Book Reviews of The Blue Flower

This book is remarkable and memorable. But it won't be for everyone's taste. Penelope Fitzgerald writes with the conversational style of 18th-century educated Germans: formal, florid, and somewhat stilted to 21st-century readers. In addition, Fitzgerald spends no time defining concepts, ideas, tasks, or activities of this time and place that are unfamiliar to modern readers. And yet, this short novel really works! It dramatizes the relationships and life of an 18th-century poet known today as Novalis, who lived at the same Romantic Period time, and trod some of the same paths, as the famous German philosopher, Goethe. While learning a "suitable trade" for a highborn, well-educated son of a financially strapped family, the young Novalis (Fritz) befriends a family. Among the members of the family is Sophie, a young girl with whom Fritz falls in love. The Blue Flower is the story of Fritz, Sophie, and their relationship.

This trade size book edition was the most admired novel of 1995, chosen 19 times as Book of the Year.

True story of a poet who falls in love with a child of 12. This is a very clever book and the author is quite gifted and tells this true story with subtlety and truthfulness as she knows it to be true from records. Very insightful into this century and the mind of this very eccentric's life. A good read.

I'm somewhat surprised that this was an award winner, it's a very odd story. The main character falls in love with a child of 12, a little weird and unsettling but he is a poet, after all! It's well-written and a very unique story, but still left me a little iffy about the book.