
- [14:50]
Mr. Banks
Many years ago, and I want to let you know what's going on right now in 2025 at the house of Humane Letters.
- [14:57]
Thomas Banks
If we had a word of the.
- [14:59]
Mr. Banks
Year, it would be word. It turns out that so much of what we're struggling right now in the world of education and even in our culture at large, this experience we're having that some have called a crisis of meaning. Well, it turns out that the reason we can't figure out how things mean is because we don't understand language. Language and words is really at the heart of our entire struggle right now for meaning. And so we have put together a number of webinars, mini classes, and even a whole conference this year devoted to exploring this topic. How does language work? How is meaning made? And why does any of this matter? So right now, Jen Rogers is still in the middle of her mini class on the language And Literary Theory of the Inklings. This is a once a week class, so it's not too late to jump in, view the recordings and catch up. Even if you're listening to this much after the fact, you're going to want to get these videos. Honestly, this class is blowing our mind. And what seemed like it might be a very esoteric topic has turned out to be incredibly practical as again, we are learning how things mean and why does it even matter? Next month in March, we have another webinar on the same topic, but this time applied to the language of nature. So we have a WEBINAR Coming up March 19th called the Living Page, Learning to Read the Language of Nature. And this will also be exploring how things mean and how do we know what they mean and why does it matter? And then finally, in April, we'll be culminating with a conference on exactly this topic. The seventh annual Literary Life Online conference is going to be about living language, why words matter. I'll be speaking. Jen Rogers will be speaking. Dr. Phillips will be speaking. Mr. Banks will be speaking. And I'm very, very excited to introduce to our audience a philologist of whom I am a great admirer, Dr. Michael Drought. We will each be giving talks approaching this question, how does language mean and why words matter? As I said, I am more and more convinced that at the heart of all of the things that we are struggling with right now, this crisis of meaning really comes down to a crisis of language. And we're not going to be able to find our way out of this crisis unless we get to the bottom of exactly where we went wrong and find out what words mean, how meaning is made, and why any of this matters. I hope to see you at some of these events and you can find out about ticket information@houseofhumaneletters.com and now back to our show.
- [18:07]
Thomas Banks
Yes. Okay, so let's start off introducing Elizabeth von Arnhem. So before. Oh, I just. I just rushed right ahead. Cindy, do you. Did you read the Enchanted April back when we were all reading it in our young.
- [18:17]
Cindy Rollins
I did. I remember reading it back then, and I think I watched the movie back then, but I couldn't remember a lot about it. But it really, really clicks. All those deep longings of the soul that I had at that point in time. At that point in time, I had never gone anywhere. So I really related to this idea. Even now reading it, I know exactly how Mrs. Wilkins was feeling because I felt those things. So normally, you know, I'm not seeing myself in the character. So Much, but I definitely relate to those longings.
- [18:58]
Thomas Banks
I think this book stirs up all the right longings. And I knew when we read it, everybody was going to want to ditch their lives and run off to Italy. So, Cindy, I'm going to call you out here. I'm going to give you a little behind the scenes. Cindy voxered me and said, you know, kind of like, oh, no, I'm really struggling with this book. You got me, too, Cindy. You got me. She messaged me. I'm really struggling with this book. I was like, oh, no, she hates it. And she said, all I want to do is run off to Italy. And I knew. And I knew that was. That's, you know, we want to immerse ourselves in something beautiful and old and just.
- [19:31]
Cindy Rollins
I just want to announce that next week we're going to have another conference. Please sign up.
- [19:36]
Thomas Banks
Cindy has desperate need for cash right away. Buy her book books, but sign up for all her stuff. Her Italy fun is itching. Yeah, I think I had watched the movie after I read the book as well and loved it. And we are going to talk about the movie in the third episode of this. And Mr. Banks and I watched the movie not too long ago, and he really, really loved it as. As well. So we'll get to that. It's a rare case when I think the movie does such a good job.
- [20:04]
Angelina Stanford
Yeah.
- [20:05]
Thomas Banks
But again, we won't get ahead of ourselves because we'll talk about that.
- [20:07]
Cindy Rollins
Is it Merchant and Ivory?
- [20:08]
Thomas Banks
Who.
- [20:09]
Cindy Rollins
I forget who did the movie.
- [20:10]
Thomas Banks
I don't think it was, I was told. Learned this on the Patreon, actually shout out to Megan, who said that it was originally a TV movie.
- [20:19]
Cindy Rollins
Oh, the TV movie.
- [20:21]
Thomas Banks
And as they were making it, they thought it's too good for tv, so they released it in the theaters and it won, like, six Oscars. But it was a TV movie.
- [20:29]
Cindy Rollins
Wow, that's interesting.
- [20:31]
Angelina Stanford
It should be a Merchant Ivory movie, doesn't it?
- [20:34]
Thomas Banks
Well, it came out around that same time as Howards End and all of those, didn't it? Wasn't that the early 90s?
- [20:39]
Angelina Stanford
Yeah, yeah. Basically, when every E.M. forster book was film. Right. Yeah.
- [20:46]
Thomas Banks
And it does have. It does have that connection. All right, so let's back up a little. So, Elizabeth von Arnhem Salt, my notes here. She lived from 1866 to 1941, which means that she would have experienced life in the Victorian age, the Edwardian age, and in the early modern period, which this book is definitely exploring those three worlds and the shifting of the world. So she was well positioned to see that. She wrote this in 1980. 1982. She did not write this in 1982 after she was dead. That's a whole other story. 1922. She wrote this in 1922. It was inspired by a month long holiday to the Italian Riviera. So, Cindy, I guess the inspiration goes both ways. When you go to Italy, you want to write a book. When you read this book, you want to go to Italy. So I think she did a great job. In fact, you were telling me, Mr. Banks, that she sort of unintentionally inspired Italian tourism.
- [21:42]
Angelina Stanford
So this. Yeah, so she went to Portofino in Liguria on the Riviera there. And the town in this.
- [21:50]
Thomas Banks
Booking her flight to Portofino right now. I hear that.
- [21:53]
Cindy Rollins
How do you spout that?
- [21:54]
Angelina Stanford
Yeah. So the town, San Salvatore in this book is based on Portofino. And everyone after the book came out and became the seasoned bestseller had to go down there. And. Yes. So. Yeah. So I don't know if any. Any people in the Italian tourism business got to retire on the proceeds of this, but they. They owe her a debt of gratitude.
- [22:17]
Thomas Banks
April tours. I can see that. Right. Yeah. So this book was really popular. It was a bestseller in England and America. It was actually the book of the month club choice in America in 1922.
- [22:28]
Angelina Stanford
And it wasn't like she was a one hit wonder or anything like that. She had other. She wrote Elizabeth in her German Garden, which I think.
- [22:34]
Thomas Banks
I think that was kind of her breakout.
- [22:36]
Angelina Stanford
Yeah. And she was like, yeah, one of the. One of the bestselling novelists of her time. And. But this is the one book of hers that people really remember and it actually wasn't her favorite amongst her own.
- [22:45]
Thomas Banks
Interesting.
- [22:46]
Angelina Stanford
Yeah. But anyway, yeah, it is the most.
- [22:48]
Thomas Banks
Widely read of her novels and it's the lightest and happiest of her novels. So I know a lot of people are saying, oh, I want to read something else. Just be ready. Her other stuff's a little heavier and.
- [22:57]
Angelina Stanford
Darker and her life also was not all solid.
- [23:00]
Cindy Rollins
So.
- [23:00]
Thomas Banks
Yeah, so tell us about. So of course the man I married knows everything. So even though I was all excited that I had read a book, he had not. He knew all about Elizabeth von Arnhen and immediately starts telling me all these stories about her and I knew nothing. So tell us a little bit about Elizabeth von Arnon because I think this is super interesting.
- [23:15]
Angelina Stanford
So her. Her maiden name is Elizabeth Beauchamp and she was born in Australia. She was actually the cousin of Katherine Mansfield, who we did The Garden Party. The Garden Party. Many episodes back.
- [23:28]
Thomas Banks
So we did that short story episode, which is really interesting because the Garden Party is also dealing with this sort of Garden of Eden and the effect it has on everybody.
- [23:36]
Angelina Stanford
And so, anyway, so the reason why she has a German last name. She married a member of the German minor nobility who is a distant relative of the Kaiser, a fellow named Henning von Arnim. I think he died fairly, fairly early.
- [23:53]
Thomas Banks
And you said that was a happy marriage.
- [23:55]
Angelina Stanford
From what I understand, that was at least the happier of her marriages. After he died, she had a romance with H.G. wells.
- [24:05]
Cindy Rollins
Bless her heart.
- [24:09]
Angelina Stanford
It never turns out well.
- [24:12]
Cindy Rollins
No, no.
- [24:12]
Angelina Stanford
H.G. wells.
- [24:13]
Thomas Banks
Yeah.
- [24:13]
Angelina Stanford
I think he must have had, like, a life goal of having. Having it on with every writing woman like Rebecca West.
- [24:21]
Thomas Banks
My husband gets no end of humor and delight out of showing me pictures of very unattractive intellectual men and then telling me all the gorgeous women that they snagged like he just HG Wells.
- [24:31]
Angelina Stanford
And. Oh, speaking of which. Okay, so Bertrand R. So she married. Her second marriage was to Bertrand Russell's brother, Frank. I know. It's just like Elizabeth, not a woman of maybe the best judgment, I guess.
- [24:44]
Thomas Banks
Well, I relate to this really smart, bad taste in men. Yes. I mean, not my present. Oh, gosh. Not my present. No, no.
- [24:50]
Angelina Stanford
There's about to be the most awkward pause on this show.
- [24:53]
Thomas Banks
I used to relate to that until I hit the jackpot.
- [24:56]
Cindy Rollins
Whoa.
- [24:56]
Thomas Banks
My bad.
- [24:57]
Cindy Rollins
My bad. Russell.
- [25:00]
Angelina Stanford
She marries Frank. Frank Russell, who was known in the press as the Wicked Lord because he had just. He had been convicted of bigamy. And I believe he was drummed out of the House of Lords for this. So, yeah, bigamy. You know, that she was willing to give him a chance, I guess.
