I Read Therefore I Am discussion

Add your comments as soon as you like, but please hide any spoilers.

So.... has anyone started yet???

No and I'm not until I've had another crack at Mason and Dixon! And read my le Carre and read my book group read for November which is The garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng and caught up with Pickwick Papers and read a couple of texts for a course I'm just signed up to. You get the general idea!!!!!! Drowning in books at the moment.

Oh dear, well there are worse ways to go...
I haven't either, I was just being nosy ;) I still haven't started Mason & Dixon yet! It's huge!! I can't lift it! lol

Hoping to start on Wednesday, after I've finished Smiley's Peopling. I've seen some really good reviews :0)

I've read the intro which made me want to read it soon - will finish the one I'm on and then get stuck in I think.

I've started last week... I had forgotten how much I like Fontane!!

I started it last week but then got Literature Festival'd so barely had time to read anything (the irony!). I'm liking Effi so far, but she's just become betrothed so I think it's all about to change!

Ulli wrote: "I've started last week... I had forgotten how much I like Fontane!!"

Ulli-what other Fontane have you read? I'm afraid I hadn't even heard of him before he came up in our monthly book choice

I'm defo starting it soon now I see you've given it 5 stars Ulli! I'd never heard of Fontane either - woefully ignorant about German Lit.

I have read "Effi Briest" (in highschool! But I've kept a very good memory of it!), "Irrungen, Wirrungen", "The Stechlin" and "Mathilde Möhring". I like his way of writing a lot!!

The only German author I've read so far is Thomas Mann - I really enjoyed the Magic Mountain and was surprised at how funny it is. Like Laurel I've just read the preface of Effi Briest so far and am really looking forward to starting the actual novel:0)

I've just started Effi Briest--oh, it's lovely! I'm reading it in English, but how beautiful the poetical prose must be in its native German! I love the description of the house and garden in chapter one.

It is sounding very promising so far then! I will be starting soon. So glad you're joining us for this one Ulli & Angela!

Angela, I actually was wondering if the descriptions would lose some of their poetry in the translation but apparantly not!

Lee, I admit that I've started the Magic Mountain at least a hundred times (and I'm only slightly exaggerating) but I've never gotten over the first onehundred pages! But I've read Thomas Mann's Buddenbrooks which I liked very, very much (and it is also very funny sometime!)

Thats another one on my to-read list :o)

Started this last night, am about 4 chapters in. Love the writing, it has been very well translated as it doesn't feel stilted at all the way you get with some translations. I'm sure we have lost some of it by not reading it in German but they have done a good job.
Effi seems far too young to be getting married - I know it was the conventions of the time but she really seems very childlike, although that's probably deliberate on Fontane's part. The bit from the first chapter where they (view spoiler)[ sink the berry skins in the pond and she says this is what happens to women who commit adultery in some places gives you a pretty clear indication of where this novel is going (hide spoiler)]

It is soooooo annoying the the Goodreads iPhone/iPad app doesn't give you ability to read hidden spoilers! But, after going to the web version, yes, Laurel, I know what you mean. (view spoiler)[Given what I have read of the story in Boxall and Goodreads, I see the start, being full of childish innocence, as being a deliberate contrast to what's to come (hide spoiler)]

Does your iPad cut off the last couple of lines of some of the comments? Most annoying ( and confusing)

I haven't had that Lee and I use the iPad all the time but I go to the website through Google rather than the app.

Laurel, I agree with you! Effi ist so young but also so full of life that she can't possibly be getting married yet! (view spoiler)[ Even less to a man twice her age who seems to be so ... Prussian, sometimes even lifeless next to Effi. And this life he offers her which is certainly very comfortable and ambitious but most of all very boring! I really feel with her... "/spoiler" (hide spoiler)]

I finished this a couple of weeks ago and loved it, so I've given it 5 stars too. In many ways I feel it has parallels with Anna Karenina, - young attractive lively wife, starchy old husband. You feel there's an inevitability about what happens right from the start.

Just started and about 5 chapters in - Effi is lovely -but still a child- as you have all been saying - far too young to be getting married. I feel so lucky to live in an age and place where making an advantageous marriage is not the most important duty of a young girl!

I wonder if the relationship between Effie and Geert was at all based on that between John Ruskin and Effie Gray?
I'm intrigued by the relationship between Effi's parents - I love the way they talk to one another - frank but mysterious at the same time.
I'm also enjoying the humour - I love the bit where "Old Niemeyer, deeply embarrassed at this stream of pointed, uneducated, ill-mannered remarks, once more had cause to regret having married a housekeeper".

Glad you enjoyed it Maureen - 3rd time lucky (after M & D and A Severed Head) :o)

@Lee - I like the randomness of the books we read here - it introduces me to books I wouldn't necessarily choose myself. Pity I didn't manage to get hold of a copy of Mist Over Pendle - that looks as if it's up my street too.

Can anyone help me- what was poor disturbed Frau Kruse doing with a black hen on her lap? is it the equivalent of Churchill's Black Dog?

