Effi Briest in Never too Late to Read Classics

May 22, 2013 Laura rated it really liked it

Shelves: fiction-19th-century, e-books, read-2016, german-literature, 1000-guardian, gutenberg, 1001-books-you-must-read-before-you, mtbr-challenge-2016

Free download available at Project Gutenberg.

Opening lines:
In front of the old manor house occupied by the von Briest family since the days of Elector George William, the bright sunshine was pouring down upon the village road, at the quiet hour of noon. The wing of the mansion looking toward the garden and park cast its broad shadow over a white and green checkered tile walk and extended out over a large round bed, with a sundial in its centre and a border of Indian shot and rhubarb. Some twenty ...more

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May 05, 2025 Manybooks rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: book-reviews, german-literature, women-and-girls

Theodor Fontane's 1896 novel Effi Briest is definitely and with justification considered a classic and as such also a masterpiece of German poetic realism, with Fontane's (and with that of course equally the narrator's) at times rather overt textual distance (which when it materialises does tend to feel and to read rather like an emotionless, critical analysis or report) also rendering Effi Briest and by extension equally so author Theodor Fontane himself as somewhat a literary midwife so to spe Theodor Fontane's 1896 novel Effi Briest is definitely and with justification considered a classic and as such also a masterpiece of German poetic realism, with Fontane's (and with that of course equally the narrator's) at times rather overt textual distance (which when it materialises does tend to feel and to read rather like an emotionless, critical analysis or report) also rendering Effi Briest and by extension equally so author Theodor Fontane himself as somewhat a literary midwife so to speak of the development of the 20th century Gesellschaftsroman (the novel of society), of stories like Thomas Mann's Buddenbrooks (prose fiction which not only shows and tells about scenarios, situations, happenings, but also and actually often first and foremost analyses and discusses these). And indeed, Thomas Mann himself always did consider Theodor Fontane and his oeuvre, but especially his Effi Briest, a major and personal literary favourite and influence (so much so that it is now pretty well taken as a given that even the name of the family described in Buddenbrooks, that the name Buddenbrooks itself, was actually taken from a family name first encountered by Mann in Fontane's Effi Briest).

Now many critics seem both happy and even rather eager to simply lump Theodor Fontane's Effi Briest together with Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary and to claim that Effi Briest is like the former also and primarily (basically) mainly a novel of adultery, an account of a woman behaving very very badly (although it is true that in both novels, Emma and Effi are in fact and indeed also shown as both being at the same time victims). However, I for one, have NEVER considered the main protagonist, have never considered Effi Briest to be even remotely akin and alike to Flaubert's Emma Bovary. For while one can, I guess, agree with the statement that both Effi and Emma do engage in a an adulterous affair, Effi Briest is always (or at least in my humble opinion) depicted by Fontane as being pretty much a total and absolute victim, a naive young teenager, used by both her family (first by her parents and then by her husband) and later 19th century gentrified Prussian society for their pleasure, their honour, their social status (no matter if this might harm her, no matter if this might psychologically and spiritually devastate and even kill her), while Emma Bovary really is someone who not only actively and very much knowingly, consciously engages in adultery, but then also with equal calculation poisons herself (although she is in fact pretty much aware that her husband still very much loves her and that her death would majorly traumatise him), so that indeed Madame Bovary is therefore both more active and also more intensely and wilfully calculatingly adulterous (and yes, also at times quite nasty) than Effi Briest is ever shown as really in any way being throughout Effi Briest.

And albeit Emma Bovary might in fact and indeed be portrayed by Gustave Flaubert as somewhat being a victim of society as well, of the dictates of society, she also does very much and in my opinion deliberately and actively create her own victims, and her wilful suicide by arsenic leaves a husband who still seems to very much love her despite everything in abject agony. But Effi Briest, well in my opinion she is always pretty much simply and solely featured by Theodor Fontaine as a sad victim, naive, a bit spoiled, not all that highly educated, perhaps, but first and foremost, an innocent child, someone who is married off as a teenager and by her own parents to Baron von Instetten and really ONLY for societal reasons (for it is very clearly and I think always demonstrated by Fontane that Baron von Instetten does not in any way truly love or in any ways attempt to understand and appreciate his young wife and sees Effi primarily as a marriage trophy, as a means for making his status in society more glowing and more shining). Thus although Effi should perhaps (should likely) not have allowed herself to be seduced by Major von Crampas, it is he who actually and deliberately engages in the act of seduction in the first place, it is he who is the original mover and shaker, the person who with full knowledge of what he is doing, what he is engaging in, starts the proverbial ball rolling to its sad and tragic conclusions (with both his death and later Effi's death as the sadly tragic but also rather to be expected results).

