Love
By: Elizabeth von Arnim / Narrated By: Eleanor Bron
Length: 11 hrs and 14 mins
Not sure, but I think I might’ve mightily liked this…?!
Huzzah for me: I didn’t read the Publisher’s Summary before getting this. Rather, after Eleanor Bron’s lovely narration of the equally lovely The Enchanted April, I saw she narrated this and I was THERE!
And I’m nooooot sure how I felt about it, but considering how it made me feel on a physical level, the fact that I felt something on a physical level, leads me to believe that I may’ve really liked it. It was certainly bravely written, at any rate.
It opens at a theatre, where demure Catherine overhears a charming young man declaring he’s seen this production a gazillion and six times, this is his gazillion and seventh, and she turns around to benignly note he’s a rather good looking redheaded youth, filled with that zest for life, that sure-footedness that only those in their twenties seem to have. Christopher notes her, and he slooooowly begins to find her appealing, her warmth, and her elusiveness, beguile him, and soon he’s seeking her out, seeking to know more of her.
But Catherine is kinda sorta NOT in her twenties; oh sure, she may be small, she may look young, but he’s never seen her in the harsh lights of the day or some other lights that are less forgiving than muted theatre ones.
It doesn’t matter; Christopher is completely and unutterably smitten, and so he begins his wholehearted and oh so loud conquest of her, telling her age is nothing. And surely Catherine should know this as her own daughter married a man almost thirty years her senior.
And so Elizabeth von Arnim brings us this tale about, this pondering on, what love is and what love might not be. Soon, even tho’ she’s been adamant about not letting Christopher think such things, Catherine finds herself deeply in love, and she notes that people are calling her Miss and even Missy, and nobody seems to do anything but smile upon her. Once they’re married, however (And this happens after an atrocious misunderstanding made by her son-in-law, a sanctimonious pastor), she starts feeling and, oh dread, LOOKING her age, and now people are asking Christopher about his mother, asking Catherine about her nephew, totally falling silent upon hearing that they’re actually husband and wife. That’s probably where I had the hardest part with this book because Chris becomes such a feckless, dismissive prat (Not that he was into anyone other than himself before, but, gosh!) that I grew impatient with him, and Catherine becomes so fearful about who she is that she starts doing increasingly desperate things to physically pull off looking younger than her over 40 years.
But this is a book about Love, its many shades, its many forms, and the relationships, the bonds that are tested by life. Sometimes life makes one love show you what another really means, and it shows you who you really are. By the end, we wonder if both, or either, Catherine and/or Christopher can truly grow up. And it’s a hard and abrupt landing that comes only in the last 20 minutes of the audiobook. Usually I haaaate such abrupt endings, especially when things aren’t tied up and one is left wondering. But von Arnim’s steady story crafting, her patient character development, leaves one with a sense of how things will be so, even tho’ I felt a tad gutted at the ending, I fiercely applauded it.
And to say Eleanor Bron was fantastic would be a gross understatement. There are no more von Arnim/Bron partnerships in audiobooks out there, but I shall indeed be looking for Bron performing the works of other authors. She can do any gender, any age (And this story is FULL of disparate ages!), any emotional tenor that can be written. She fully embodies the characters, making them so distinct, not through vocal juggling/gyrations, but through the way they express themselves; we the listeners are never in doubt as to who is speaking at the moment. And like I said? She had me gutted with that ending.
Certainly this is kinda sorta lighter listening fare, but it’s a fierce meditation on what it means to love, to love others, to love one’s self. Yes, a light listen but one that packs a wallop.
And a good wallop is always to be respected!
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