Effi Briest readalong – week 1 (Chapters 1-15)

05 Nov 2011 3 Comments

by Eibhlin in German Literature Month, Readalong Tags: Effi Briest, German literature, readalong

Lizzie emailed some questions to all the readalong participants; they form the basis of this post.

Q1: Had you heard of Theodor Fontane and Effi Briest before now?
What enticed you to readalong with us?

No, I had never heard of Theodor Fontane and Effi Briest before now.  As some reviewers compare the book to Anna Karenina and Madame Bovary, this does seem at least a bit surprising.  But furthermore, when I decided to join the readalong I couldn’t find Effi Briest on the shelves of any bookstore that I visited in Dublin, or in any of the English-language bookshops in Rome.  I haven’t looked in all of them, of course, but I certainly tried at least ten of the major ones.  And it’s not there.  (Copies are available through the Dublin City Libraries – but I’m not living in Dublin at the moment!)

What enticed me to readalong?  Well, I first saw a reference to the German Literature Month on A Novel Challenge.  I was surprised at the strength of my own reaction: “German literature? Ugh!  All angst and depression and books about the War!  Grim, or heartbreaking, or both! Ugh!”  I felt this quite intensely.
And to my rational mind, this reaction seemed over the top. “Hmm,” I mused, “Something’s going on here. Maybe I have some issues about German literature that I need to look at?”  So I headed over to the initial blog posts about the challenge, saw Effi Briest mentioned for a readalong, googled around and read some reviews.  It seemed not to belong to my “to-be-avoided” stereotypical category of German literature, so I decided to try it.  And here I am.

Q2: Which edition/translation are you using and how is it reading?

Because I couldn’t find a copy in the bookstores, I got a kindle version.  This is my first ever kindle read!
It’s the translation by Hugh Rorrison and Helen Chambers, published by Angel Books in 1995 and by Penguin in 2000.
I’m finding it very readable, I’m not conscious of reading a translation.  I’m much more conscious of reading an ebook!

Q3: Is the novel living up to your expectations?

I got a bit of a shock in the first chapter – when I learned that Baron von Innstetten had formerly been Effi’s mother’s suitor!  I wasn’t aware of that from the little I’d read beforehand, and it made (makes) the plot both more interesting and also somehow slightly repulsive.  (Marrying a guy who had formerly been interested in your mother – ugh!)
From the point of view of language, it’s not as ”stuffy” as I had thought it might be, coming from the nineteenth century.  That’s probably an indication of a good translation.

Q4: What do you make of Effi Briest and Baron von Innstetten? What motivates them? What do you make of their match?

Effi – at least at the beginning of the novel, is half-grown-up, half not.  She is freedom-loving, yet very bound by society’s mores and expectations; independent, yet adaptable.  Rather self-centred, undoubtedly spoilt, yet likeable.
In what I’ve read so far, the bit that doesn’t ring true for me is the description of Effi’s pregnancy and birth of her first daughter.  It comes across as hardly impacting on her at all, emotionally, and I don’t see how that could possibly be the case.

The Baron is so clearly not attuned to Effi; he is a career man who needs a wife, marrying at an age when he is too old to be formed to a new life, and marrying for the sake of being married, not because he loves Effi.  I find it a bit creepy that he would want to marry his almost-wife’s daughter – why?

Q5: How are you reacting to Effi’s parents?

They are generally likeable, and the father has some funny lines.  It seems strange that they should be willing to give Effi to von Innstetten – she was young, they could have waited a  little longer, found someone else for her?  Yet they don’t seem uncaring; they come across as people very much belonging to the society of their time.

Q6: Are there any secondary characters to whom you are particularly drawn?  Any to whom you are adverse?

- I love Rollo, the dog!  Also Gieshubler, the chemist; he is such a gentleman in a charming old-fashioned way…
- The nurse, Roswitha – lounging around in a cemetery, full of self-pity and bathos and wanting to die, and Effi entrusts her with the care of her newborn baby?  No way would I do that!  I find an aversion in me to this Roswitha character, for sure.

7: Effi Briest was orginally serialised in 6 parts.  I’m assuming that its 36 chapters were published in 6 monthly parts of 6 chapters each and the novel so far seems to bear this out.  How does the mood of the first part (chapters 1-6) contrast with that of the second (chapters 7-12)?

Well, as I’ve already said, I found the arranged marriage a bit creepy from the outset – not because it was arranged, but because of the previous relationship between the Baron and Effi’s mother.  So while the first part was somewhat lighthearted and optimistic, there was always a certain uneasiness about it too.  In the second part this becomes more developed as Effi finds herself lonely and isolated, and her immaturity becomes more evident.

Q8: We finished our reading at the end of chapter 15 or the middle of part 3.  Where is Effi in terms of her psychological development and how does this bode for the future?

Effi has hardly grown up at all.  She is still a girl.  Even after the birth of her daughter, her world seems to revolve around herself.  She wants to run home to her parents, and sulks because her husband doesn’t come running after her to assure her that she is the centre of his world.  Yet I don’t get the impression that she does much to assure him that he is the centre of her world.  Different standards seem to apply here.  She doesn’t seem to have grasped that fulfilment comes, ironically and at least in part, from loving and serving others and laying aside self-preoccupation and one’s own agenda.  In this, her parents can perhaps be said to be wanting, in that they have not taught her this.  On the other hand, it’s something everyone must learn for themselves.  (Golly, I sound like a preacher).  But given Effi’s isolation in her present situation, it seems unlikely that she will learn this lesson fast.