Now finally, although I have always considered Theodor Fontane's Effi Briest to be both thematically and stylistically superb (I love the back and forth of different modes of expression, from plain objectiveness to subjective speculation, from simple description to detailed analyses, from personal emotional attachment to impersonal detachment), Effi Briest has also never really been a story that I could and would in any way label a personal favourite simply because I actually rather vehemently and actively despise oh so many of Theodor Fontane's featured, his presented characters (especially Effi's parents, who not only marry off their daughter to the highest bidder, but rather disgustingly and worrisomely also to the mother's former beau at that, and then refuse to see their daughter for almost three years after the scandal, after Effi's affair with von Crampas has become public knowledge, only relenting when it is clear that their daughter is close to death). And yes, with Effi's parents in particular, I generally do seem to see the proverbial red, for while the mother at least is a tiny bit willing at the end of Effi Briest to entertain the consideration of at least some culpability on her part, the father seemingly never does, never can, considering his and his wife's possible and probable roles in the tragedy "ein zu weites Feld" (too far afield).

Therefore, while Effi Briest is indeed and in fact deservedly a classic and a brilliant literary achievement (and a novel I have always very much appreciated for its art, for its literary merit and value), that the themes presented by Theodor Fontane, that most of his featured characters are majorly dysfunctional, this does leave me quite livid and disgusted (basically that a rather fleeting and in many ways also insignificantly small affair of the heart between Major von Crampas and Effi, and something which was in fact for all intents and purposes really precipitated by Baron von Instetten ignoring and denigrating his young wife, often leaving her feeling abandoned due to his societal "obligations" due to his career and his constant travels and absences, that this ends up destroying Effi, von Crampas and in many ways also von Instetten, and all because of so-called honour, glory and society). Three stars for Effi Briest (and while I do highly recommend the novel, I must nevertheless leave the caveat that I for one have not all that much enjoyed continuously reading about such problematic and dysfunctional characters and the "honour" system of Prussian nobility that basically devours and kills, that basically just makes and leaves hapless victims all around). And furthermore, just to say, that I have also only ever read Effi Briest in German and thus do not feel that I can in any way, in any fashion make comments as to the quality of potential English language translations (but that there do seem to be quite a few of them). ...more

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Jun 29, 2017 Karen rated it liked it

Shelves: travel-the-world, 1001

Effi Briest takes place in Germany at the end of the nineteenth century. I liked it, and I would like to read other books by Fontane.

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Dec 12, 2023 Kelly_Hunsaker_reads ... rated it really liked it

Shelves: european, classics, 1001-books, read-in-2023, german

I have seen this book compared to Madame Bovary, which is what caused me to pick it up. There are definitely similarities, and yet I remember liking the other book a bit more than this one.

Effi Briest tells the story of an innocent, young woman who is married off to a much older man, who also seems to have no interest in a real relationship with his young bride. He is conventional, hard-working, remote, with very specific requirements of his wife. She is filled with desires for adventure, romanc ...more

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Jan 24, 2014 GONZA rated it really liked it

Ein leistungsfähiges Buch, aber sehr traurig. Die Geschichte von Effi, Teenager, heiratet früh und zu junge Frau, die um die Liebe wissen strebt. Ich war sehr beeindruckt, ebenso wie die endgültige Vergebung zu ihrem Mann, der soviel für eine Person ohne Liebe getan hat.

Un libro potente, ma tristissimo. La storia di Effi, adolescente che si sposa troppo presto e giovane donna che si sforza di conoscere l'amore mi ha colpito molto, come anche il perdono finale al marito, colui che ha fatto tanto ...more

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