The Blue Flower

Synopsis: Penelope Fitzgerald's final masterpiece. Set in Germany at the very end of the eighteenth century, The Blue Flower is the story of the brilliant Fritz von Hardenberg, a graduate of the Universities of Jena, Leipzig and Wittenberg, learned in Dialectics and Mathematics, who later became the great romantic poet and philosopher Novalis. The passionate and idealistic Fritz needs his father's permission to announce his engagement to his 'heart's heart', his 'true Philosophy', twelve-year-old Sophie von Kuhn. It is a betrothal which amuses, astounds and disturbs his family and friends. How can it be so? One of the most admired of all Penelope Fitzgerald's books, The Blue Flower was chosen as Book of the Year more than any other in 1995. Her final book, it confirmed her reputation as one of the finest novelists of the century.

Review: This is a book that came highly recommended by Susan Hill (in her words 'it's a novel of genius') in her book Howards End is on the Landing, I'd never heard of it before. When I next went to the library, there it was winking at me from the shelf and so, of course, I grabbed it gratefully.

It's a fictionalised account of the life of Friedrich von Hardenburg born in 1772, otherwise known as the German author, poet and philosopher Novalis, and known in this narrative as Fritz. In particular the book focuses on the relationship between Fritz and his true love Sophie von Kuhn. It's a pretty tall task for the reader to quite grasp the intensity of his love given that Sophie is only twelve when Fritz meets and proposes marriage to her. And indeed she doesn't seem to be particularly beautiful or intelligent (which is what Fritz's brother tries to tell him .. until he falls in love with her himself after five minutes in her company,) she's a bit silly and fanciful like most twelve year olds but then, love is often irrational and inappropriate.

Fritz himself is a very accomplished student and aspires to be a poet but is ultimately destined, as the eldest son, to follow in his fathers footsteps as the Salt Mine Directorate. His father sends him to study business with Coelestin Just and here he furthers his acquaintance with Karoline Just who is niece and housekeeper to her Uncle Coelestin. Karoline is pretty, kind, intelligent and (rather like Agnes Wickfield in David Copperfield) far more suitable as a match for Fritz but he see's her only as a dear friend, his heart is not moved by her.

It's Coelestin that first introduces Fritz to the Rockenthiel family and ultimately Sophie, and within a quarter or an hour of being in her company, Fritz's heart is irrecoverably lost. Before long he has proposed to her and sets out to find out as much as he can about her. He asks Sophie about her favourite food, how her studies are going, whether she likes music and in an effort to philosophise with her talks about transmigration and asks if she would like to be born again 'yes' says Sophie 'if I could have fair hair.' Fritz can only spend a limited time with Sophie but obtains permission to write, but when he receives a letter back from her she says that, although she loves to receive his letters, she herself can write no more. When Fritz enquires of her stepfather why this is so, he answers 'My dear Hardenburg, she must write no more because she scarcely knows how. Send for her schoolmaster and enquire of him!' however Sophie does continue to write him little epistles and he has to content himself with the flimsy information they contain and his occasional visits to the Rockenthiels.

However he is smitten, she is his 'wisdom' his 'true philosophy,' 'spirit guide' and 'heart's heart', and he sets about convincing his father to agree to the match. Again, it has to be said that his father is less than happy about it but he reluctantly consents. Sophie is now fourteen and ailing, she has tuberculosis. Still she makes the journey to Weissenfels to meet with Fritz and his family at their formal engagement party. She has to be carried in, she is pale but still eager and as high pitched as ever, she cannot dance or walk about and so Fritz brings each of his friends and relations forward to meet and congratulate her. But Sophie's health is deteriorating, she has to undergo several painful operations without anaesthetic and sinks further and further every day. Poor Fritz who, for the most part, is unable to be with his love, and doesn't know how to help her when he is, frets and his father is so affected by his visit to the ailing Sophie that he sobbingly declares that he will give her the ancestral home. It's at this point of the story that the reader is able to see more into Sophie's heart and mind and although she never really becomes any different, you do begin to love her yourself .. perhaps because of her desperate plight.

Written very much as a novel would have been written in the eighteenth century and very witty and warm despite it's tragic outcome. The book is full of interesting characters, both Fritz's and Sophie's family are all so well depicted especially Sophie's incredibly kind and caring older sister Friederike (or 'the Mandelsloh' as she's called,) who is also her close companion and nurse, and Fritz's lovely sister Sidonie and brother Erasmus.


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It's very affecting, to read the afterword and to see that none of the characters actually lived very long. After Sophie's death, Fritz eventually married Julie von Charpentier and said in a letter to a friend 'an interesting life appears to await me .. still, I would rather be dead'. Fritz died in 1801 aged 29.

Susan Hill is still fretting about the fact that this did not win a major prize when it was published, she says 'I was a judge for a major prize the year The Blue Flower was entered and I have never tried so hard to convince others of anything as I did that this one was a rare, a great, novel whose like we might none of us see again.'