- [25:17]
Thomas Banks
So these women struggling with feeling discontent in their marriages, that hit a little close to home for her.
- [25:22]
Angelina Stanford
And so this marriage turned out just to be a train wreck. And she did get a novel out of it. Her favorite among her books was her rather dark novel Vera, which I want to read that. Which is about a woman in a unhappy. Not just unhappy, but potentially deadly kind of Rebecca Isque. It was described as Wuthering Heights, rewritten by Jane Austen.
- [25:50]
Thomas Banks
Okay, Now, I'm definitely.
- [25:54]
Cindy Rollins
That's a great description.
- [25:56]
Angelina Stanford
Yeah. I don't know. It's. I've not read it myself, but that intrigued me.
- [26:00]
Cindy Rollins
I'm gonna have to get us a.
- [26:01]
Angelina Stanford
Copy of that anyway. That's. And yeah, she. She seems to have been related to or known everyone.
- [26:08]
Thomas Banks
Okay, tell us. You have to. I love these stories. Tell us about her. Her bizarre tutor.
- [26:14]
Angelina Stanford
Okay, so she just had children connected to everyone when she was living in. This is when she's married to the. The German, the first husband, von Arnhem, amongst others she hired as private tutors for her young children. E.M. forst and room of the View fame. And Hugh Walpole, who as an author we also. Also another early 20th century author. And I guess she was not the kindest of employers and very much made you feel like a servant. When E.M. forster was introduced to her, she. Her first words were, oh, how do you do, Mr. Forster? I'm sorry, I mistook you for one of the serving girls. And later, later intimated to him that her first instinct upon meeting him was to dismiss him from the service inst. As he was wearing a hideous tie. So I don't like your tie.
- [27:06]
Thomas Banks
I love these stories too much.
- [27:08]
Angelina Stanford
And Hugh Walpole in one of his letters remarked that she liked tormenting you and humiliating you in public ways if you were a member of her household. And she would. I guess she discovered that he wore like flannel pajamas and was making fun of him for his rather, I guess, gauche and not very, not very fashionable pajamas. I mean, like, I guess you just couldn't get a break. Like seriously.
- [27:36]
Thomas Banks
So was it Hugh Walpole or Ian Forster who had the horror story of like the train is there nobody's to meet with the train shows up in the rain.
- [27:43]
Angelina Stanford
I think Forster had to like he was looking for the family estate which was sort of in an obscure mountainous area and had to trek across country at night. And when he showed up he was like, no one spoke English and his German was not very good. And he was taken, I think he was taken to a room behind the stables or something like that. And anyways he was asking am I in Frankenstein or something. And then when he was introduced to the Countess von Arnim, she was not very impressed with him and of course he had the tie. So neither Walpole nor Forster lasted very long in her employment. And yeah, neither really had much, many good memories there.
- [28:25]
Thomas Banks
These stories just absolutely delight me. But one of the reasons I wanted you to tell these stories, I mean, I think they're very humorous, but the other reason is that they paint her rather unattractively. And I wanted to do that because I wanted to make the point that we do not make the mistake of the biographical fallacy. Tolkien is very anti that speaks about it in a number of places. I'm 100% in agreement with that. And what the biographical fallacy Is Lewis.
- [28:52]
Angelina Stanford
As well, a whole book Lewis wrote?
- [28:54]
Thomas Banks
Yes. Again, there's a tendency, and we see it a lot in these homeschooling circles, to make a big deal about the life of the author and read the book through the lens of the life of the author. What their ideas were, were they a good person? Let me try to find the secret bad message they're putting in their book. And over and over, what we have tried to say is the nature of art is that it stands on its own apart from the person who made it so that a really terrible person can make good art. And we don't need to feel worried about that. I don't need to know the ins and outs of Leonardo da Vinci's personal life to know that he painted beautiful things that enrich my life and, you know, are a gift from God. And this book is just an absolute delight from beginning to end. And if she was a jerk in her personal life, it does not come through in this book. We don't have to worry about the secret. She's secretly going to turn us all into jerks. I think that this book is a great example that art has a life of its own apart from the person who wrote it. She does not have to be delightful herself to have given us a delightful book. I guess that's the point I'm trying to make. Hear, hear.
- [30:03]
Cindy Rollins
Amen. Amen.
- [30:06]
Thomas Banks
So obviously you start reading this book. It's very fairy tale esque. I mean, we all noticed that right away. But shout out to Leah Tekken, our longtime listener and Patreon member and student, who is German herself and who did a little digging and found out the most fascinating connection here between Elizabeth von Arnim and fairy tales. She did some research and found out that Elizabeth von Arnhem, through her marriage to her husband, is a distant relative of Bettina von Arnhem. Now, Bettina von Arman is the person who the Grimm brothers dedicated their fairy tale volumes to.
- [30:45]
Angelina Stanford
Wow.
- [30:46]
Cindy Rollins
Wow.
- [30:47]
Thomas Banks
I mean, that's shout out.
- [30:49]
Angelina Stanford
Indeed.
- [30:49]
Thomas Banks
That is shout out, right? That's an amazing bit of research.
- [30:52]
Angelina Stanford
So well done is very high.
- [30:55]
Thomas Banks
Yes. I would not want to go up against Leah in her trivia. I mean, that's amazing. So she said that the. The inscription says in the Grimm's volume says, to Elizabeth von Arnim for little Johannes Freudman. That's my terrible German accent, but there you go. And Elizabeth von Armand, her nickname was Bettina.
- [31:13]
Angelina Stanford
Okay, okay.
- [31:14]
Thomas Banks
So, yes. I mean, is that not amazing?
- [31:17]
Angelina Stanford
That is amazing.
- [31:19]
Cindy Rollins
That is crazy.
- [31:21]
Thomas Banks
So she's obviously steeped in. In the fairy tales. I just. I just love this. So jumping into this delightful book. It's written in 1922, and we've talked. If you've been following the podcast at all, for any amount of time. You know, we talk a lot about the Victorian era. We talk about what happened in the world wars and how radically the world changes. That is absolutely the backdrop to this. It's very lightly dealt with. Lady Caroline lost. Lost a bow in the war. But the way that she's. Their sort of disenchantment, the fact that all four of these women don't know their place in the world, that has to be understood in the larger context that no one knew their place in the world after the wars. Everything that you thought was real and true was over. And so you're seeing four different responses to, you know, where am I? Who am I in this world that's changed? And she. It's very interesting that she does it through the sort of domestic concerns of four women instead of playing at large, you know, on the world stage and talking about, you know, politics or the economic situation.
- [32:28]
Angelina Stanford
No, I mean the characters. You get to know them a lot and how they respond to often very small things like the menu.
- [32:38]
Thomas Banks
Yes.
- [32:38]
Angelina Stanford
How a particular food ought to be.
- [32:40]
Thomas Banks
I think that that was. Makes her feel so Jane Austen esque to me is these very, very small details. And you think, oh, my gosh, if you look at the way four different people responded to this tiny little thing, it tells us everything about them. So I can't decide if I want to hit the big themes first or just start with chapter to chapter.
- [33:05]
Angelina Stanford
Maybe just like some exposition of the beginning.
- [33:08]
Thomas Banks
Okay. All right, Cindy, why don't you give us your thoughts about those. The opening two chapters, when the Two main characters, Mrs. Wilkes and Mrs. Arbuthnot, meet and are, you know, discussing whether or not they should do something crazy like let a villa in Italy. And Mr. Banks looked carefully at me because if Cindy and I ever come to you and I hide my secret stash, my stocking money, you know, if I give you some excuse that I'm going with friends, I've been invited to a villa by a friend, unnamed friend, it's definitely gonna be.
- [33:39]
Angelina Stanford
Would the mellish within me reveal himself.
- [33:42]
Thomas Banks
Then you'll say, oh, I was gonna have to say something we haven't read in the book yet. Never mind.
- [33:46]
Angelina Stanford
Yeah.
- [33:47]
Cindy Rollins
Well, he might say, maybe. Maybe it'll work out.
- [33:51]
Thomas Banks
You don't drag me to art openings to use me for networking. So we're good.
- [33:55]
Cindy Rollins
All Right.
- [33:56]
Thomas Banks
Sydney, give us your. Give us your thoughts about the first couple of chapters, the opening.
- [34:00]
Cindy Rollins
Well, I have a definite emotional connection to this first chapter and even the second chapter, the way she weaves this out, we get to know Mrs. Wilkins, her thought patterns. It's just really genius to me, the way she captures these women and where they are. We have Mrs. Wilkins, who's just unhappy and poor, kind of not treated well, trying to scrape together a little bit of happiness for herself, dreaming of something. And then Mrs. Arbuthnot, who is kind of, you know, a puritan kind of. I'm gonna say. I'm not gonna say puritan because I know that offends people when we treat puritans like they were so austere all the time.
- [34:43]
Thomas Banks
She's holding on a lot of that Victorian social gospel.
- [34:47]
Cindy Rollins
Yes. She's very much trying to be good through her good works and trying to prove, you know, her worth as a person, her happiness. Everything is tied up in really making sure she's doing everything right. I relate to both of these women so much, and it just. Just watching it unfold is really beautiful. I mean, watching Mrs. Wilkins, you know, read what's going on with Mrs. Arbuthnot, just kind of magical moment, and very realistic. You know, there's this ad, and then she sees this other lady, and she assumes that she is looking at this ad. And, you know, I mean, obviously this is a book, and it's not real, but it's like the Holy Spirit is there bringing this about, because I just. I just thought it was genius. And it very much reminds me of my first trip to England, you know. You know how obnoxious I am about this trip to England I took.
- [35:47]
Thomas Banks
But it was like this name drops in the trip. Drops.
