Last night I dreamt of an endless field of rye waving under a blue sky, a sure sign that Elizabeth von Arnim's The Pastors Wife has drawn me in.
It's been a long time since I've come across a book that makes me want to sit indoors and read all day – not in that urgent “ get to the end to find out what happens”way, but to linger and enjoy, to feel the pleasure of reading well written words, pausing to appreciate a subtle pro-noun or comic metaphor, examining ideas, recognising feelings, engaging with characters, imagining vistas, observing life's absurdities and truths through the eyes of someone capable of expressing them.
It begins with little promise of going beyond a farcical comedy. Ingeborg, a sheltered Bishop's daughter, unexpectedly finds herself with blessed relief from a toothache, ten pounds to spend and a whole week of unchaperoned freedom. A combination of circumstances that leads to her marrying the Pastor of an East Prussian village.
So she leaves the Bishops palace and becomes involved in real life – and a strange foreign one at that. Though intelligent and erudite, her inexperience and naivety give her the perspective of a puzzled child observing the strange (and often ridiculous) conventions of being a grown up. One such convention is the production of children – in the natural German way. After 6 pregnancies in 8 years, its time for rebellion and change – and consequences, as she falls into the hands of a lothario.
The plot is unlikely, but is not the heart of the story – that is Ingeborg's journey of discovery as she finds love ,duty, freedom and disappointment. The fact that Von Arnim chooses to show us a journey that ultimately goes nowhere, is not perhaps to modern tastes – but is a truer ending I think, and and carries a strong feminist message even for today.
She's well worth reading, sublime in her invocations of pastoral beauty and genuinely funny. If you haven't read anything by her, think of her as Virginia Woolfe lite.
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