Effi Briest (Penguin Classics) [Paperback]

Theodor Fontane (Author), Hugh Rorrison (Translator), Helen Chambers (Translator)

Book Description

Release date: July 1, 2001 | Series: Penguin Classics

In 1919 Thomas Mann hailed Effi Briest (1895) as one of "the six most significant novels ever written." Set in Bismarck's Germany, Fontane's luminous tale of a socially suitable but emotionally disastrous match between the enchanting seventeen-year-old Effi and an austere, workaholic civil servant twice her age, is at once touching and unsettling. Fontane's taut, ironic narrative depicts a world where sexuality and the enjoyment of life are stifled by narrow-mindedness and circumstance. Considered by many to be the pinnacle of the nineteenth-century German novel, Effi Briest is a tale of adultery that ranks with Madame Bovary and Anna Karenina and brilliantly demonstrates the truth of the author's comment and "women's stories are generally far more interesting."

Editorial Reviews

Review

This superb new translation at last enables English readers to enjoy the novel. -- The Times, London

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: German --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Classics; Reissue edition (July 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140447660
• ISBN-13: 978-0140447668
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.6 x 7.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #338,884 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

62 of 64 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Melancholy and Beautiful Novel March 31, 2002

By mp

Format:Paperback

Theodor Fontane's 1895 novel, "Effi Briest," is the moving and melancholy story of Effi, a sprightly teenage girl whose limited interactions with society and the moral bearings of that society are brought into direct and terrible conflict. Fontane gives an all too realistic portrayal of late 19th century Victorian morality and the lives of minor German aristocrats. The novel relates Effi's struggle to negotiate the constraints of society as an extremely young woman who in many ways rejects them all.

"Effi Briest" begins as Effi, a fifteen year old girl, enjoys the privileges of wealth and beauty in the small town of Hohen-Cremmen. She plays with the other young girls of her neighbourhood, Herta, Berta, and Hulda. They play childish games and indulge each other in romantic stories and juvenile ambitions. One day, while telling the story of an unrealized love affair between her own mother and a military officer, Geert von Innstetten, Effi is informed that Innstetten, now upwards of forty years old, has come to visit, and has proposed marriage to Effi. Effi cannot but comply. Relocated to the port town of Kessin, Effi finds herself in a commercial center, without the kind of genteel society she is accustomed to, nor the variety or the spontaneity in her lifestyle that she had always enjoyed. Innstetten's workaholism and emotionally detached bearing make life nearly insufferable for her. She is relieved by two men, Gieshubler, a kindly old hunchbacked chemist; and Major Crampas, a 'reformed' libertine whose marriage is unsatisfying. Gieshubler offers Effi a haven of conversation and empathy; Crampas offers her a seductive, liberatory companion. As Innstetten's job absorbs most of his time, he permits and even encourages Effi to spend time with Crampas. A secret correspondence between Effi and Crampas sets the scene for the rest of the novel.

"Effi Briest" is really an extraordinary work. Fontane examines throughout the novel the effect of national and international politics, cultural mobility, and trade on the individual. Fontane's presentation of the port town of Kessin, in particular, is fascinating. Here, Effi is truly taken out of the sheltered life of Hohen-Cremmen and exposed to a mobile and commercial society, where people from different cultures and epistemologies flit in and out of her life, like the seemingly liberated woman, Maria Trippelli, in whom Effi takes an intense interest, and Roswitha, a lapsed Catholic nursemaid. In Kessin, she is also encounters a story that haunts the entire novel, the highly evocative and ambiguous story of the Chinaman.

Ambiguity is a hallmark of "Effi Briest" and is a major part of the appeal of Fontane's novel. Fontane refrains from making authorial pronouncements or assessments on his characters' actions and situations. To what extent, for example, does Innstetten's political ambition justify the lack of time he devotes to his young wife? Is Effi an agent in her own life, or is she a reactive victim to social morality and impossible standards, especially as a teenage wife? The relationship between Effi's parents highlights this ambiguity, bringing it even into ambivalence, as every difficult situation draws from Effi's father a dismissal of "that's too big a subject". Overall, a very complex and beautiful novel.

29 of 29 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Sensitive, nuanced tragedy July 23, 2006

By Jordan M. Poss VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Theodor Fontane's novel Effi Briest is one of the finest that I have read. The most famous example of German realism, the novel tells the story of Effi, a teenage girl who is still acting like a child when she is married off to Baron von Innstetten, a man nearly twice her age and a former suitor of her mother's. Effi moves off to the Baltic coast to live with Innstetten, and there faces fear, loneliness, and finally adultery.

What I like about Effi Briest is that Fontane avoids the usual pitfalls of this kind of story: lionizing the young woman's lover, placing the blame at the feet of the cuckolded spouse, etc. Innstetten really is a good man, and Crampas, Effi's lover, is a manipulative lady's man who Effi, despite their affair, is uncomfortable around. Effi is simply too young and immature to have made good decisions, and so the fault, sadly, is her own. In the end, her decisions come back to haunt her years after the fact, changing the lives of all involved.

It's dark, it's depressing in places, but it's a great novel.

The characters are all well-drawn and psychologically deep, and this is true not only of the three primary characters but also of the numerous supporting ones. Each of them bring vigor and flavor to what could have been just another closet drama.

This translation from Penguin Classics is very good, the best way to read it if you have to read it in English. The translation is very faithful to the German, conveying all the nuance and subtlety that was the hallmark of Fontane's writing. All in all, a very good book.

Highly recommended.

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Sad yet moving August 18, 1997

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

This is a sad book but a good book. The time is last century, the place is Germany, her quiet rural cities, and Berlin. We are told the story of a young, happy and innocent girl, Effi, who is thrust into marriage with a somber, insensitive man twice her age. She travels from sunshine to gloominess. Being offered only respectability and boredom, she eventually falls in love with someone else. We are never to know, whether anything else but a kiss happens between them, but her reputation is tarnished and the path to ruin becomes inevitable as she has to move out of the house and away from the farce of its shelter.
When reading this book, I kept on saying „...but...", with the continuing dismay of a woman born to the second half of the 20th century. But why does Effi not speak up? But why does she go along with the bourgeois stupidities required of her? But why does she suffer instead of fight? The answer can only be „because". Because she is a prisoner of her time, because she is uncapable to think the impossible, because she cannot be more free than anyone else. I wonder, who of us can ever, even nowadays? And that, indeed, is „ein weites Feld".
Theodor Fontane is not Jane Austen, although both write on similar topics, and let us glimpse at what life for the landed gentry was like. Only, Fontane does not give way to the pleasing fiction of a happy everafter. So if you can stand a book that has no Happy End, here is a gem piece of literature for you.