Theodor Fontane (1819–1898)

Irrungen, Wirrungen was Fontane's breakthrough novel, written when he was nearly seventy. It feels like a very loosely structured book, more interested in naturalistic description and dialogue than in conventional plotting, and that's really what gives it its charm for modern readers. Fontane gives us long passages of really beautifully observed, inconsequential conversation, the sort of thing we could easily imagine overhearing if we were on a street-corner or in a drawing-room in Berlin in show more the 1870s, and he tells us in lively detail about what we would see if we drove though the city in a horse-cab or travelled out to a pleasure-resort on the river.

The story itself isn't much - a pleasant romance between a young officer and a working-class girl is broken up, by mutual consent, for both of them to marry people of their own class. No big fuss, no divine retribution, just a few sighs on both sides, and the sentimental stuff is left for the reader to invent. And we're also left to work out for ourselves that, even in Prussia, society isn't very far away from getting to a point at which that kind of renunciation would seem ridiculous. The book was controversial when it first appeared because Fontane neither conceals nor criticises the way Botho and Lene share a room at the riverside inn where they've gone for the weekend, but I doubt if that would upset many people today. Very charming. show less

'Effi Briest' is a fascinating book, though not always enormously interesting or entertaining. But such things are, frankly, besides the point in these older novels, and while I understand the relatively low rating afforded Fontane's work on Amazon and its ilk, I think that when we read these black Penguins we should modify our expectations accordingly.

If I have understood it well, this is a book about time, and about the human relationship with time and age. Effi Briest hurtles into a show more marriage of convenience, though still very much a child. Her husband is twice her age, and is something of a pedagogue - everything is to him a learning opportunity for his child-bride. This is not romantic love, and soon Effi compromises herself with another man. The years pass, and soon her secret is discovered, with the sort of tragic consequences one has come to expect in novels of this period.

The questions that Fontane asks are particularly thought-provoking. Aside from the obvious ones about love and marriage, there is also the concept of the passing of time and how it affects our relationships. Roswitha, the most down-to-earth character, thinks that since six years have passed between the affair and its discovery, it is old news and should more readily be forgiven; but Roswitha is also quick to remind her interlocutors that her father once charged at her with a red-hot poker, thus suggesting that time does not in fact heal all wounds. So what are we to make of it all? Are we to side with the cuckolded husband, or with the neglected wife? There is much here to mull over, and that is the value of this novel. show less

Theodor Fontane is generally considered to be the pinnacle of the realist novel in Germany, something like the German equivalent of Balzac and Dickens. There is one marked difference between his novels and that of his French and English counterparts, though – Fontane’s novels lack any trace of the sensational novel and of melodrama that run so strongly through the work of the other two. There never is much in the way of plot, and even if characters die through suicide or in duels, there show more is never really any sense of drama to it – even tragic events appear business as usual, pieces of miscellaneous news on the last page of the morning paper whose perusal hardly raises an eyebrow. Depending on the reader’s bias, the resulting novels have been called true to life, poetic, or plain boring, but for the most part, Fontane is considered on of the most important German language writers of the late 19th century.

Irrungen, Wirrungen fits quite well into this (the common English translation of this title as “Trials and Tribulations” is quite far off the mark, by the way, ”Delusions, Confusions” is much closer to the German original, while “Entanglements” follows the spirit even as it strays from the letter). The novel, one of Fontane’s earlier ones, does not have an antagonist, does not even really have any conflict – it is about a pair of lovers separated by class, petit bourgeois Lene and aristocratic Botho who spend some time together but then go on to marry someone more appropriate to their social status. In the end, everyone just agrees to do the reasonable thing, and while they might bear some regrets both of the novel’s protagonists see societal conventions as something that cannot be circumvented or rebelled against but only submitted to. Even the reader is left behind wondering if this outcome isn’t the best for everyone concerned after all.

I used to intensely dislike Fontane; after struggling through two of his novels (struggling to stay awake, mostly), I filed him under “terminally boring” and gave up on him. It was somewhat to my surprise, then, that I not only felt the sudden urge to re-read something by Fontane but also found myself actually enjoying it – I suppose this is an indication that I’m getting old.

The plot of Irrungen, Wirrungen, such as it is, is almost reminiscent of Henry James, with class barriers playing the part of the gap between the Old and the New World, but the authorial temperaments of Fontane and James could hardly be more different. Where James constructs a hyper-subtle, extremely close third person point of view, Fontane’s narrator is omniscient and his tone genial and conversational – the German word “gemütlich” nails it quite precisely, evoking some kindly old grandfather figure sitting by the fireplace wrapped in a blanket and with his feet up telling stories from his life and times. But as it turns out, that congeniality is not really to be trusted – it masks just how relentless and without hope of escape a grip social conventions have on the novel’s protagonists. As one of the novel’s minor figures, Frau Dörr, puts it (in an entirely different context but the image seems clearly intended as an emblem for Prussian society in the late 19th century), “It’s a swamp that just pretends to be a meadow.” show less

I loved this book. I really liked the main character and thought she was drawn very well. In fact, all the characters were well realised, very human and believable. I liked Effi's youth and self assurance that was actually naivety, and thought the description of her change following the life changing event, that is really only ever hinted at throughout the book, no need for passionate or salacious details, was very well executed. The whole book models the politesse of 19th century society, show more where nothing is discussed in the open, but everyone understands what is going on under the surface. Effi starts out a child, confident that her bizarre marriage to her mother's former beau is something she is in control of. The realities of separation from her family and childhood home change her outlook on life, and the lifestyle her much older husband follows does not sit well with her effervescent character. Small wonder that her head is turned. The events that follow are tragic, and all involved are aware of the tragedy but are bound by the inevitability of the actions society demands of them. Effi changes completely, resigned to her fate. She reminds me in some ways of Natasha Rostova in War and Peace. Of the two other 19th century 'adultery novels' I've read (Anna Karenina and Madame Bovary), this one was the most sympathetic. I felt for all of the characters in each of their situations. I think this is because none of them is self-centred or arrogant in the ways Anna Karenina and Emma Bovary are. All of them are flawed, but each cares about the effects their flaws have on those closest to them. Well worth reading. show less