The Blue Flower - Softcover

Fitzgerald, Penelope

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0544359453 ISBN 13: 9780544359451

Publisher: Harper Paperbacks, 2014

Synopsis

"An astonishing book . . . Fitzgerald's greatest triumph." --New York Times Book Review

The Blue Flower is set in the age of Goethe, in the small towns and great universities of late eighteenth-century Germany. It tells the true story of Friedrich von Hardenberg, a passionate, impetuous student of philosophy who will later gain fame as the Romantic poet Novalis. Fritz seeks his father's permission to wed his "heart's heart," his "spirit's guide"--a plain, simple child named Sophie von Kühn. It is an attachment that shocks his family and friends. Their brilliant young Fritz, betrothed to a twelve-year-old dullard? How can this be?

The irrationality of love, the transfiguration of the commonplace, the clarity of purpose that comes with knowing one's own fate--these are the themes of this beguiling novel, themes treated with a mix of wit, grace, and mischievous humor unique to the art of Penelope Fitzgerald.

"An extraordinary imagining . . . an original masterpiece." --Hermione Lee, Financial Times

About this title

Review

‘The Blue Flower is a model of what historical fiction can be at its best – when the radical otherness of other times is not merely acknowledged but made integral to the fictional experience. It's also Fitzgerald at her best – elegant, inventive, hilarious, unsparing. I adore this book.’ Jonathan Franzen

‘Reading a Penelope Fitzgerald novel is like being taken for a ride in a peculiar kind of car. Everything is of top quality – the engine, the coachwork and the interior all fill you with confidence. Then, after a mile or so, someone throws the steering-wheel out of the window.’ Sebastian Faulks

‘Wise and ironic, funny and humane, Fitzgerald is a wonderful, wonderful writer.’ David Nicholls

‘An enchanting novel about heart, body and mind. The writing is ellipitical and witty... so that what could be a sad little love story is constantly funny and always absorbing. This novel is a jewel.’ Carmen Callil, Daily Telegraph

‘Her sense of time and place is marvellously deft, done in a few words. She knows how they all walked, eased their old joints. She knows the damp smell of decay of the ancient schlosses. In a bare little book she reveals a country and an age as lost as Tolstoy’s Russia and which we seem somehow always to have known.’ Jane Gardam, Spectator

‘Detail, expertly dabbed in, provides a substantial background for the story of a poet which, it is subtly suggested, is also the story of a remarkable moment in the history of civilisation... It is hard to see how the hopes and defeats of Romanticism, or the relation between inspiration and common life, between genius and mere worthiness, could be more deftly rendered than they are in this remarkable novel.’ Frank Kermode, LRB

From the Publisher

Winner of the National Book Critics' Circle Award
From the reviews of The Blue Flower "The Blue Flower is an enchanting novel about heart, body and mind. The writing is elliptical and witty... so that what could be a sad little love story is constantly funny and always absorbing with a cast of characters both endearing and amusing. This novel is a jewel." Carmen Callil, Daily Telegraph

"Her sense of time and place is marvellously deft, done in a few words. She knows how they all walked, eased their old joints. She knows the damp smell of decay of the ancient schlosses. In a bare little book she reveals a country and an age as lost as Tolstoy's Russia and which we seem somehow always to have known." Jane Gardam, Spectator

"Detail, expertly dabbed in, provides a substantial background for the story of a poet which, it is subtly suggested, is also the story of a remarkable moment in the history of civilisation... It is hard to see how the hopes and defeats of Romanticism, or the relation between inspiration and common life, between genius and mere worthiness, could be more deftly rendered than they are in this admirable novel." Frank Kermode, London Review of Books

"A minor miracle of sympathy and crispness." Adam Mars-Jones, Guardian

"An extraordinary imagining...an original masterpiece." Hermione Lee, Financial Times

"A novel in which the unsaid speaks; it is a masterpiece." Candia McWilliam

"A masterpiece. How does she do it?" A.S. Byatt

"A magical little book." Doris Lessing

"Her limpid, exact prose reflects an unwaveringly clear view of the human predicament. She seems to be one of those rare artists gifted with both the knowledge of how things are, and the skill to record what she knows with s ubtlety and devestating truthfulness." A.N. Wilson, Evening Standard

About this edition

• Publisher: Harper Paperbacks
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0544359453
• ISBN 13: 9780544359451
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 320