What do you think?
Rate this book
Delusions, Confusions, and the Poggenpuhl Family
Book by Demetz, Peter, Stern, J. P., Zwiebel, William L.
318 pages, Hardcover
First published December 1, 1989
About the author
Theodor Fontane
1,068 books225 followersTheodor Fontane, novelist, critic, poet, and travel writer, was one of the most celebrated nineteenth-century German men of letters. He was born into a French Huguenot family in the Prussian town of Neuruppin, where his father owned a small pharmacy. His father’s gambling debts forced the family to move repeatedly, and eventually his temperamentally mismatched parents separated.
Though Fontane showed early interest in history and literature - jotting down stories in his school notebooks - he could not afford to attend university; instead he apprenticed as a pharmacist and eventually settled in Berlin. There he joined the influential literary society Tunnel über der Spree, which included among its members Theodor Storm and Gottfried Keller, and turned to writing. In 1850 Fontane’s first published books, two volumes of ballads, appeared; they would prove to be his most successful books during his lifetime. He spent the next four decades working as a critic, journalist, and war correspondent while producing some fifty works of history, travel narrative, and fiction. His early novels, the first of which was published in 1878, when Fontane was nearly sixty, concerned recent historical events.
It was not until the late 1880s that he turned to his great novels of modern society, remarkable for their psychological insight: Trials and Tribulations (1888), Irretrievable (1891), Frau Jenny Treibel (1892), and Effi Briest (1895). During his last years, Fontane returned to writing poetry, and, while recovering from a severe illness, wrote an autobiographical novel that would prove to be a late commercial success. He is buried in the French section of the Friedhof II cemetery in Berlin.
Though Fontane showed early interest in history and literature - jotting down stories in his school notebooks - he could not afford to attend university; instead he apprenticed as a pharmacist and eventually settled in Berlin. There he joined the influential literary society Tunnel über der Spree, which included among its members Theodor Storm and Gottfried Keller, and turned to writing. In 1850 Fontane’s first published books, two volumes of ballads, appeared; they would prove to be his most successful books during his lifetime. He spent the next four decades working as a critic, journalist, and war correspondent while producing some fifty works of history, travel narrative, and fiction. His early novels, the first of which was published in 1878, when Fontane was nearly sixty, concerned recent historical events.
It was not until the late 1880s that he turned to his great novels of modern society, remarkable for their psychological insight: Trials and Tribulations (1888), Irretrievable (1891), Frau Jenny Treibel (1892), and Effi Briest (1895). During his last years, Fontane returned to writing poetry, and, while recovering from a severe illness, wrote an autobiographical novel that would prove to be a late commercial success. He is buried in the French section of the Friedhof II cemetery in Berlin.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 31, 2009
Both DELUSIONS, CONFUSIONS and THE POGGENPUHL FAMILY deal with the decline of the nobility in late 19th-century Germany. In both novellas, family pride and class distinctions bump up against the reality of waning fortunes and a new social order.
In DELUSIONS, CONFUSIONS, Baron Botho von Rienäcker has an affair with a lower class woman, Lene Nimptsch. She, despite falling in love with Botho, recognizes the class difference and rightly assumes that the affair will finally come to naught. He also is in love but tries not to consider the future, as he also secretly understands the inevitable outcome.
Botho ultimately gives in to family and class pressure (and, probably more importantly, the need to marry someone with money). He marries the vacuous Käthe, a pointed contrast to the genuine and intelligent Lene, and lives unhappily ever after, while Lene marries an honest, unaspiring man of her own class.
THE POGGENPUHL FAMILY chronicles the life of a poor but aristocratic family which looks to the family glories of the past, embodied in the portrait of an ancestor depicted fighting heroically in his underwear against a surprise attack.
The contrast between desire and reality is personified in the three daughters. Therese, the eldest, still thinks of herself as an aristocrat and acts accordingly, while her two sisters, who have a better sense of the new social order, are willing to coexist with whomever they find.
The materfamilias, the widow of a Major and the only one in the family not of noble descent, is good natured to all as they confront the new social reality in their own ways.
The family receives some measure of relief when the widow of a Poggenpuhl uncle makes a small provision for them after her husband’s death.
In DELUSIONS, CONFUSIONS, Baron Botho von Rienäcker has an affair with a lower class woman, Lene Nimptsch. She, despite falling in love with Botho, recognizes the class difference and rightly assumes that the affair will finally come to naught. He also is in love but tries not to consider the future, as he also secretly understands the inevitable outcome.
Botho ultimately gives in to family and class pressure (and, probably more importantly, the need to marry someone with money). He marries the vacuous Käthe, a pointed contrast to the genuine and intelligent Lene, and lives unhappily ever after, while Lene marries an honest, unaspiring man of her own class.
THE POGGENPUHL FAMILY chronicles the life of a poor but aristocratic family which looks to the family glories of the past, embodied in the portrait of an ancestor depicted fighting heroically in his underwear against a surprise attack.
The contrast between desire and reality is personified in the three daughters. Therese, the eldest, still thinks of herself as an aristocrat and acts accordingly, while her two sisters, who have a better sense of the new social order, are willing to coexist with whomever they find.
The materfamilias, the widow of a Major and the only one in the family not of noble descent, is good natured to all as they confront the new social reality in their own ways.
The family receives some measure of relief when the widow of a Poggenpuhl uncle makes a small provision for them after her husband’s death.
August 6, 2020
Read Poggenpuhl Family. Found the characters stiff, as good Prussians should be.
January 6, 2009
This is one of those books that tells more of its German history, setting and culture than it does of an interesting plot. Translated from German, it's basically a story about rich people and romances in the post-Victorian times.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews