Customer Reviews

Cecile

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This novel, though it may be important in understanding Fontane's development as a novelist, had very little appeal for me. Though it may be in part the fault of the translation, I found it so thoroughly of its time and place in Germany, so thoroughly enmeshed in the idea of what it was to be German at the time, that I could not connect with it at all. Almost claustrophobically insular. The notes and the afterword, intended to assist our understanding, are inadequate for one who is not well-versed in German history and literature. None of the characters seemed at all like real people, and the plot seemed almost Gothic.

Many of the elements of the plot and the themes emerge again in Fontane's "Effi Briest," a much more accessible and affecting work, which I heartily recommend.