stargazer

Spring Reading – April is the Cruelest Month?

“April is the cruelest month, breeding
lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
memory and desire, stirring
dull roots with spring rain.”

T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land

‘Sunny and warm one day then snow the next,’ agreed Gamache. ‘Shakespeare called it the uncertain glory of an April day.’
‘I prefer T.S. Eliot. The cruelest month.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘All those spring flowers slaughtered. Happens almost every year. They’re tricked into blooming, into coming out. Opening up. And not just the spring bulbs, but the buds on the trees. The rose bushes, everything. All out and happy. And then boom, a freak snowstorm kills them all.’

Gamache took the bread to the long pine table, set for dinner, then returned to the living room. He reflected on T.S. Eliot and thought the poet had called April the cruelest month not because it killed flowers and buds on the trees, but because sometimes it didn’t. How difficult it was for those who didn’t bloom when all about was new life and hope. 

The Cruelest Month is the third book in Louise Penny’s popular Gamache series. It takes place in April around Easter and it revolves around the central theme reflected in Eliot’s poem. April is the time for hope, potential and new beginnings, but so often this potential isn’t realised. Impressively, many aspects of the novel (incl. Ruth’s geese, the significance of Easter and the backstory of certain characters) all fitted nicely with this theme.

I was less enthusiastic about how the novel seems to fall between chairs. It could be characterised as cosy crime crossed with police procedural, but it lacks the humour present in my favourite cosies and doesn’t have the darkness, grit and pageturning qualities, I typically enjoy in police procedurals.

Furthermore, there are references to literature and poetry and the story is built neatly around a central theme, but it doesn’t have the depth of literary fiction. So quite an odd combination, which seems to work well for many readers. Personally, I am not convinced.

Rating: 3 out of 5.
Title: The Cruelest Month [2007]  
Author: Louise Penny
Format: Audiobook, narrated by Adam Sims
Genre: Crime Fiction

April. It teaches us everything. The coldest and nastiest days of the year can happen in April. It won’t matter. It’s April. The English word for the month comes from the Roman Aprilis, the Latin aperire: to open, to uncover, to make accessible, or to remove whatever stops something from being accessible. It maybe also partly comes from the name of Aphrodite, Greek goddess of love, whose happy fickleness with various gods mirrors the month’s own showery-sunny fickleness. Month of sacrifice and month of playfulness. Month of restoration, of fertility-festivity. Month when the earth and the buds are already open, the creatures asleep for the winter have woken and are already breeding, the birds have already built their nests, birds that this time last year didn’t exist, busy bringing to life the birds that’ll replace them this time next year. Spring-cuckoo month, grass-month. In Gaelic its name means the month that fools mistake for May. April Fool’s Day also probably marks what was the old end of the new year celebrations. Winter has Epiphany. Spring’s gifts are different. Month of dead deities coming back to life. In the French revolutionary calendar, along with the last days of March, it becomes Germinal, the month of return to the source, to the seed, to the germ of things, which is maybe why Zola gave the novel he wrote about hopeless hope this revolutionary title. April the anarchic, the final month, of spring the great connective.

Ali Smith acknowledges the fickleness of April and the potential for change. However, Spring, the third instalment in the seasonal quartet, didn’t feel particularly optimistic. Overall, I found it a mixed experience. The storyline with the film-maker Richard and his friend Paddy was engaging, fun and heartwarming.

The second storyline was a lot less enjoyable. The characters represented ideas and concepts rather than real people. Whilst clever, this isn’t my favourite kind of narrative. Also it felt heavy-handed. I prefer when authors have faith in their readers’ ability to think for themselves and don’t see the need to hit them on the head with the same message over and over again. It didn’t help that the writing lacked the lightness and elegance of Winter, which I loved. Finally, the numerous references and links, which less literary readers (or maybe it’s just me) may struggle to identify, felt more significant in Spring and without them it’s difficult to gain full understanding of events, characters and dialogue, most of which have a deeper meaning.

Spring may be my least favourite, but it was still fun to see how the quartet comes together and spot the similarities and threads, which run through the novels.

Rating: 3 out of 5.
Title: Spring [2019]
Author: Ali Smith
Format: Audiobook, narrated by Juliette Burton 
Genre: Contemporary Fiction

All the radiance of April in Italy lay gathered together at her feet. The sun poured in on her. The sea lay asleep in it, hardly stirring. Across the bay the lovely mountains, exquisitely different in colour, were asleep too in the light; and underneath her window, at the bottom of the flower-starred grass slope from which the wall of the castle rose up, was a great cypress, cutting through the delicate blues and violets and rose-colours of the mountains and the sea like a great black sword.

She stared. Such beauty; and she there to see it. Such beauty; and she alive to feel it. Her face was bathed in light. Lovely scents came up to the window and caressed her. A tiny breeze gently lifted her hair. Far out in the bay a cluster of almost motionless fishing boats hovered like a flock of white birds on the tranquil sea. How beautiful, how beautiful. Not to have died before this . . . to have been allowed to see, breathe, feel this .  

The Enchanted April focuses on the more positive aspects of April. New beginnings, new life, beauty. Four women, who barely know each other in advance, leave their unsatisfactory lives in London for a while and take residence in a medieval Italian castle.

