Customer Reviews

Blue Flower

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(16)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

Penelope Fitzgerald's Booker prize-winning novel THE BLUE FLOWER is the story of Friedrich "Fritz" von Hardenburg, who later became the Romantic poet Novalis, and his love for Sophie, an adolescent with whom he has little in common but who illuminates the world for him. Among the book's strengths is its vivid depiction of life in late-1700s Germany.

Much of THE BLUE FLOWER is concerned with mood and the inner lives of its characters, and may disappoint those who favour a smooth and moving plot. The ending is particularly abrupt and I didn't find it satisfying.

Among common criticisms of the book is that the issue of Fritz's consuming love for Sophie is unrealistic because they have nothing in common, and in fact Sophie is quite a dullard. Nonetheless, every man has at times fallen in love with some woman who may display few intellectual qualities but who is beloved because she is a glass through which the universe is seen. Thus, Fritz calls Sophie his "Philosophy. Plus, there is much emphasis on the fact that it is Sophie's mysterious aura, not her mind, that is the real draw. Fritz cannot help but love her.

THE BLUE FLOWER raises some interesting questions to ask of oneself, although after the reading it is somewhat forgettable. Nonetheless, it's a quick read, and I'd recommend it to anyone who might find the setting interesting. I should mention that the book does change a few details of Novalis' life, so if you are already acquainted with the poet it may annoy you.

On the strength of the ratings and the fact that she won the Booker I bought the book. It really wasn't an interesting read and the character development seemed pretty poor. I, like many of the other reviewers, wouldn't recommend it.

The more Penelope Fitzgerald I read, the more I believe that she must be ranked with Iris Murdoch and Anita Brookner as the best writers the last fifty years have produced. This book is unlike anything I have read, and within the conventions of the novel, Fitzgerald's mind takes yours down little alleyways where you see things in a completely new way. I was reminded of 18th century portraits with the sitters and their surroundings come to life; and of a tiny, exquisite music box opened to entertain and edify. Every character is beautifully depicted, every scene has meaning and beauty. I love this book.

This is a book that captures a time and place and sensibility that is vastly different from our own. Fitzgerald's ability to transport us fully to that world is nothing short of astonishing.

This book is amazing. Fitzgerald built this entire book on actual historical documents. Every chapter relates to a letter, journal entry or something similar. She does everything possible to bring you into the world of Novalis, before he was Novalis. Her use of the German language inside of English was masterful. If you want to know how some of the German translates http://dict.leo.org/ is the best free tool out there. Some times the piecing effect is felt. You find yourself wanting more, and the scene switches. This itself is part of here pure genius. The entire book is about longing. What better tribute could be made to Novalis, perhaps the greatest poet of the German Romantic. The Blue Flower, the ultimate symbol of longing.

A great short read - as rare and wonderful as the flora of the title. Ms. Fitzgerald creates the family environment, society, education and general circumstances of a young man destined to become a great poet of the German era of the period of Goethe (the great man himself makes an appearance in the tale). The eccentric, precocious, intensive perceptions of the sensitive young man coming of age, struggling between wisdom and understanding, love and faith. Like any great work of art, it reflects life's mysteries - what is the basis of love and life? The fact that we can never know heightens the sense of tragedy and pathos - the explanation for Fritz's quote in the end "All things considered, I think I'd rather be dead". An excellent, introspective work, great characterizations, dramatic in the mind's workings.

Cutting straight to the chase after reading the very polarized views of other reviewers: Although Penelope Fitzgerald's slender novel contains much to admire, it is most certainly not composed to be a popular entertainment, and its successes will appeal more to admirers of "literary fiction"--and, hence, to "critics"--than perhaps to the general reader. Fitzgerald presumes the reader knows something, and cares, about the late 18th Century context; she hopes we might be stimulated by imagining contemporaries of Fichte and Kant discussing their ideas; she presumes that, to us, "romanticism" is more than a word or a line from Shelly and that, by recovering, or compiling, everyday details from a time and world long lost, she can help us understand the romantic sensibility and, ultimately, Hardenberg's--and our--ambiguous longing for "the Blue Flower."

I particularly enjoyed Fitzgerald's vignette approach--55 short chapters, each of which is a set piece, generally with a wry punchline--which allows Fitzgerald to view Friedrich von Hardenberg's improbable romance at odd angles. I for one marvel at this choice of subject, a decision by a professional author as seemingly improbable and hopelessly romantic as the subject itself.

And yet, despite the author's absolute mastery of her material, her strong cast of winning characters, and the wonderful--although irretrievably high-brow--sense of humor suffusing the entire narrative, I never felt myself emotionally drawn in. One reads on because each page is delightful, and, for many readers (obviously, me included) this is sufficient. But on the basis of slender narrative evidence, we are expected to understand, rather than led toward empathy with, Hardenberg and his inconceivable attachment. Perhaps Fitzgerald's plan was, in writing the simplest of love stories, to avoid cluttering the universe with additional examples of cheap sentimentalism, leaving us with a "mystery of love." In different hands, the novel clearly might have become just that--dismissively sentimental. Instead, she goes the other way: Fitzgerald is a cool observer keenly attuned, in a very modern sense, to the ironies her story poses, but she never truly enages our hearts.

It is astounding that a novel barely longer than two-hundred pages can create this many characters one cares deeply about, even more astonishing considering how distant a bunch of late 18th century Germans would seem in the hands of any lesser novelist. I've never read a book this short that had the same emotional impact - and was so unsentimental. The last page, essentially just a list, is one of the most powerful sections of prose I've ever read, simply because it contains the weight of all the perfectly written pages, and complete human beings, that went before it. A beautiful, sad, funny, moving book.

"I have remained true to my deepest convictions, I mean to the courage of those who are born to be defeated, the weaknesses of the strong, and the tragedy of misunderstandings and missed opportunities, which I have done my best to treat as comedy, for otherwise how can we manage to bear it?"

The quote above appeared in a story about Penelope Fitzgerald written just after her death. The quote and the ideas it states appear to be very appropriate to "The Blue Flower". I have read two other works of hers "The Bookshop" and "The Golden Child". All three books share her wonderful style of writing, which she can modify to produce three very different books, all the while maintaining the quality of her writing, while demonstrating incredible range.

Of the three I have read this work is the one she makes you work the hardest for. The two previous books laid out their stories in comfortable, familiar settings, both in place and time. The books were constructed so the reader was able to follow a distinct story line. In the case of "The Blue Flower" the story, and her method of telling it leaves the reader to fill in the details necessary to make the story flow in a more conventional manner, to read more easily, more comfortably. For those who want all the details, all the motivation of the characters detailed and laid out with a beginning, middle, and end, this work may not rate as one of their favorite works.

This book was comparatively lengthy set side by side with the other books I have mentioned. The briefer works are very straightforward, and I commented when I wrote about "The Bookshop" that I was curious with what she would do with the added length. True to having been not only a brilliant and highly original Authoress, as the length of her work expanded, it became more complex, less apparent, but yet another phenomenal read.

I'm addicted to historical novels, and had great hopes for this novel before I read it. I was a bit disappointed in the reading of it: while there's no question that Fitzgerald has done her research and is grappling with some weighty issues concerning Romanticism, desire, and the quotidian, THE BLUE FLOWER is hardly engaging or enthralling. It reads mostly like an intellectaul exercise (especially in that its language and syntax reads almost exactly as if it were translated from the German--as if this were Goethe rendered into English). While (for what it is) the book is quite well done, it wasn't what I was hoping for when I picked it up. It seems more like a writer's novel--that is, a novel for other writers to admire--than a book to really enjoy.