
I haven't had much luck in the past with Elizabeth von Arnim - I've tried twice to read Elizabeth and her German Garden and not got on with it at all. I also tried Christopher and Columbus and didn't get very far with that either. In fact the only one of her novels I have finished and enjoyed was the wonderful Vera, which I read in 2011 and reviewed here. Wikipedia tells me that the monstrous husband in that novel was based on von Arnim's unhappy marriage to Bertrand Russell's brother. I couldn't help wondering whether the pompous, foolish misogynist who narrates the Caravaners bore any relation to her first, German, husband, though the interesting introduction to this latest Handheld edition doesn't suggest this.
The Caravaners was published in 1909, and was apparently inspired by a caravan holiday von Arnim had taken a couple of years earlier with a group of family and friends (it was the wettest summer on record, as is the one on the novel). In itself this is an interesting piece of social history - I had no idea that caravanning was popular as early as this. Of course the caravans were not the kind we think of today - they were great lumbering wooden constructions, pulled by horses. In the book there are three of them - the Ilse, the Ailsa and the Elsa - and much comedy is derived from the cramped conditions, the way the crockery flies out of the cupboards in transit, and the difficulty of getting the caravans up hills (all three horses have to be employed to drag them up one at a time). Part of the fun was of course the pressures of living for an extended period in the open air - the caravaners had to walk alongside their horses, which in the book as well as in von Arnim's own experience often meant trudging through mud in pouring rain, rather then sitting comfortably being drawn along - and meals had to be cooked in one large pot on open fires. All this really amounted to serious roughing it for the middle-class participants, who nevertheless took part in this new hobby with enthusiasm.
Not so for the narrator of this wonderfully entertaining satirical comedy. The only male narrator created by von Arnim, he is Baron Otto von Ottringel, a middle-aged Prussian officer. He and his much younger wife Edelgard have been persuaded by the beautiful young widow Frau von Ekthum to join a group of mostly English friends on a caravan holiday in Kent and Sussex. The Baron has the idea of writing an account of this adventure to be read to his friends and neighbours on his return. However, things don't turn out the way he had hoped. Xenophobic in the extreme, he finds the English incomprehensible and infuriating. He's a raging snob and despises Jellaby, the Socialist MP, who seems to him unaccountably popular with the ladies in the party. He also starts by despising Jellaby's friend, referred to by everyone as Browne, who he thinks is the lowest of the low - that is until he discovers him to be the younger son of a Duke, after which he fawns on him, always calling him Lord Sigismund. He is pathetically besotted with Frau von Ekthum, who he feels is delightfully responsive to his attempts at conversation - he judges this by the fact the her only response is always simply 'Oh'. Women, for Otto, need to know their place, which is why he doesn't have much time for the Frau's sister Mrs Menzies-Legh, the chief organiser of the party and the only member who seems willing to engage in conversation with him. For Otto she is far too outspoken and forward to measure up to his view of the ideal woman.
Needless to say this view is imposed endlessly on poor Edelgard. She is his second wife, his first having died suddenly after nineteen years of marriage. Otto and Edelgard have been married for six years, and he has conveniently added the duration of his two marriages together, to enable him to claim that their holiday is a silver wedding celebration. He has a very definite idea of the perfect wife:
Indeed, the perfect woman does not talk at all. Who wants to hear her? All that we ask of her is that she shall listen intelligently when we wish, for a change, to tell her about our own thoughts, and that she should be at hand when we want anything. Surely this is not much to ask. Matches, ash-trays, and one’s wife should be, so to speak, on every table, and I maintain that the perfect wife copies the conduct of the matches and the ash-trays, and combines being useful with being dumb.
At the beginning of the holiday Edelgard conforms to this ideal, but hardly any time has passed before she starts to rebel. She shortens her skirts, refuses to obey Otto's commands, becomes outgoing and friendly with the other members of the party, even loses weight. Needless to say Otto is appalled by her insubordination, but his attempts to reprimand her are water off a duck's back.
What I think is perhaps the greatest achievement of this wholly delightful book is the way our view of Otto is gradually modulated as the story proceeds. At first he appears simply like a buffoon and it's only too easy to laugh at his ridiculous views and at his total inability to understand and interpret the feelings and actions of his fellow travellers. As time goes on, though, he seems increasingly pathetic, lost and confused. Alas, he has learned nothing from his week's holiday, a fact which becomes only too evident when, in Canterbury Cathedral, he overhears a conversation between Jellaby and Frau von Ekthum. They are discussing Otto himself, and analysing all his faults, but he is convinced the subject is Mr Menzies-Legh.
There's so much to enjoy in this brilliant novel, not least von Arnim's wonderful way of conveying a double view of the events of the holiday -we are never in any doubt about the perspective of the other caravaners, even as it is conveyed through Otto's skewed vision. There are so many wonderful moments here I could draw your attention to, but really you should read this for yourself. Von Arnim has risen hugely in my estimation and I will be seeing out more of her novels to read. Many thanks to the publisher for the review copy. Highly recommended.