I found the portrayal of the four women and their interactions absolutely wonderful and the novel was a pure delight. At a different time, I might have rolled my eyes at the easy solutions, the happy endings, the romantic life perspective. But I let myself be captured by the enchanting Italian atmosphere and just went with it. As an antidote to Ali Smith’s depressing social commentary and incomprehensible cleverness, The Enchanted April was just perfect.

Rating: 4 out of 5.
Title: The Enchanted April [1922] 
Author: Elizabeth von Arnim
Format: Audiobook, narrated by Eleanor Bron  
Genre: Fiction, Classics

So what is the conclusion? Is April cruel or enchanted? I quite like April and its unpredictability. This year we had snow the 1st of April (snow in London is rare at any time of year) whereas other days felt like summer. And even if only in small glints, I love how April indicates that warmer (and better?) days are ahead. Maybe even an enchanted holiday in Italy?

32 comments

  1. I’ll definitely go for the von Arnim, whom I somehow never read. I share your feelings about Spring. And Louise Penny? I enjoyed the first one I read, but have failed to engage properly with any I’ve tried since. Maybe later ….

    • The von Arnim was the best of the bunch and it was perfect to read it in April. Louise Penny’s series will never become a favourite of mine. On the other hand, I just finished my first Donna Leon book, which you recommended on an earlier occasion. I really enjoyed it!😀

  3. I loved The Enchanted April too but have never found another book by the author (must look harder). My April is so different to yours as in Australia it is in the middle of autumn, with shortening days and a chill in the air by evening. April in the Northern Hemisphere always sounds so hopeful.

    • I would think, The Enchanted April is her most popular book? I wouldn’t mind trying more from the author, but probably not in the immediate future. Of course, your April must be so different. I guess you have to think of October, when you read April books from the Northern Hemisphere.

      • Books set in the northern hemisphere are so different to my reality. Christmas is in winter for you but summer for me and our Easter in in mid-autumn. I haven’t really thought about it before but I suppose I do make a six-month adjustment automatically.

        • It always amuses me to think about Christmas in the Southern hemisphere, which I have experienced a couple of times – Santa in bermuda shorts and all that… But I guess you would find it equally amusing (or depressing) to think about Christmas in the cold, dark season…

  4. I do love April although March is my favourite month! This is such a lovely post, I must read The Enchanted April and I keep meaning to read Ali Smith’s quartet but never seem to get started, may be Summer will be a good place to start?!

    • Oh really! March often feels more like winter than spring. I much prefer April.😊 Thanks Jane, The Enchanted April was such a charming story with humour and great characterisation. I think you would enjoy it! Regarding Ali Smith: I am not sure Summer is the best starting point, since it’s the last book in the quartet and I think it refers back to some earlier characters. If you want to read one, I would suggest Winter.

  6. I loved the von Arnim – it was an unexpected delight so now I want to read more by her. Shame you didn’t like the Louise Penny, it’s her setting and character of Gamache that makes me return to her – the plots are incidental

    • Agreed, an unexpected delight and not really my usual type of read. I didn’t dislike Louise Penny, maybe my review was a bit harsh. There were elements, I enjoyed, but I doubt the series will become a favourite.

  7. I love April, with the promise of new growth and fresh scents, but this year I am really struggling as the days have remained chilly, and the sun doesn’t seem to want to make an appearance for more than a two day stretch. It is a mixed bag and we’re never sure what we are going to get, that’s for sure. Thanks for sharing these spring reads, I will keep them in mind!

    • April certainly can be treacherous with the weather, but perhaps that is part of the charm? I hope May will be better for you. Where I am, it seems to have changed to proper spring/summer. It will be a matter of weeks before we start complaining, that it is too hot! 😆 The Enchanted April was perfect spring reading, which I can highly recommend.

  8. I remember reading the first book in Ali Smith’s Seasonal series and loving it but the second one (Winter) left me cold. Looks like the third is no better.

    • A lot of people liked the third book, so don’t let me put you off. Even if I didn’t enjoy it much, there is still enough positives to make me want to finish the quartet.

    • Thanks Lashaan, it was pretty much a coincidence that I read two April themed books after each other. Then I thought I might as well read a third and write a themed post.

  10. Ahhhh both sound like apt reads for April. I have a love-hate relationship with spring. Hate because – pollen 😅 And what a coincidence that both covers are watercolor painted! Great review, stargazer! ❤️❤️

    • I am the same, not keen on pollen! But otherwise like spring. Haha, I didn’t even notice the covers. Thanks! 😀

  11. Hi dear stargazer, I love how seasonal your reads were. I was especially interested in your thoughts on Spring. I really, really wanted to love those books but they seem so over my head. I hope you are having a lovely summer and maybe have been able to travel a little? I’m still not feeling safe enough to travel here. Happy summer! ♥️

    • Hi Jennifer, it was a fun reading month with lots of seasonal reads. The first two weren’t even intentional. I see what you mean about the seasonal quartet, I think a good part went over my head as well. Thanks, so far it’s a lovely summer, although a bit too hot for my taste. I have done some shorter trips within Europe, but still no long distance traveling. How is your summer so far? Hope you and your family including the cats are all doing well. 😊☀️🌼

      • Lovely to hear back from you, Stargazer. It’s been a nice summer so far. Rather hot, but that’s ok because I love the longer summer days. I’ve not been traveling much either. Feel a little safer in my bubble! 😂 💐

        • It has been hot here as well (too hot) but at the moment it’s nice. Traveling this summer is challenging with chaos in the airports, train strikes and endless queues on the roads. Might as well stay home. 😀

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