Customer Reviews

Effi Briest (Penguin Classics)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

"Effi Briest" is considered by many to be THE classic example of German realism, even though it comes late in the movement. Fontane's inspiration for the novel was equal parts "Madame Bovary" and the real-life Ardenne case, in which a respected military officer duelled against and defeated his unfaithful wife's lover. Well crafted and thorough in its sketch of characters and environs, "Effi Briest" articulates tensions rampant in the late nineteenth century but still pertinent today.

Effi is still dangerously young when the older and accomplished Baron von Innstetten swoops into her mother's garden and marries her. The couple settle in a distant port town, in a house that gives Effi the creeps to the point that she imagines she is being haunted by the ghost of a Chinese man who died in the town years before. Innstetten, often away on government business, dismisses her fears, but the Major Crampas listens to her, and a liaison develops between him and Effi. Years later, the affair ended, the Innstettens move to Berlin, and the Baron discovers the old letters of the Effi-Crampas correspondence by accident. Without giving away the ending, there's a duel and a divorce and a death.

At the mere level of plot, there's plenty here to entertain, but there's much more to the novel than the headline story itself. Fontane forces a look at the Prussian involvement in empire-building projects of the nineteenth century, as well as the debilitating effects of indiscriminate secularization; "Effi Briest" depicts a culture alternately hungry for and wary of romance and enchantment, caught between occasional fascination with the newer world and the comforts of burgeoning technology at home.

Douglas Parmée's translation is generally very good, capturing the somewhat informal but authoritative tone of the original. There is one important translation hitch that bugs me, though: he renders the repeated image of the "wide field," the "zu weites Feld," as "too big a subject," and, while this is certainly the connotation, its robs the reader of a little elasticity.

To a twenty-first century reader, "Effi Briest" will no doubt come across as a little schlocky and sentimental at times, but no more so than, say, Austen or Brontė. If you enjoy the classics, I think this one endures pretty well. It's a wonderful book, with characters you really get to know and love.

"Effi Briest" is not just a German version of Emma Bovary or Anna Karenina - it is quite unique in its depiction of a not untypical 19th century marriage. At the age of 17 the impetuous Effi Briest is married to a man 21 years her senior. He is decent enough in his treatment of her, but for Effi being married is a horrible experience, mostly because her husband's job forced her to move to the small town of Kessin where hardly anybody is fit to become her friend.

What always strikes me about Fontane is the fairness and the understandig he shows towards his characters. "Effi Briest" is Fontane's psychological insight at his best. None of characters is gloryfied, none vilified. You can identify with Effi and understand what drives her into the arms of another man; but you can also see that her husband simply doesn't understand what he is doing to Effi; actually he's doing his best to make her happy.

When the attractive, ageing womanizer Major Crampas moves into town, Effi pities him at first. Later, her attitude changes, but Fontane does not give any details of what's going on between the two. He shows what made it happen - and how Effi and her husband will deal with it. - It is a very entertaining read, not least because of Fontane's excellent low-key sense of humour.

A masterpiece for the mature reader. It's strange that Fontane is not better-known in the English-speaking world, but this seems to be the case with German language literature in general. Ask the typical student of European literature for names, and they'll soon peter out after Goethe & Schiller. In fact there are many wonderful German writers (Spanish ones too) but usually we hear only of the English, French and Russian writers. Lessing (G E von, not Doris!) is another wonderful German writer.

This book (which I read in the Parmee translation, not the one referenced here) is not for youngsters looking for graphic sex, violence or suchlike "thrills." In particular, I would recommend against its being assigned in college classes. That audience is not ready for Effi Briest. It's an ADULT BOOK :).

For those who liked Effi Briest, several other Fontane novels have been translated and were issued by Ungar some years ago. Effi is the best I've read, but others of interest are A Man of Honor (Schach von Wuthenow) and Jenny Treibel. Both show the same interest in and sympathy for women characters.

"Effie Briest" is an 1895 German novel that is a fine example of artful thinking and worth reading if one can appreciate leisurely detail. Like all good stories, it not only presents an interesting set of events, but comments on life and thrills the reader a little with the mystery of things. The main character is a pleasure-loving and secretive girl who is briefly unfaithful to her gentle but neglectful husband with sad consequences for everyone around her. The entire course of her marriage is described, from her acceptance of the marriage proposal to the misery of her separation from her child and death, but sensational moments (such as her liaison with her lover) are skipped over and attention is given instead to psychological matters that explain the events. The author had read Shakespeare and, like him, presents a theme that keeps appearing in a variety of forms, which makes the thought pleasantly complex.

Beware of ordering the Kindle edition of "Effi Briest." It is not the same translation as the Penguin Classic edition, has sections missing, has no introduction and no notes.

Being German I read this novel for the first time at high school when I was 16. Many of my classmates hated it because allegedly nothing happens in it. I immediately fell in love with it because of Fontane s wonderful language. No doubt this is a masterpiece of German language and everybody who speaks German should read the original rather the translation.

Thomas Mann thought Theodor Fontane a great novelist. Effi Briest is considered essential reading for those who want to learn about German culture, especially Prussian culture.

I found this book very disappointing. The Chinaman's ghost is perhaps the highlight for me, a brief thrill in an otherwise slow-moving novel. There is little else here unless you are university student asked to dissect the various symbols or discuss the role of gender in Berlin in the time of Bismark. Other novels progress, move forward while this one seems to go around in the same "social ills" circle - Fontane continually showing his readers Effi's loneliness, isolation, immaturity and how she is a product of her time, upbrining, etc...etc.. (He does a great job of beating a dead horse instead of actually telling a story...maybe that's where his genius lies in this novel.)

This novel is intelligent, it just happens to be dull. The symbols are there, the allusions provides some clues but it's not enough as far as I'm concerned. When the actual adultery happens, how it happens... there's nothing here that prepares the reader nor something reliable to give you more insight into Effi's longings. Despite all the showing, the reasons for the adultery, I couldn't feel anything for her beyond a minor note of pity. Subtlety is one thing but this is an "uber-subtlety" to the point of "why bother". I gave my copy away to the library.