The Blue Flower, Paperback

Descriere

""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 Kuhn. 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