- [35:52]
Cindy Rollins
Yes, well, it's my one trip, but it was like a magic trip, like. Like this book. So when I'm reading this book, I'm very much remembering all the guilt I felt and all the, you know, everything I did feel. All these things I felt like, oh, can I leave my family? Can I do this? Is this wrong? Is this the right thing to do? You know, the weight of always doing the right thing and then just having this beautiful, beautiful thing come out of it, which is really what happened to me, too. Even though I wasn't there for a month, and I'm. Now I'm a little bitter about that. So anyway, I just. You know, then we. Then we. Then we get the backstory of their husbands, you know, Mrs. Wilkins, husband Mallory, that I don't Know if I've ever heard that name before. Is that Thomas? Is that a name?
- [36:45]
Angelina Stanford
That's. I think. I think she must have invented that.
- [36:47]
Thomas Banks
Okay, so perfect though the Patreon members are on the. On the team here. Timberland. Shout out to Timolyn. She looked it up. So Melosh is a surname. And so I think that it's the Edwardian tradition where you would name the firstborn son after the mother's surname. Like Bridesman, March, Maine. So it's. It's a last name that's being used as a first name. Yeah.
- [37:07]
Angelina Stanford
But no, that. It's just like this is actually in real life. I should make a confession. When I meet people with what would be the word dysphonious sort of unmusical names, I tend to hold that against them sometimes. Melosh, like, before I knew anything about him, I disliked him because of his name.
- [37:27]
Thomas Banks
But I kind of wonder if we're not supposed to.
- [37:29]
Angelina Stanford
I think we're kind of supposed to.
- [37:30]
Cindy Rollins
Yeah. Of course. Men are very unlikable.
- [37:34]
Angelina Stanford
Yeah.
- [37:37]
Cindy Rollins
But I think this is gonna come out in the book that they are also human. You know, first, in a way, they're kind of demonized in these two chapters because of the relationships with their wives are so bad. At this point, Mellersh is just not thoughtful at all.
- [37:56]
Thomas Banks
I would say this book's not going to go where you think it might go.
- [38:00]
Angelina Stanford
Yeah. Also, and the other husband, Frederick, we don't really learn as much about him as we do about the other, other than he has a discreditable profession.
- [38:07]
Thomas Banks
Yeah. We're seeing both of the men at, well, Frederick exclusively through his wife's eyes at the beginning. So one of the things I like about this book is it's not heavy handed and she keeps everything in this very harmonized tension. You know, every. Everybody's fully human and it's not, you know, one of the things that just drives me crazy about certain contemporary movies, even if they're a historical setting, they just take shortcuts. Right. As soon as it opens, you're like, okay, bad guy. He's 100% bad. We have to hate him. And poor victimized girl, we have to like her. And, you know, human relationships are just so much different than that. Especially when one of the themes of this book is, you know, one that I always talk about seeing and not seeing and that the characters are all in various states of blindness which is going to affect the way they perceive each other. And we see that immediately. When they get to Italy, there's comments like Was she always this pretty? You know, they're all acknowledging, I didn't really see you back in London. I'm seeing you for the first time. They start to see themselves for the first time. So the seeing and not seeing, that's going to play in with the husbands as well. And the book is not anybody who's reading at the beginning and thinks this is some kind of feminist male bashing thing. It's not at all like that.
- [39:28]
Angelina Stanford
Something else about this book, and it reminded me of a couple of other Englishmen or English woman abroad in Italy. Why is it that when English writers sit down to describe themselves or a set of English people traveling on the continent, they always do so in a way that makes them sound like inept tourists?
- [39:51]
Thomas Banks
I'm thinking like, Americans are rude Americans.
- [39:54]
Angelina Stanford
Also, like Americans can be inapturous all. But I can't think of any other linguistic civilization. I can't think of like an Italian book about an Italian who goes to London and makes a fool of himself in various ways. Or a Frenchman who goes to America. Yeah, it's just like, why is it the Anglo Saxon people, you know, are always. Why are we always the ones who are the butt of all the tourism jokes?
- [40:18]
Thomas Banks
And I understand, I totally understand what's happening in that scene symbolically, when they get off the train and they're afraid they're being robbed. I understand we will discuss the symbolism of that. But on, like Cindy said, on just a purely emotional level, you know, Mr. Banks, that's me, that's Mr. I am Ms. Worst Case Scenario in my mind, and I totally would have been like, I better get the taser out of my handbag because I'm pretty sure we're about to be robbed and, you know, sold into white slavery. And, you know, my, the things, the places my mind goes, you would not believe.
- [40:44]
Cindy Rollins
I also think the English. So the English speak English and many other countries do speak English, but there is something there about, first of all, the English are very good at making fun of them themselves. I mean, that's why we have Monty Python and all that British humor is very self effacing. It's also not anti British. In other words, the British way of looking at British people is there's still a little bit of pride about it. It's not just, oh, look at us, we're now the American thing. That's a little harder to take because you know that when you're traveling overseas, you just feel like, oh, I just. Well, dawn and I had a running joke and I hate to say this because we have some Canadians on here, but we said, let's do this whenever we make a really bad mistake. Let's go. Eh? Eh?
- [41:38]
Thomas Banks
Okay. It's funny that you say that, because the first time I went to Europe, I was 19. The very first time. And I was so embarrassed by my parents, who could not have been following more explicitly the Ugly American handbook. Like, just like, not like they were rude people, but, like, the way they were dressing. I mean, as far as I was concerned that the tennis shoes they were wearing in Italy, they could have had the flag draped around them. That's. That's. That's how clear it was that we were Americans. And I was definitely not going to be seen as an American. Like, every piece of clothing I bought, I was going to blend in in Europe like nobody's business. I even walked with a good bit of justice between my and my family. So no one thought I was with this ridiculous American, you know, with the fanny packs and the Nike tennis shoes. And I'm in my leather. My leather shoes, which my mom said, you will not be comfortable walking around Rome in those shoes. And I said, if the Romans can walk around in these, I can also walk around in these. Which, you know, with all those cobblestone.
- [42:31]
Angelina Stanford
Streets, you really do have to hand it to the American. I mean, the Italian women with, like, you know, Gucci high heels.
- [42:36]
Thomas Banks
And so I will say that while my back did not hurt, nor did my knees, much to my mother's worry, I did actually wear holes in the bottom of my shoes.
- [42:45]
Angelina Stanford
Oh, okay.
- [42:46]
Thomas Banks
I took that as a mark of pride. But anyway, going back to the Canadians, I was so worried about being perceived as an ugly American that there were like, four or five times during the two weeks I was in Italy, in France, that a native person asked me if I was Canadian. And I was like, yes. Why, yes, I am. I'm Canadian. I'm not American. So shout out to the Canadians that I wanted. I pretended to be you on my identity quest. I. I pretended to be Canadian. So, Mr. Banks, what do you think about the opening of the book? And then I'll jump in with what I think is going on.
- [43:21]
Angelina Stanford
Yeah, I liked it very much. And I think she sets up her characters well. I feel like I don't really get to know either Mrs. Arbuthnot or Mrs. Wilkins until you see them. Until they meet the other two women in Italy. Because, yeah, this book, to me, none of the characters. None of the characters really is a standout on their own so much as they Stand out in relation to other people. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [43:54]
Thomas Banks
And I think.
- [43:54]
Cindy Rollins
I think you're right that you don't. This is an opening up of their characters. We get. At first, we're getting caricatures of them and their husband, and later when they get to Italy, we all of that falls away and we start to see real people.
- [44:10]
Thomas Banks
Exactly. So. And that has to do with this blindness into sight thing. So. And they talk about, you know, Italy versus London. Let's leave all that London stuff behind us. So they. They're all in various stages of blindness in London and in Italy. We come to see them better, they come to see themselves and each other better. And. And we'll continue to see that. That through the book. So you're right. I mean, Mrs. Wilkins and Mrs. Arbuthnot are so much foils of each other that. So I took pages and pages of notes trying to figure out for myself what the four women represent. I have a lot of different theories about that, but it's so clear to me what Mrs. Fisher is and what Lady Caroline is and what they represent. Okay, that is crystal clear to me. But I really struggle with separating Mrs. Wilkins and Mrs. Orbison. It's almost like they're one person in my mind, or two halves of the same person. They're. They're just very closely.
- [45:03]
Angelina Stanford
Each of them has a very tender conscience and is a harsh judge of herself. I think the main difference is their social poise. Mrs. Wilkins is really sweet natured, but kind of gauche. Kind of. She puts her foot in it a lot. Right.
- [45:21]
Thomas Banks
But in terms of, like, what they represent.
- [45:26]
Angelina Stanford
Oh, yeah.
- [45:26]
Thomas Banks
We're talking about very subtle differences. I mean, they both have issues with their husband, but, you know, they're two parts of the same coin. Mrs. Wilkins feels too seen by her husband and unseen, and Mrs. Arbuthnot feels neglected and not seen. But they both struggle with feeling not seen.
- [45:42]
Cindy Rollins
Yeah, well, Mrs. Arbuthnot, I think there's a theological component to her. Her faith is real and you see that throughout the book. She doesn't lose her faith, but her faith is. Is a burden to her. And I feel like that's where the difference is between them.
- [46:06]
Thomas Banks
So I'm going to get to that in just a second because I think going on with Rose is again, this very particular Victorian understanding of the connection between women, her role in the home and with her husband and the Christian faith. So that happens to be an area I've done a ton of research on. So, yeah, I definitely picked up on that. But just to back up a little bit. So we find these women at the beginning, and it's very clear to me that all four women are on identity quests. And they've all expressed in various ways that they don't know who they are anymore. And that was fascinating to watch that. So Mrs. Fisher doesn't know who she is anymore. Go ahead.
- [46:49]
Angelina Stanford
I was going to say about Mrs. Fisher, don't you think she really does think she knows who she is?
