The Enchanted April
By: Elizabeth von Arnim / Narrated By: Helen Taylor
Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
A different version of The Enchanted April—What a deLIGHt!!!
Once upon a time, I was a newbie audiobook reviewer: On Audible my reviews had those dratted Questions as Guides in BOLD, and I was relegated to answering whatever was autogenerated by their whatEVER; and here on Audiobook Accomplice, my first reviews sometimes comPLETEly forgot about the narrator, didn’t provide summaries… You name it, and I was a TOTAL boob.
Once upon a time, Helen Taylor was a newbie narrator and volunteered over at LibriVox. Now, I’d discovered LibriVox early on in my Audiobook Addiction, and I’d been entranced by the idea of freeeeeee audiobooks only to discover? Jiminy H. Crickets! Some of those Volunteers were aTROcious. By the time, however, that I’d come to see that Ms. Taylor was crackin’ AWEsome, I went back and trolled books read by her.
Turns out? Both she and I LOVED The Enchanted April, still available for freeeeee at LibriVox (And I encourage you to Search for your favorite narrators there as I found TWO more of my faves got their starts volunteering there. Huzzah!). The only thing about LibriVox is, well, there are twooo things to note. Each chapter ends with the narrator rounding out with, “End of Chapter Six (Or whatever),” and begins with the title of the book, the author, “Recorded by Whomever,” and “Chapter Whatever.” For those of us who are soooo spoiled by the productions of audiobooks whereby NONE of that is orated, it can be a trifle annoying. That said, let’s get over the minor Minor MINOR annoyances and go on to the Love Fest that is this audiobook. Yesssss, we have the narration by Eleanor Bron on Audiobook Accomplice, but let’s see how Helen Taylor makes it come ALIVE!
An advertisement catches the plain and disheveled Mrs. Wilkins’s eye: A 14th century medieval castle for rent for the month of April, San Salvatore. Immediately, she is transported with delight: Surely HERE is SOMEthing, and she can’t quite put her finger on it, but somehow this is meant for her. On the way out of the club, she spies one Mrs. Arbuthnot, a good and pious woman whom she’s… uhm… NEVER spoken to, and she dashes over, crying out that wouldn’t it be wonderful if the two of them rented it, and they got away from their dull and staid lives. Mrs. Arbuthnot is taken aback by the blithe enthusiasm of Mrs. Wilkins, thinks her odd.
Oh, but I see you’ve read the advertisement, Mrs. Wilkins continues. And danged if Mrs. Arbuthnot doesn’t go ahead and NOT think of Duty for a second, NOT think of the Poor and of just how many shoes rent money could purchase for the Impoverished. Soon, heavens, the two of them are interviewing other women (Uhm, well, only two women respond to their discreet ad) for sharing rent of the place. They almost kick the cold, steely elderly Mrs. Fisher to the curb, but Mrs. Wilkins thinks the aloof old woman would be transformed by what will surely be the glory of San Salvatore in April. Then the Lady Caroline Dester joins them also, a woman just breathtakingly beautiful but talk about ALOOF?! Yikes!
San Salvatore almost imMEDiately morphs Mrs. Wilkins into the no-longer meek, you may call me Lottie. And dear Mrs. Arbuthnot is Rose, also taken aback by the dazzling place, the magic of the gardens, the pureness of the air. Soon, Lottie, who seeeees things before they come to pass, has decided to invite her forbidding and unloving husband, Mellersh, saying it’s JUST what the two of them need; that she, Lottie, hasn’t been the best of wives, but here, in San Salvatore, she’s come to know herself.
What’s absolutely lovely about this book is how each of the women come to see themselves for what they really are, have become. And it’s about the choices they make based on that self-knowledge. It’s about Hope for the future (Rose’s cool marriage may have been HER fault, so she hopes hopes hopes….!), and about letting people in (Mrs. Fisher just might be lonely, all those famous people she’s known are sooooo very dead, after all, p’raps a kiss on the cheek from Lottie might be JUST The Thing!), and the dazzling Caroline, “Scrap” as she’s known, might be gorgeous on the outside, but she knows she’s just a cold person, unyielding, spoiled. P’raps all those men who’ve never seen past her looks, who are “grabby” might be individuals with feelings, after all. And isn’t it simply so very nice to be around three women who don’t hate her for her beauty but who only like her, for who she honestly is?
I’d thought there could be no topper than Eleanor Bron as narrator; she’d delivered my First Listen of this charmer, and I’d been so very delighted. But Helen Taylor doing the honors here was even more delightful. In the former, I’d found Mellersh, even the New and Improved Mellersh, to be toooo much a stick in the mud; I’d felt Lottie was settling for a dud. But Ms. Taylor brings even Mellersh, the fuddy duddy solicitor to life as he, at the start, wheels and deals, but later actually morphs into a man with a sense of humor, one who honors his wife and playfully pinches her ear; he can’t help himself as she’s become so charming here in… San Salvatore.
I even chuckled a few times when Mellersh, in his own mind, natch, observes eeeeeverything around him, the way the winds are blowing for each woman, for each couple, and he cautions himself: Steady, Hold, Steeeeady; there’s trouble brewing! thinking He is the Only One Who Can Sort Things Out.
Ahhhh, but it’s Lottie who’s the upper hand when it comes to the ongoing transformations at… San Salvatore! this April. Only she has the chutzpah to doff her old ways and embrace the new with arms wide open, and hair newly made glorious by the springtime air. And by the end, we the listeners have NO doubt of how Ms. von Armin intended it all to end. After all: Lottie seeees things. Before they happen.
Sooo glad to be revisiting this gem of a story. Lovely, lovely!
Lovely!
This narration is not available on Audible but is on LibriVox.