Patricia
11-23-2008, 11:24 PM
The Caravaners [sic] (1909)
By Elizabeth von Arnim [Mary Annette Beauchamp], Countess von Arnim, Countess Russell. (1866–1941).
A Prussian officer is persuaded to go with his wife on a caravan tour of Kent and Sussex, with a group of liberal-minded Britons. Can anything shake him out of his smug German chauvinism and general self-satisfaction? This may well be the most humorous of Elizabeth von Arnim’s novels but, beneath the irony there is a strong feminist message.
A specimen of the dialogue:
I gently began, “Dear wife—” and was going on when she interrupted me.
“Dear husband,” she said, actually imitating me, “I know what you are going to say. I always know what you are going to say. I know all the things you ever can or ever do say.”
She paused a moment, and then added in a firm voice, looking me straight in the eyes, “By heart.”
By Elizabeth von Arnim [Mary Annette Beauchamp], Countess von Arnim, Countess Russell. (1866–1941).
A Prussian officer is persuaded to go with his wife on a caravan tour of Kent and Sussex, with a group of liberal-minded Britons. Can anything shake him out of his smug German chauvinism and general self-satisfaction? This may well be the most humorous of Elizabeth von Arnim’s novels but, beneath the irony there is a strong feminist message.
A specimen of the dialogue:
I gently began, “Dear wife—” and was going on when she interrupted me.
“Dear husband,” she said, actually imitating me, “I know what you are going to say. I always know what you are going to say. I know all the things you ever can or ever do say.”
She paused a moment, and then added in a firm voice, looking me straight in the eyes, “By heart.”