- [46:54]
Thomas Banks
Oh, of course she does. I don't, but. So I'm not saying they know they're on an identity quest. She thinks she knows who she is, but who. But she thinks she knows who she is. But the world has changed, but she's still in the Victorian world. And she's fighting. She's fighting the fact that I'm just going to remember, I'm just going to sit here and she's just fighting to stay in the past. So when I say she doesn't know who she is, she doesn't know where she fits into the new world, she only thinks she fits into the past, and so she's going to stay there. Okay, but let me, let me get to those ladies a little bit later. Let me just start with Mrs. Wilkins and Mrs. Arbuthnot. So Mrs. Wilkins actually says very explicitly a number of times that she doesn't know who she is. The very first thing we see, though, is she. Her. The opening image is she's looking out of a window. And I. Good job to the Patreons, by the way, on our Patreon forum, are killing it with this book. I told them, you got to leave me something to talk about because they, they are just absolutely going at it. And they all saw, they've learned from my classes that a woman looking out of the window, what does that mean? And it means she's. She sees. And sure enough, Mrs. Wilkins, that she sees. Right? She. And then they're going to keep saying she has the gift of sight, she's the seer, she sees into people. And that's what become more and more explicit. So she's there. But if you pay attention to what she says about herself, she says things like, nobody took any notice of Mrs. Wilkins. She's practically invisible. If you take all these things away, what is left of me, she says the name Mrs. Wilkins doesn't convey anything to me either. But I am Mrs. Wilkins. Right? There's just all of these things that she doesn't know who she is, who am I? Who is Mrs. Wilkins? Who am I?
- [48:36]
Angelina Stanford
And also not even. And when she is seen, usually, doesn't it seem that people are always trying to get away from her?
- [48:44]
Thomas Banks
Yes.
- [48:45]
Angelina Stanford
Mrs. Fisher and Lady Caroline at first are both really put off by her and just kind of find her to be a nuisance.
- [48:54]
Thomas Banks
The originals, we'll get to that. So they're, they are both going to find, they're, all of them are going to find their identities in Italy and it's going to be interesting to see how that's going to play out. Mrs. Arbuthnot. Yes. So her, her identity issues come with the fact that she has created an identity for herself that is totally in serving others, which on the surface, like Cindy says, it's a real faith. I mean, there's nothing wrong with wanting to serve the poor, but she's doing it, we find out, to basically atone for her husband's sins.
- [49:27]
Angelina Stanford
Yes.
- [49:29]
Thomas Banks
So he writes these naughty books and she lives, she doesn't want to. She, that's what keeps a roof over her head. So she has to, she has to tip the scales. She's got to balance them by, by, you know, giving away. It's. What was the line about the boots? They're for the, they're for the boots for the poor. It's okay, but she doesn't want to do that. Okay, so let me go ahead and talk a little bit about that. So we've talked before in here about the Victorian view of women. And I think Mrs. Arbuthnot is still, even though it's 1922, she is still trapped in that. Particularly when they go to see the agent and he says, let me find that line. This is in chapter three. They walk in and he says, oh, there's paintings of both of you in Italy. The Madonna and I immediately went, bing, angel of the house.
- [50:23]
Cindy Rollins
Right?
- [50:23]
Thomas Banks
So, so in. I'm going to give you just, I'm going to nutshell it here, but the Victorians had some pretty whacked out views of things and for them the, the role of the woman in the house. And this is, this is going to be all. What's behind these conversations between Mrs. Wilkins and Mrs. Arbuthnot saying the home is what's supposed to make us happy. And Mrs. Wilcomb's like, but it's not. She's like, but you have to devote yourself to duty and the home and your husband. And she's like, but I am doing that and it's not making me happy. And the more that I do that, the more unhappy I am. So when I thought that, I thought Oh, I really hope our modern readers don't, don't read into that modern ideas because this is very rooted in the Victorian. So we might be tempted to think some modern feminist thing. And so many of us in, you know, Christian conservative circles have decided to be more home centered and devoted to our families and our home and our marriages and our children, all of which is very, very good. That's not what this is taught talking about. This is talking about a very particular Victorian view that the wife is the spiritual heart and center of the home. And the phrase that was used was the angel in the house, which came from a Coventry Patmore poem. And women really did strive to be that. So, so the guy, the man, he went out into the world while he was in the public sphere. He was not the spiritual leader of the home. It was generally perceive that he is going to have worldly temptations that a woman is not. Because a woman has sort of a higher spiritual plane that she's on. So her job as the angel in the house is to set the spiritual tone. She is, she is the mediator for everything spiritual. And then that poured out of the home. Eventually, when you get to the very late Victorian, early Edwardian year, the, the female suffragette movement was very tied up in this Victorian view of the superior morality of women. And so they, they started to, to pour this idea out of the home into the public sphere. So if a woman can set the spiritual tone in her home, then why couldn't she just set it in the world? And so all these causes that Mrs. Arbathanot is interested in, this is very much tied up in that Victorian view of the spiritual influence of women. The fact that she thinks she's atoning for her husband's sin, that's 100% Victorian. The suffragette movement, you know, we, I don't think we really grasp what that was all about. The campaign that they ran on, the slogans was giving women the right to vote would bring world peace. And the thinking behind that was if women can spit set the spiritual tone, if we're angels in the houses and we can save our husbands, then we can be angels in the world and save the whole world. And so that's why you need to give us the right to vote, because we are morally superior and we're going to make sure you men don't wreck the world. Of course, now that we have female politicians, we know that's 100% true. That's exactly what happened. There's world peace and everything's great. Right? We Just need to get rid of the last few men. Please, please read my sarcasm. No, no. Gender is the spiritual savior of the world. Right? Women can be just as messed up as everybody else. But so that, that's what jumped out. I mean, this is literally my master's degree is in this particular issue. So every time they started talking about, but the home should make me happy, the home should make me happy, I thought, oh, this is. They are struggling with this Victorian angel in the house thing. You're grinning.
- [53:46]
Cindy Rollins
What are you.
- [53:46]
Angelina Stanford
No, I was thinking about Coventry Patmore, who I've read a biography of him which was hysterically funny. And the funny thing is, I think he was onto something when he began writing that poem, the angel in the House, and also the. The Unknown Eros, which is his other famous long poem. He. He was. He noticed that most of the great passionate love poetry of the Western world is written between. About lovers, you know, the Paolo's and Francesca's and Romeo's and Juliets. But there's not really any great love poetry written about married people. So he thought there needed to be a romantic poetry of married life, which I think is a worthy idea. And maybe it's too bad that he didn't make a. Make a better go of it. But anyway, Coventry Pathmore. What a. What a character.
- [54:37]
Thomas Banks
What a character. Yes. So one of the things you might notice is that before they get to Italy, Mrs. Arbuthnot speaks almost in buzzwords. And that's one of the ways I know that this is identity she has taken on. So Mrs. Wilson, Mrs. Wilkins says if we go to Italy, we'll go to heaven. She responds, heaven is within us. Like everything is just a little cliche thing. And Mrs. Wilkins like, well, yes, of course, but. But there, but there's also heaven outside of us. And this is Arbuthnot talking about the kindred points of heaven and home, the compass points of God, husband, home, duty, the four facts of life. God, husband, home, duty. Like these are just like buzzwords and slogans that she's just. It's like she just says them over and over to herself, trying to will them to be true. This is the path to happiness. And yet the more she does it, the more miserable she is. In the United States, this view is called the cult of domesticity. So you'll find it called that in the US and called the angel in a house in the English Victorians, but she's really struggling with that. And this fits into the larger thing that I see with the four women that they represent these different time periods. So Mrs. Fisher obviously represents the Victorian age and she's 100% trapped in the past. And that doesn't mean there's bad things in the past, but the world has changed and she can't figure out how to cope with that. So she's just taken the position that everything good in the world has already happened and kids today.
- [56:04]
Angelina Stanford
Yeah. Like, basically the world ended in 1901 when the Queen died. And it's interesting that she's the daughter of a literary man who knew everyone and she's always talking about Tennessee. She's so good at nature dropping.
- [56:18]
Thomas Banks
She's so good at this meat of these women. And. And no, Tennyson would put Lady Caroline in her place. And she's got the photographs of them in her room, so she's. And she wants to sit there and remember. So she's completely trapped in the past. And yet there's these little indications that the past she's trapped in is. Is. Is a little bit illusory. Because she says something like, kids today, they don't read Tennyson. And then she's like, well, I don't read Tennyson either, but I'm sure I did a long time ago. And I don't remember what it was, but I'm sure I did. I'm sure I did. And.
- [56:50]
Angelina Stanford
And she. The same with Carlisle, when she's trying to remember a passage from Sartor Resartus and can't quite. Yeah. Can't quite bring it in. And she's like, oh, yes, there's doifels Drach, who's one of the. One of the main characters in that book. And anyway, so she doesn't have as firm a hold on the past as she thinks she does.
- [57:10]
Thomas Banks
That's right. She's. She's living in her idea of the past, which is wrapped up in her own kind of ideal, kind of an imagined loss. Now we also find out she has married. She had married, probably problems. And we'll get to that in a minute. So I think Mrs. Fisher is in the Victorian era, and then Mrs. Wilkins and Mrs. Arbuthnot are. They are Edwardians. And the thing about the Edwardian period is in a lot. I thought about this a lot. In a lot of ways, they are like the middle children of history.
- [57:38]
Angelina Stanford
The ellipse between the Victorians in World War I.
- [57:40]
Cindy Rollins
Yes.
- [57:41]
Thomas Banks
So lady Caroline is obviously, she's the modern woman who's struggling, was fitting into the modern world just as much as anybody is. And so you. So, you know Those bookends and Mrs. Fisher and later Caroline are just so perfect foils. So you got the Victorian year in the modern year. And they have, sorry, lame words. I get excited, my tongue won't work. And then Mrs. Wilkins and Mrs. Arbuffen are just literally like, just stuck in the middle between these two worlds. They're neither Victorians nor are they moderns, and they don't really know how to fit in either. And it's interesting that especially Mrs. Wilkins is, like, mediating between all these people. She's trying to harmonize them. Yes. So Lady Caroline, she is the modern woman. And I thought it was so interesting that Mrs. Fisher wants to remember and Lady Caroline wants to forget. So she wants to forget. She wants to forget what happened to her in the past, that she lost her bow, but she also wants to forget all of the things that are pulling on her in the modern world.
