05/07/2018
loewenherz
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Enchanted April
It happened the other day when I was cleaning up. Once a year - let's say every year - I get my books in order. Dust them off. See if maybe I should give away a few of them after all. Almost never do that then. On the upper shelves, for which I need a ladder, those I have sometimes almost forgotten are under - sometimes - twelve months of dust. (I am a good and courageous thrower and sorter, but not for books: the respect for the written word - as stupid as it may sometimes be - is deep in my heart.) And then - all of a sudden - I had it in my hands, for the first time in twenty years: Enchanted April, written by Elizabeth von Arnim almost one hundred years ago. And then I sat down with the dusty book on the edge of the sofa and read its almost three hundred pages in one piece.
Enchanted April is what one would generally call a 'women's book'. What's the difference? Von Arnim tells the story of four very different ladies - English women like her and too happy to be allowed to call themselves unhappy, but too unhappy to be happy - who rent a wonderful villa on the Italian coast together for a month - that very April. And how each one comes a little closer to happiness in its own way. Von Arnim wallows in light and colour, tells of sun, flowers, scents - in a language that is light-footed and airy, but never simple or banal. And when I had read out the nearly three hundred pages - partly leaning against the edge of the sofa, sometime finally sitting, while the empties that had already been put right stared at me accusingly from the hallway - the villa by the sea and their little happiness were very close.
The same lightness and airiness, the same faded charm and the same fragrant colours, the same a bit old-fashioned but loving and careful language - and sun, flowers, scents, told lightly but never banally - I find in Ô de Lancôme. Ô comes from a time in which it was customary to clearly locate a perfume as a ladies' or men's fragrance - according to today's interpretation, its classification as a ladies' fragrance seems almost somewhat anachronistic - a delicate hesperidic chypre that it is. Nostalgic and a little old-fashioned, he is - at the same time youthful and eternally young. With an almost watery herbaceousness - austere but not bitter, serious but not serious - he reminds us of those four so different people whose souls unexpectedly get wings again in the Ligurian spring sun. A lot of friendliness and longing - and joy in small happiness.
Conclusion: Moments like my lost afternoon with 'Enchanted April' have an unexcited, unexpected and sudden beauty. And so hasÔ de Lancôme. For women. Men. People.
Enchanted April is what one would generally call a 'women's book'. What's the difference? Von Arnim tells the story of four very different ladies - English women like her and too happy to be allowed to call themselves unhappy, but too unhappy to be happy - who rent a wonderful villa on the Italian coast together for a month - that very April. And how each one comes a little closer to happiness in its own way. Von Arnim wallows in light and colour, tells of sun, flowers, scents - in a language that is light-footed and airy, but never simple or banal. And when I had read out the nearly three hundred pages - partly leaning against the edge of the sofa, sometime finally sitting, while the empties that had already been put right stared at me accusingly from the hallway - the villa by the sea and their little happiness were very close.
The same lightness and airiness, the same faded charm and the same fragrant colours, the same a bit old-fashioned but loving and careful language - and sun, flowers, scents, told lightly but never banally - I find in Ô de Lancôme. Ô comes from a time in which it was customary to clearly locate a perfume as a ladies' or men's fragrance - according to today's interpretation, its classification as a ladies' fragrance seems almost somewhat anachronistic - a delicate hesperidic chypre that it is. Nostalgic and a little old-fashioned, he is - at the same time youthful and eternally young. With an almost watery herbaceousness - austere but not bitter, serious but not serious - he reminds us of those four so different people whose souls unexpectedly get wings again in the Ligurian spring sun. A lot of friendliness and longing - and joy in small happiness.
Conclusion: Moments like my lost afternoon with 'Enchanted April' have an unexcited, unexpected and sudden beauty. And so hasÔ de Lancôme. For women. Men. People.
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