
The Solitary Summer
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Narrated by:
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Lucy Scott
About this listen
Published in 1899, The Solitary Summer is a charming companion to von Arnim’s earlier novel Elizabeth and Her German Garden. As with its prequel, the novel is semi-autobiographical and in the form of a series of diary entries. The narrator decides to spend one summer alone in her country house far away from the demands and distractions of the world. She offers us a witty and lyrical account of a solitary summer, filled with reading and reflections on her beloved garden. However, her months removed from society turn out to be less solitary than planned: there is her husband, ‘the Man of Wrath’, to pacify, three young children to amuse, and the arrival of a regiment of soldiers. Light-hearted in tone, The Solitary Summer describes a voyage of self-discovery set against the idyllic backdrop of an ever- changing summer garden.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
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- Narrated by: Lucy Scott
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Overall
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Elizabeth von Arnim, who is best known for her later novel The Enchanted April, married a Prussian aristocrat and, with their five children, lived in Nassenheide, Pomerania. Elizabeth and Her German Garden is a semi-autobiographical novel about the joy that the protagonist finds in the delights of her Pomeranian garden, which provides relief from the stifling environment of her household. The novel was originally published anonymously because von Arnim feared that her husband, whom she satirised in the book, would disapprove.
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- Length: 3 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
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Performance
-
Story
Indoors are servants, meals, and furniture. There, too, is The Man of Wrath, her upright Teutonic husband, inspiring in Elizabeth a mixture of irritation, affection, and irreverence. But outside she can escape domestic routine, read favorite books, play with her three babies and garden to her heart's content. Through Elizabeth's eyes we watch the seasons, from May's "oasis of bird-cherries and greenery" to the time when "snow carpets her Pomeranian wilderness".
-
-
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