- [58:37]
Cindy Rollins
And.
- [58:38]
Thomas Banks
And as I read more, I realized she is just as much upset about the modern world as Mrs. Fisher is.
- [58:46]
Angelina Stanford
Yeah, I mean, when you first meet her, you think that she's this kind of typical Jazz Age girl, but she's running away from the social scene, of which she was kind of. Kind of a center, you know, the center of everyone's attention. And always the prettiest girl in the room. And that has ceased to satisfy, if ever it did.
- [59:05]
Thomas Banks
Well, the language is so interesting because Mrs. Fisher describes the reason she wanted to get out of London is because people are always grasping at her. And she means that specifically in terms of money. Everybody's sticking on a hand, wanting something for charity. But it's the same phrase that Lady Caroline uses that in London, everybody's grasping at her. They're trying to grasp at her beauty. So I see those two characters as having a lot more in common. They're initially set up as foils, but they're a lot more in common. All of that was super interesting. So Mrs. Fisher is completely trapped in the past. I love that she can only speak the Italian of Dante. Caroline speaks the Italian of servants. That was so good. Go ahead. No, no, no.
- [59:49]
Angelina Stanford
I was gonna say there's the bit where they have to deal with the cook. And Mrs. Fisher says, you'll have to get Lady Caroline to do that. No doubt he would understand her.
- [59:57]
Thomas Banks
That was so good. All right, so. So Mrs. Fish is trapped in the past. Lady Caroline is trapped by her own beauty and desirability. She keeps saying, like, no one sees me. She's also just as afraid of the future as Mrs. Wilkins is, because she says, what does the future have for me? I'm just going to lose my beauty and then who am I? What will the world have to offer me?
- [60:18]
Cindy Rollins
So, interestingly enough, that's what Mrs. Arbuthnot says to her when she sees her the first time. Well, just so you know, beauty is fleeting.
- [60:29]
Thomas Banks
Oh, I have forgotten that. That's good.
- [60:32]
Angelina Stanford
Also another cliche.
- [60:33]
Thomas Banks
Also another cliche. Yes. Everything out of her mouth is a cliche. But Lottie and Mrs. Arbuthnot also feel trapped, and they feel trapped in their marriages. And I, again, like, I'm having a real hard time kind of distinguishing those two. Lady Caroline. So all these. So Lottie doesn't know who she is. Mrs. Arbuthnot doesn't really know who she is. Mrs. Fisher struggling to figure out who she is in the modern world. Now, Lady Caroline is so interesting because she describes that she feels enslaved by her clothes. Women don't wear out their clothes. Clothes wear out their women. Now, clothes and clothing changes are always associated with identity. So she feels enslaved and trapped by the world's expectation, her identity as Lady Caroline and her identity as a beautiful woman. And we're going to. I'm going to take us back to the beginning and talk about beauty again here in a minute. But that was all fascinating to me. So she doesn't want to be, quote, unquote, beautiful Lady Caroline. She's trying to figure out who she. Who she really is. And then I also want to make sure I point out Mrs. Fisher stick as a symbol because she's constantly talking about what she can and can't do because of her stick. Like, she's immobile. I can't go walking around because of my stick. So. So I think that's a representation of how stuck she is in the past. All the things I can't do. I have to stay mobile. I have to stay right here. I cannot move. She wants the world to come to her. She doesn't want to go out to the world. I also thought it was. Again, Lady Caroline and Mrs. Fisher are much more alike than you might think. They both have chapters in which they discuss. They don't. They want to keep people out. They want to make. So Lady Caroline in the garden is like, nope, I want to figure out a way where nobody can come into where I am in the garden. This is my spot. And then Mrs. Fisher literally moves furniture around to block the doors in her room. So they are. So they feel trapped, but they also. They both are also trying to enclose themselves and keep people out.
- [62:27]
Cindy Rollins
Yeah. About Lady Caroline's beauty. It seems to me that while she doesn't. That she's trapped by it and she knows it, she also feels like that's all she has, and so she can't let go of it in any way.
- [62:43]
Thomas Banks
Yep. Yep. So. Okay, wait. I think there was one more thing I wanted to say before I jumped in. Okay. I want to. One more thing I want to say about Lady Caroline before we go back and talk about beauty. And this actually will connect to that. So the book constantly mentions the Judas Tree. It constantly is connecting Lady Caroline and the Judas Tree. So I had to look up a Judas tree. It was very clear to me, they're really pretty. That Lady Caroline is the Judas Tree. All right. So, yes, yes, they are beautiful trees. But I learned about the lure of the tree. And so they're very, very beautiful. And they are known for being so beautiful and letting out such a sweet scent that they attract all these buzzing insects around. And that is, of course, what Lady Caroline describes as herself. That she just sits there being beautiful, and all these people are buzzing around her. And one of the lore things associated with this tree, that's not actually true, but I can see that Elizabeth von Armand is using. The lore in the story is there's also lore that the tree is deadly and that it will lure you in with its scent. And you come buzzing in there, and then it. Then it eats you up. It entraps you. And so I thought this was a really interesting twist. Right. So Lady Caroline is clearly. She's sitting next to the Judas tree in the garden, complaining about how her beauty attracts all these people, and they're all buzzing around her, which that's word for word with the Judas Tree. But then she says this. I think this is in.
- [64:08]
Cindy Rollins
Let's see.
- [64:09]
Thomas Banks
Oh, this is in chapter 10. She says she is about herself. She is struggling as a wasp caught in honey. That means the Judas Tree. Her own beauty has ensnared her, too. Oh, you're giving me that look, Mr. Banks. It tells me you're pleased with my reading.
- [64:27]
Angelina Stanford
All I knew about the Judas Tree is that it's supposedly where Judas Iscariot had hanged himself. I did not know any of those other things.
- [64:32]
Thomas Banks
Right. Isn't that so good? She even said about her own voice again, just like the Judas Tree, she says it's in chapter 10. Her voice draws people in, and then they are, quote, caught and fixed. She is the Judas Tree.
- [64:47]
Angelina Stanford
Nice. That's really good.
- [64:49]
Cindy Rollins
Yeah, Very good. Very good.
- [64:50]
Thomas Banks
Thank you. I'm pretty excited about that. All right. Well, let's start back at the beginning and talk about beauty. Then for the rest of this episode. The. Of course, Cindy. I thought of you immediately, Mrs. Wilkins. Initial exposure to beauty is with the critics in the art circle, where she feels like she can't have anything.
- [65:08]
Cindy Rollins
Oh, yes. Marvelous.
- [65:10]
Thomas Banks
Marvelous, darling. Oh, man's inhumanity to man. Can't you see? That's why the flower is blue. All this nonsense. And she feels. But she's so sensitive to beauty, and she longs for it. But the art world is not the place of beauty. And especially the fact that her husband uses these events as networking events.
- [65:28]
Angelina Stanford
Right, right. To promote his rather. Rather tawdry novels or whatever.
- [65:35]
Thomas Banks
No, no, this is Mrs. Wilkins. He's the solicitor. He's out there trying to drum up business.
- [65:39]
Angelina Stanford
Sorry, I'm thinking of.
- [65:40]
Thomas Banks
He has to be. He's a family solicitor, therefore he's a family man. She's a business accessory for her husband, which is also a very Victorian you.
- [65:49]
Cindy Rollins
Yeah. Boy, there's so much going on there with this. This idea that she has to. I mean, how often does a sincere desire to promote art and beauty become infected with this. With this idea of snobbery and holding people back? Like, we don't go through the door and we don't let people go through. That's what I think of critics. You don't go through the door, and you don't let other people go through the door. You don't get it.
- [66:21]
Thomas Banks
Feel stupid for thinking there's.
- [66:23]
Cindy Rollins
You don't really get beauty, but you don't want anybody else to get it either, because you have to pretend like you know more than everybody else. But it does deteriorate into that so very quickly. When we, you know, when we begin to like something, that when we. When we see beauty, then I think there's. I don't know, maybe it's like. Of course, it's been, you know, Lent and Holy Week and a lot of. I've read a lot in this past couple of weeks about, you know, the temptations of Christ and how, you know, Satan takes these really good things and then he turns them to something evil or something bad. And, of course, Christ always comes back with scripture, but I think that's how it is with beauty, too. The minute you grasp it, in some ways, then I think in some ways, the enemy comes in and turns it in, just skews it a tiny bit so that it becomes poisonous instead of beautiful. And that's how he fights the beauty, the power of beauty.
- [67:32]
Thomas Banks
I think it's also interesting to point out that this would be 1922. So the kinds of art exhibits they would be going to. This is modern art art.
- [67:40]
Angelina Stanford
Probably a lot of cubes.
- [67:41]
Thomas Banks
That's what I was thinking too. So highly expressionistic, not representational, not beautiful. Deliberately distorted and ugly to make a symbolic point. So she can't find any beauty in the art world. That is extremely telling. Of course, anybody who listened to my talk I gave at the conference, she's gonna find it in nature. Gonna have to get the talk if you didn't hear it. So I thought that was super fast. Fascinating. And then Mrs. Arbuthnot's struggle is that, first of all, I forgot to say this line. But when Mrs. Arbuthnot analyzed, classified, divided and registered the poor. What a great line. What a great line. She's just very modern.
- [68:26]
Angelina Stanford
You don't imagine. And again, I'm sure she's not cruel to them, but you don't imagine her making friends with any of the people that she. For whom she does services.
- [68:35]
Thomas Banks
Well, I think we're seeing that her tidy little way of understanding the world is part of her problem. Yeah, it's part of why she's on. She's unhappy. So Mrs. Arbuthnot. So Mrs. Wilkins is dying for beauty and she can't find it in the art world. Mrs. Arbuthnot. And again, I feel like Cindy or Guy are gonna have a lot to say because this is so tied in with being a woman. I think not just modernity, but being a woman. She feels like she doesn't deserve the beauty. It's self indulgent. I could be spending my time and my money on something more useful and practical than beauty. And so she's longing for the beauty, but she feels very guilty. And maybe it's not Christian. I kept thinking of self care, you know, Mrs. Wilkins like, but we need beauty. Just. She keeps saying, just. If we just went there and took a break. Can't we just take a break and have beauty? And then we'll come back and we'll be so much better. And she's like, but. But, Cindy, give me. I want to pick your brain about this. I know that I suffered from this. I think every woman suffers from this. Right? Do I spend the money on the bouquet of flowers for our table? Is that wasteful? Should I, you know, spend it on an extra can of beans? I think we have that utilitarian stream in our culture. Right. That what is good and best is that which is most useful.
- [69:54]
Cindy Rollins
Right.
- [69:55]
Thomas Banks
Okay, so you have that. But then I think there's also a unique female spin, because just on a practical level, many of us are trying to stretch, you know, one income budgets and large families and really trying to squeeze everything we can out of every dollar. I know for myself, my soul deeply suffered because I was stretching pennies go so far with my kids, and I was spending no money on beauty. Just telling Mr. Banks, like, my whole life I only thought in terms of, is this a good deal, is this beautiful, and will this make my home more beautiful? But is this the cheapest way that I can fill whatever the need is in our home?
- [70:35]
Cindy Rollins
I think there's a little bit of casting your bread on the water that goes on here with beauty, that. That. First of all, yes, you do have guilt. And I had all that guilt, too. I had all that of that guilt. I mean, my kids needed coats and my kids needed food, and, you know, I didn't have the. The capacity to. To do that. But it's kind of like your soul finds a way. Anyway, when we got to our farmhouse, which was kind of falling apart, and it had beautiful things that were ugly things that became beautiful, you know, like really old woodwork or something that most people would think is. Was ugly, but we would, you know, see the. The history in it and find beauty there. But when I went to plant my garden, at first I was planting vegetables because that was a practical thing to do. But every year I lived there, I planted fewer and fewer vegetables and more and more flowers. And I just covered our house with flowers the whole season. We had wildflowers, we had this, we had that. I have not been able to ever duplicate those flowers, but that was a time when my soul was kind of broken. And I feel like my soul found those flowers. God provided them. So I've always said, you know, vegetables are cheap, but flowers aren't. If you have to choose between growing vegetables and flowers, I highly recommend growing flowers. And I still feel that way. When I go to the farmer's market, I buy a few vegetables, but I always buy a couple bouquets of flowers, and they're expensive. And, you know, I don't always. They're not always. They're. They're never. They're never practical, ever. But I think when you do that, that it's almost like the oil doesn't run out for some reason. Now, maybe if you were just completely frivolous and just only thinking about yourself all the time, that would be different.
- [72:52]
Thomas Banks
Oh, Cindy, those are such good thoughts. The flowers versus the vegetables. That really Hits close to home. That really hits close to home. I think I have really struggled with that. I have seen this since in planting vegetables. And I always struggled. I mean, the little old ladies across the street where I used to live in Louisiana. I mean, I would tell myself, but they were tired. They have nothing else to do. But they spent all their time in their flower beds, and they were beautiful. And I arranged my chair, my reading chair facing the window so I could look at their flowers. I would have never put the effort into it because my effort could be used better in other things. That's really telling about my own soul. Like, they. And I mean, I think you put your finger on it. Like, we're not talking about beauty, you know, like, I went. I don't know.
- [73:41]
Angelina Stanford
You're not saying that everyone needs to make a point on a yearly or at or other yearly basis to go to a foreign country with their kids to. Or pour so much culture into these little human vessels?
- [73:56]
Thomas Banks
Definitely not saying that. But I'm just saying, like, of course there are examples of things we say. I'm pursuing beauty, but we all know it. It is just a vanity self.
- [74:04]
Cindy Rollins
For instance, you can't always buy anthropology dresses and homeschool your kids.
- [74:09]
Thomas Banks
Right, Right.
- [74:10]
Cindy Rollins
But with beautiful linen clothing, because that stuff is expensive. But maybe you can buy one pretty thing to have, just not make a.
- [74:21]
Thomas Banks
Habit of, you know? I think about these. The little ladies. That's what. Literally what I call them. I'd say all the little ladies are out in their yards, but the flowers they planted blessed the entire neighborhood. That was not selfish. That was a gift to all of us.
- [74:34]
Cindy Rollins
No.
- [74:35]
Thomas Banks
Yeah. I've tried to think a lot more about. And I. This is a personal struggle for me. Mr. Banks can tell you. I don't like getting sent flowers because I feel like it's so expensive, it's so indulgent, and it just. It and it dies. And I've really been wrestling with that. And I've actually, you know, in the last year, bought flowers for our table on special days, birthdays or whatever. And. And when I do, I just. It just is so much. Just cheers up the whole house, doesn't it? You smell it and you enter the room and you smell the flowers. And I think, you know, at the grocery store, a bouquet of flowers is not that. What, five bucks, ten bucks? And, yeah, for a week, my house smells beautiful. You know, instead of some chemical spray or a candle. I've been rethinking, and maybe. Maybe beauty is more practical than we think. I think that's what I'm trying to say. Maybe.
- [75:23]
Cindy Rollins
Oh, I definitely think that's practical.
- [75:28]
Thomas Banks
You know, if it makes me in a good mood to walk into my house because it smells so good, how is that not practical? I spend all my time at home, I might as well be beautiful. Huh. But I. But I confess that I personally struggle with that. So that, that part of the book where Mrs. Arbuthnot struggles with that, I just, just that really. That really rings true. And I have been super broke where the idea of spending money on seeds for flowers versus money on seeds for, you know, carrots. It would have been very, very difficult to justify the flowers.
- [75:59]
Cindy Rollins
But, well, I found when we had a large family, people were always dropping vegetables off at our doorstep. So I. And that's why I eventually just. Just said, you know what? Nobody's dropping flowers off on my doorstep. I'm going to grow the flowers. And I had some really pretty gardens. I had, like, white moonlight gardens where the flowers all bloomed at night and they were white. And I had, you know, bee gardens, and I had hummingbird things and, you know, chickadee with the goldfinches, with those sunflowers. We planted rows and rows of sunflowers just to see the. And we didn't even always do anything with the seeds. You don't always have to do something with these things. You can just enjoy them in your garden. And eventually. I didn't even always weed my garden, and it was just this big, messy. I called it an English cottage garden, but it was still so beautiful and so, so soul filling. I mean, I look out, right? It's just like right now we have a ornamental cherry blooming outside of our window. And to take. Just sit there and look at changes you. Changes everything. And I don't know how it works like that. I don't know how beauty really works. I don't. I'm someone who's never really understood beauty. I don't. You know, I get confused about the idea of art being, you know, this, this pretty picture is not really beautiful, but this other picture is beautiful. And I don't always understand all the. That goes into, you know, a. A traditional view of beauty. That is true and good, but I do know there in nature, I'm pretty solid in nature. I know that God made it, so I'm safe. God is not Thomas Kincaid.
- [77:56]
Thomas Banks
And also to you.
- [77:57]
Angelina Stanford
Thank God.
- [77:58]
Thomas Banks
Thanks. Thanks be to God. Yes. Yeah, I feel like I want a liturgical response to that, that statement. And also with you, Cindy. So Mrs. Wilkins and Mrs. Arbuthnot both recognize a longing for beauty. In fact, there's a really interesting line that Mrs. Arbuthnot says that she is.
- [78:17]
Cindy Rollins
She.
- [78:17]
Thomas Banks
She feels the longing, but she wants to shut out beauty because it sets off desire in her. And she doesn't remember the early days of her marriage. Marriage.
- [78:30]
Cindy Rollins
Wow.
- [78:33]
Thomas Banks
And then Lady Caroline and Mrs. Fisher are not thinking in terms of beauty. They're not thinking in terms of going to something as much as they are thinking of going away from something. They're both.
- [78:43]
Angelina Stanford
Lady Caroline, who is by far the most glamorous of them, is the one with actually kind of the. The least developed aesthetic sense, it seems. I mean, she's not thinking of her surroundings so much at all other than. And, I mean, I want to be. It's not so much that she wants to be in Italy, is that she doesn't want to be in London back with the whole set, that she will.
- [79:01]
Thomas Banks
Be interesting to see her transformation.
- [79:04]
Angelina Stanford
Yeah.
- [79:04]
Thomas Banks
She feels that her beauty is an entrapment. So. And it is interesting that we do have the counterpoint of maybe the negative aspects of beauty and when beauty is solely thought of in terms of physical attractiveness. I've been in church situations where I've heard sermons about the importance of beauty and that we should be beautifying the world. And I have seen women take deep offense at that, automatically assuming that we're talking about physical attractiveness, sex appeal, whatever, you know, oh, I'm. I'm an older woman. I'm a mom. I don't have time to always go get my hair done, whatever. But that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about, you know, b.
- [79:45]
Cindy Rollins
No, And. And I've heard that, too. I've heard. I mean, I had a girl since. To me one time. I think I mentioned this before. Obviously, it stings a little bit, but I had lost a lot of weight. And she goes, oh, thank goodness. It's such a bad testimony when people. When Christians are overweight. No. Yeah. She really said, oh, my gosh. And this girl. This girl was very skinny, but not, let's say she wasn't, like, ragingly beautiful. And I thought, well, you know, is that a good testimony that you're not, you know, physically beautiful? What. I mean, what. What is a good testimony? God doesn't see, like, man sees. Man sees the outward appearance, and God sees the heart. So that's where things get very complicated when we start talking about beauty. It. What is beauty?
- [80:33]
Thomas Banks
We struggle with the idea of the beauty of holiness. Like, you know, Every human being can be beautiful because. I mean, to be so cliche, because our insides are beautiful. But I think we've all experienced that. Right. Where you're attracted to a human being and they seem beautiful to you. And it doesn't have anything to do with their physical features. It's just something they're projecting.
- [80:55]
Cindy Rollins
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Suddenly, so many times that has happened with people. You talk to them. And, I mean, I had that happen in church the other night. I'm sitting by a. Just a regular, you know, older lady, you know, you not noticeable in any way. And then she turns to me and she talks to me. And she's warm and inviting and kind and, you know, she's beautiful to me. And her.
- [81:20]
Thomas Banks
She.
- [81:21]
Cindy Rollins
Something comes alive in her besides just, you know, you know, her age, her. Her size or this or that.
- [81:29]
Thomas Banks
You. Conversely, we've all had the experience of seeing somebody. Somebody who's very physically beautiful, and they open their mouth and they become the ugliest person in the world to you. I have had that happen to me so many times.
- [81:41]
Cindy Rollins
Yeah. Yeah.
- [81:43]
Thomas Banks
So.
- [81:43]
Cindy Rollins
Well, you see these modern girls now in modernity, women are. I mean, they are caked. Their makeup is on. You know, there is makeup everywhere.
- [81:54]
Thomas Banks
What's.
- [81:54]
Cindy Rollins
Masks, and it's not even reality at all. And then there's also surgery that's going on at younger and younger ages. And that is not what we are talking about, because that becomes. That becomes a way of hiding, really, not a way of being.
- [82:11]
Thomas Banks
So I do think it is interesting that von Arnim is making these distinctions, that the beauty that we are longing for is not the same thing as Lady Caroline's physical beauty, which she is trying to escape from.
- [82:23]
Cindy Rollins
Yeah. Which has become kind of poisonous to her. But I hope that in the end, she. You know, she makes peace with her beauty.
- [82:33]
Thomas Banks
And there is also that line, again, cliche, when. When Mrs. Wilkins says that her husband is handsome, Mrs. Arbuthnot says, oh, that's how nice for you. She's like, again, cliche, because beauty is a gift from God. And then you see Lady Caroline feeling solely imprisoned by them. That. That. That beauty, which, of course, I know our Patreon listeners are thinking that's because they're disordered. Exactly. Right. Right. Things can either be blessings or cursing, depending on our own souls and how ordered we are. That if you're disordered, then, yeah, you can. Your physical appearance can absolutely be something that imprisons you. So we'll. We'll talk about how they're disordered later on. But I just wanted to focus on Beautyfoot for this. So. So they. Chapter five, they. They get to San Salvatore. Now San Salvatore literally means Holy Savior. So they are going to Holy Savior around Easter and they are going to talk extensively about how we are in heaven. We are in heaven. We are in heaven. And even with Mrs. Arbuthnot saying, I think Mrs. Wilkins might be becoming a saint.
- [83:45]
Angelina Stanford
Yeah.
- [83:46]
Thomas Banks
And even saying she thinks she's gonna see the halo around her head. So that's a flipping on the angel of the house there. And then the constant Garden of Eden echoes.
- [83:54]
Angelina Stanford
And that was actually something that surprised me a lot. Confession. I saw the movie before reading the book and that's maybe always a mistake, but the movie didn't dwell on those things aspects, you know, you can't film everything, of course. But yeah, the religious motifs in the book are much more.
- [84:11]
Thomas Banks
She's not just mystical, she's has the vision of a saint. And there's gonna be.
- [84:18]
Cindy Rollins
Well, she's resting, isn't she? She's resting, she's not striving. And that's what I find very beautiful in this whole change from her.
- [84:28]
Thomas Banks
Yeah. I want to trace the effect beauty has on everybody. But first I want to make sure I hit a couple things in chapter five. And it's okay if we don't get to everything today because we have three episodes to get through this. It's a very short book. But they have their Good Friday in chapter five. Right. So they're, they're. I mean, this is so Dante esque. They, in Italy, they're lost. You know, I'm in the middle of my wandering around in the woods. That's. That's the opening line of Inferno. And that's them. They are wandering around their lives and then they're literally lost. And it's this dark journey and it's scary. And they're going down the stairs which any of my students would know. Descent to Hades. And they think that's what's happening thing. They're stumbling around in the dark. They're blind, they're lost. They think that they're going to hell, they're gonna die. And then they turn that corner and then they go up and then come out and they're in the Garden of Eden. And they say, no, nope, this is San Salvatore. And the whole echo through the whole journey, San Salvatore. And they say, see, see San Salvatore. I mean, there's just. It's just an amazing scene. It's. It's almost like a call and response liturgy. They're on this journey and they're calling out, is this. Is this the way to the Holy Savior? And they're saying, yes, yes. But they can't see it. They're in the dark. They're lost. Is this the way to the Holy Savior? Yes, yes, keep going. I want to cry. What a metaphor for life. That's what we're all doing, right? We're all stumbling around. We're not. Am I really on the right road? Is this the way to the Holy Savior? Yes, yes, keep going, Keep going. And then, and then they get there. And again to show that this is like a heavenly realm. They're beyond time. In the beginning of chapter six, Mrs. Wilkins goes to look at her watch and says, it's not keeping time anymore. I forgot to set it after we left England. In the Orthodox church. Being outside of time, that's. That's the way you talk about the language of the church, right? We've entered the eternal realm. We're outside of time now. And they are so that they, they've. They've entered this. And the fact that the beauty has them is fantastic. So, so the first thing that happens is with Mrs. Arbuthnot, Mrs. Wilkins, that the beauty leads them to spontaneous praise and thanksgiving. And that is almost exactly out of Paradise Lost when Adam and Eve are standing in the Garden of Eden and it's so beautiful and they start singing hymns of praise. I mean, so it's not just. And you're right, the movie doesn't bring this out. It's not just that they're around beauty and it cheers them up. They are having a spiritually transformative experience that they immediately want to pour out their thought thanksgiving to God that he made so much beauty. Which of course brings up, you know, to go back to our discussion about the usefulness of beauty. God made the world beautiful. He made flowers. He. He didn't just put vegetables for us to eat. He put things that would smell good and look good and feel good. You know, he thinks beauty is important. So Mrs. Wilkins, of course, has. She starts to see herself immediately. She's immediately and most drastically affected. And of course the other three are going to take a little more time to get there.
- [87:32]
Angelina Stanford
Mrs. Wilkins, I would say, is the least self conscious character here. And maybe that is the reason why she is transformed perhaps more quickly than the others.
- [87:45]
Cindy Rollins
I think that's great.
- [87:46]
Angelina Stanford
The least self aware.
- [87:47]
Thomas Banks
That's good.
- [87:48]
Angelina Stanford
And again, I mean it's. I mean she's. She's the socially kind of clumsy one, the awkward one, but at the same time, she has a real humility in her and she.
- [87:57]
Cindy Rollins
I don't know, maybe she's really not clinging to anything.
- [88:01]
Angelina Stanford
Yeah, she lets her. She lets her guard down in a good way more readily than others do.
- [88:06]
Thomas Banks
And I think it's really fascinating, again, if anybody who thought at the beginning of this book this was going to be some kind of anti marriage, male bashing book, the second she gets in there, she thinks of Merlin.
- [88:16]
Angelina Stanford
She wants to. Yeah.
- [88:17]
Thomas Banks
But her first thought is that she tries to remember what he was like in London and she can't because she just sees him bathed in light. So again, this blindness in sight, the second they're there, she.
- [88:27]
Angelina Stanford
There's a kind of transfiguration of everyone.
- [88:30]
Thomas Banks
Yes. And then of course, a couple of chapters later, she's going to say, I've been a dirty dog, my love has been selfish, and I only wanted to love him when he loved me back the exact same amount. And I know that there's no woman listening who has not struggled with that exact thing. My. I knew. I knew someone who used to refer to it as the scorecard. You know, the wife and the husband were keeping a scorecard and she realizes that. And so suddenly she realizes I have a responsibility for how things are going in the marriage. It's not just he's doing this to me, I've also been doing it. I've been punishing him. I've been keeping a scorecard. And there's this effect that makes her unselfish. And when she sees lady Caroline and Mrs. Fisher's little bit of selfishness, she says it doesn't matter. Does it matter? How could that possibly matter? When we're here in heaven, we're at the place beyond selfishness and she just wants to share and share and share and, you know, oh, it's just. It's so beautiful. And even I didn't mention this earlier, but you might have noticed that there's a power struggle between Mrs. Arbusnot and Lady Fisher. Immediately, I waive references. And then Mrs. Arbuthnot says, no, I wave. If there are references to be waived, I'm waving. And then they fight over who's at the head of the table and who's giving the orders. And Mrs. Wilkins says, none of that matters, just leave it alone.
- [89:49]
Angelina Stanford
And Mrs. Fisher's formidable issues is a little bit scared by Mrs. Wilkins. And she keeps saying. Or disturbed by her. She keeps saying, this woman has to be curbed.
- [89:59]
Thomas Banks
Yes, he loved that line.
- [90:01]
Angelina Stanford
That's a great line.
- [90:02]
Cindy Rollins
She's Just a little bit. Yeah. Crazy in a way, like, just unsafe.
- [90:08]
Thomas Banks
I loved this line too, when Mrs. Arbuthnot was responding to the beauty in chapter six. And I think this really speaks to the heavenly realm versus, you know, what we suffer from in our day to day lives. She says it's beauty with joy without the underpinning of pain, which also feels very Paradise Lost to me. Yeah, and they call it divine. There's so much. Pay attention to this language when you're reading, guys. So much. Divine heaven, angelic. It's all there. And this is. I mentioned this earlier, this. They're immediately all surprised by their appearances. They're seeing each other differently. Were you always this pretty? Oh, you're much younger than I thought. Was. Is this the same woman I met back in London? Several of them are having, having that experience.
- [90:55]
Angelina Stanford
And for anyone who hasn't begun the book yet, I mean, we, we're bringing out the theological imagery and, and those motifs, but it's, it's not a tract at all.
- [91:06]
Thomas Banks
It's not preachy at all.
- [91:08]
Angelina Stanford
No, it's.
- [91:09]
Thomas Banks
I'm bringing it out because I think it's so easy just to get caught up in the beautiful fairy tale. And I just want to make sure everybody knows there's, there's a lot of substance to this book too. There is, but by no means is it, is it preachy. And I mean, Lottie is transformed inside and out in the beauty. I love that they say she's actually becoming more beautiful. I love this line. All petty selfishness and disagreements are melted away in the light. Honestly, I thought this was such a beautiful picture of what heaven will be like. We're just, we're no longer selfish, we're no longer petty. We no longer just care about the things. She keeps saying. Who cares? Who cares if she has that garden? There's so much beauty here. Why would we, why would we fight? And she said she doesn't want to share it now, but she will. She will. And she just, you know, she just know. Oh, it's so good. It's so good.
- [91:59]
Cindy Rollins
Don't they say later that heaven is a place where you don't need other people to help you? You're not, you're not in need of that kind of benevolence from someone else because you're completely satisfied in, in without it?
- [92:19]
Thomas Banks
I don't remember that line.
- [92:20]
Cindy Rollins
I think it's later in the chapter where that comes up. I'll have, I'll have to pay attention and find it again.
- [92:26]
Thomas Banks
I will look for that chapter nine, Mrs. Fisher's line. Hardly anything was really worthwhile except the past.
- [92:35]
Angelina Stanford
Yeah, and she. Mrs. Fisher. Her reflections on the current generation. What does she say? All these insignificant young people who still littered the world in such great numbers, in spite of a war which was said to have killed off so many of them. Why couldn't the war have killed off more of this generation?
- [92:58]
Thomas Banks
Idiots still alive after a world war. I heard reports that you were all wiped out. Okay, now, chapter 10 gives us some really, really good lines here for Lady Cath Carolina. How she's struggling against her identity. Okay, again, her identity as this beautiful, desirable woman. How's this? She has been given nothing to eat but sugar. She describes herself as a hungry woman who's being given nothing to eat but sugar.
- [93:27]
Cindy Rollins
Oh, wow.
- [93:28]
Thomas Banks
That's so good. Right? That's so good. And it's interesting that she's the modern woman. You would think that that would be something that would be said about the Victorian woman, right? But she. So even in the modern world, she wants something of substance. And all she's given is sugar. Which might be exactly a perfect example of the modern world. All we're ever given about anything is sugar. And entertainment. Bread and substance.
- [93:49]
Angelina Stanford
Because of the accident of her birth, the fact that she's the youngest, she's the one with the least restraints on her. The world's a bit more open to her than it is to the others. She's also the highest ranking of them. She's the only one with a title.
- [94:04]
Thomas Banks
Mm. So when Lady Caroline realizes that these women do not know her family name, and so that this means, for the first time, she's somewhere without her identity, standing in between her and the people, which. That's why she's been pushing every way, by the way, when she realizes these women don't know who she is, says she says, maybe I can, quote. Maybe she can, quote, shed herself. That's identity language right there. Shed herself, she says perhaps she might make something of herself after all. So she's feeling a little bit of freedom here. That. That this London identity has not followed her into Italy. I love that. And then chapter 11, we see more of the effect that beauty is having on them. The sweet smells brought peace and harmony. The flowers, quote, greeted each other with a holy kiss. So good. And that's where Mrs. Wilkins says, with all this extravagant beauty, you can't be selfish about it. I just. I just love that. And then finally, it ends with. And we'll wrap up with this note. The beauty did create other longings I've heard this before. Beauty calls out for beauty, right? So the beauty created longing. Specifically, though, it created longing for their husbands to come to share this beauty.
- [95:31]
Angelina Stanford
With their husbands, which makes Mrs. Fisher really wonderfully uncomfortable. And they have, like, four other bedrooms or something. It's, oh, no, no, this cannot be arranged.
- [95:41]
Thomas Banks
If you want better example of how messed up the Victorians are, what she represents is when she's upset that they said husband and bed in the same sentence. Someone might think about what happens with husbands and beds. That's literally how the Victorians thought. That's why you had the whole, you know, piano legs covered when one. Anybody think of a woman's legs. So there. There were a lot of social expectations that are rightly called Victorian. But that was really funny. And then we see, of course, Lottie turning into a saint at the end of chapter 11. But I love the idea that. But beauty made her feel like she cannot be selfish. And then that about the beauty, and then that led to her feeling like selfish. Love is not love at all. And I've been so selfish in my marriage. I have not loved my husband. And who cares if he's loved me rightly? I have not loved him rightly. And she calls out to him, so good. So good. Final thoughts, guys. I just want to cry. This book is so beautiful. It's a book about beauty, and it could not be more beautiful as far as I'm concerned.
- [96:43]
Angelina Stanford
And we're coming up on the funniest scene in the book soon here. We'll talk about it next week. But the. The bath scene, which is.
- [96:50]
Thomas Banks
Oh, yes. And of course, we cannot forget that this is happening over Easter, which has been mentioned twice. So first, Melosh says, I want to take you to Italy over Easter. And then Lottie says in chapter 11, he was gonna take me here for. For Easter. And we're here for Easter. And this doesn't seem right. So don't let the Easter over. And I don't. I don't think the movie played that up either.
- [97:10]
Angelina Stanford
It didn't.
- [97:11]
Thomas Banks
But the. The Easter and this being a resurrection, and we're, you know, going from death to life and rebirth here. I think we're going to see these four characters, actually six, because the husbands, too, are going to go through these death and rebirth here in the Garden of Eden at Easter.
- [97:29]
Cindy Rollins
What's that word C.S. lewis uses for longing? That. What is that?
- [97:34]
Thomas Banks
Oh, yes, the. The S word. Yeah. I shame myself when I try to do German.
- [97:44]
Cindy Rollins
Yeah. I think this book brings out a lot of that. The longing.
- [97:50]
Thomas Banks
And I was teasing you about, you know, you want to run off to Italy, but I don't think that's necessarily a bad response to this book. You're longing for beauty.
- [97:58]
Cindy Rollins
Oh, I've been on Airbnb and looked at Portofino already.
- [98:03]
Thomas Banks
We'll talk later, Cindy. We'll talk. Summer vacation is coming up. If I can ditch my husband for me. Lurch, could you let me go for a few weeks? A month long holiday? Who would even thought such a thing? Yes. Yes. I'm sorry. My brain went a million different places about.
- [98:18]
Angelina Stanford
As a testimony to how much I enjoy this book, I'm reading the. So my copy has the movie poster on it, which always, like that. Always annoys me when they do that with books that come out, you know, that are published in the wake of a movie. I know it's. It's.
- [98:34]
Thomas Banks
It's vintage, honey, but.
- [98:35]
Angelina Stanford
Yeah, it would have spoiled any other book. I just get. Yeah, that's. That's a pet peeve of mine.
- [98:39]
Thomas Banks
The movie got Lady Caroline's face on the COVID Of course it does.
- [98:43]
Angelina Stanford
Of course. Yeah.
- [98:46]
Cindy Rollins
Well, the actual. The actual cover that Atlee has on the book for the House of Humane Letters is you can actually find Airbnbs that look like that. So. Not just saying. Just saying.
- [99:02]
Thomas Banks
I need Wisteria in my life, pronto. All right, well, for those of you who don't run off to Italy, you can finish the book and meet us right back here next week and we'll explore the next section of chapters. We're going to finish it, but we. We might not. I think the ending might need its own episode. So we'll. We'll get through a bunch of the chapters next week. And then the third episode, we'll. We'll finish up the book and we'll talk about the movie, which is, you know, do we watch it on Amazon Prime?
- [99:32]
Angelina Stanford
Something like.
- [99:33]
Thomas Banks
Something like that. It's easily available, and it's. It's actually really good. So if. Yeah, I know. A lot of us are like, what's a. What's something family friendly? This is. This is a very family friendly movie. Well, I say that there is a storyline. Maybe. Maybe I. Cindy, I always get myself into trouble. We should just end.
- [99:52]
Cindy Rollins
I always forget when there's.
- [99:54]
Thomas Banks
I know I have no children under the age of 18. What I consider family friendly might not be the same as you. So scratch that. We'll finish the book. I guess I meant by that there's no. You know how every Jane Austen movie now has nudity nothing like that. It's definitely, definitely a TV movie kind of thing. Anyway, now that I've just mangled that horribly, meet us back here for the next set of chapters on the Enchanted April, and we will get out our May schedule here pretty soon. We actually were just talking about that, so we'll work on that and get that out to you. Actually, we might have it out to you already by the time you watch this. Thanks so much to everybody who came out to the conference. You guys made it amazing and we've really enjoyed the feedback we've gotten from everybody, the quality of the questions, the connections you guys are making. If you're thinking what conference I missed it, go to HouseOfHumaneLetters.com click on conferences and you can read all about what we just did. It was, it was great fun and I think a really important and fruitful conversation. So until next time, stick around. Mr. Banks is going to end us with a poem and it better be Enchanted.
- [101:00]
Angelina Stanford
It's by Shakespeare. I think that qualifies.
- [101:02]
Thomas Banks
Okay, that's pretty Shakespeare. Pretty enchanting. So we'll, we'll see you right back here next week for the end of that. And until then, keep crafting your literary life, because stories will save the world and so will be thank you for listening to the Literary Life Podcast brought to you by our loyal patreon sponsors. Visit HouseOfHumaneLetters.com to find Angelina and Thomas and to sign up for our newsletter with podcast schedules and more. And keep up with Cindy@morningtimeformoms.com Join the Conversation at our member only Patreon Forum or our Facebook discussion group. Visit patreon.com theliterarylife to find out how you can sponsor this podcast and get great bonus content. Don't forget to subscribe, rate and review and check out our sister podcasts, the New Mason Jar and the well Read Poem. And now for a poem read by poet Thomas Banks.
- [102:10]
Angelina Stanford
Sonnet 98 by William Shakespeare from you have I been absent in the spring, when proud pied April, dressed in all this trim, him hath put a spirit of youth in everything that heavy Saturn laughed and leaped with him yet Nor the lays of birds, Nor the sweet smell of different flowers in odour and in hue, could make me any summer's story tell, or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew, Nor did I wonder at the lilies white, Nor praise the deep vermilion of the rose. They were but sweet, but figures of delight drawn after you, you, pattern of all those yet seemed it winter still and you away as with your shadow. I with these did.