I'm not sure, maybe it's for comfort like a pet as, like Effi, she also seems to be disturbed by the spookiness of the house.

Just got even more confused by the line "Crampas is married and has two children often and ten" It took me ages to realise it was a typo for "of ten and eight"!

I haven't got that far yet!!

Hopefully not too big spoilers. :0)

I meant more that, as usual, I'm behind you all, rather than that they were spoilers :) I am keeping an eye out for the hen - it has been mentioned but not yet put in an appearance!

When you meet it let me know- in your opinion, is it a real black hen - or is it metaphorical?

I thought it was just a pet but it is a bit strange.

Am up to Chapter 17 (view spoiler)[ and Major Crampas has just suggested to Effi that her husband made up the ghosts as a good story to tell so he looks interesting at work but also to 'improve' her - if true, very controlling and creepy (hide spoiler)]

I guess a real hen on your lap would be more comforting than a metaphorical one!
Just about to start chapter 18 (view spoiler)[I don't like Major Crampas at all - I'm inclined to believe that everything he says to Effi is intended to turn her away from her husband and towards him (hide spoiler)]

Lee wrote: "I guess a real hen on your lap would be more comforting than a metaphorical one!
Just about to start chapter 18 [spoilers removed]"

(view spoiler)[ I don't like him either - he's a bit sleazy (hide spoiler)]

I can't wait to finish A perfect Spy and get on to this, it's generated a lot of comment already and I'm desperate to see what the spoilers say. However, I'm hoping the metaphorical hen isn't an introduction to a talking clock or a disembodied pickled ear!

Trust me, Effi is nothing like M&D!!

No, the plot seems to run in a straight line, which is a very good thing, and in fact there are not many characters in it and they seem to be quite normal. So, all-in-all a straightforward read.

Ha ha, I quite like that M&D is the standard now that we can use for all future weirdness!

I think, the hen ist some kind of talisman to Frau Kruse but it adds a lot to the spooky atmoshere!
I have to confess that I like Crampas. (view spoiler)[ Effi and he are in some ways very similar: They are both carefree and like to have fun, they don't like rules. I think, Effi could have been happy with someone like him whereas Innstetten is the complete opposite: The things most important to him are duty and respect. But then, I'm anry with Innstetten for trying to manipulate Effi with the ghoststory! "/"spoiler" (hide spoiler)]

I do agree that Crampas would be good company for a while but (view spoiler)[ definitely not someone you could rely on or trust - I think Effi would end up like poor old Mrs Crampas if she were with someone like him! (hide spoiler)]

I feel I should stand up for weirdness - weirdness is good - though I will admit, if pressed, that you can have too much of a good thing :0)

Finish this earlier - really good read, felt quite modern in some respects in the way he didn't waffle on as much as soon 19th century novelists do, he pretty much stuck to his story for the most part. Loved Effi and felt a bit sorry for her - just too young but that's not exactly a crime. (view spoiler)[ I thought Instetten was a bit ridiculous when he HAD to go through with the duel - he didn't even want to do it! The whole thing could have been avoided and that's what makes it so tragic. And why an army bloke wasn't a better shot I don't know, Crampas was already injured in a previous duel before meeting Effi, then gets killed by a bureaucrat!
The bit I found really sad was when she finally gets to see her daughter again and the little girl is just so cold towards her, and also the end where her parents are talking about her death - they know they shouldn't have married her off so young but can't quite bring themselves to fully talk about it - Briest's refrain of 'that's just too vast a subject' was a very poignant last line (hide spoiler)]

I find it interesting that many of the comments comment on how young Effi appears. She's 17, and therefore the same age as the lead character in Mist Over Pendle (set in 1611/12, and which I finished reading a couple of days ago) and a year older than the protagonist in Girl With a Pearl Earring (set in 1666, and which I am currently reading). I suppose it's a combination both of the way the books are written, and the social changes that happened between the 17th and 19th centuries, that makes us see Effi as young but the others as mature. I suspect, more than anything, that Fontaine wants us to see Effi as childlike, as it contrasts so much with how the story later unfolds.

Yes that's very true Ellie - Fontane deliberately characterises Effi as young and childlike, she actually seems younger than 17 at the beginning of the book especially!

So sad - (view spoiler)[ particulary, as Laurel says, because everyone is acting in the way they believe they should (for the sake of honour and society) rather than in the way they really want to. I feel sorry for everyone - even Instetten - I agree with Laurel that his reasoning for going through with the duel was crazy - he seemed to have come to the same conclusion by the end of the book (hide spoiler)]

As Laurel says it's good to read a book that's just as long as it should be - no waiting for ages for the inevitable crisis - I was tense enough as it was!

You're right Ellie - it's funny how our views on age and maturity have changed over the years - due to increasing life expectancy I guess.

That's part of what was so sad (view spoiler)[ he realises by the end of the book that maybe he could have just forgotten about it. (hide spoiler)]

Started at last and up to chapter 10. Effi seems more like 10 or 12 years old than 17. I agree this is a deliberate strategy of Fontane to characterise her as a child when actually at 17 she isn't, especially at that time when I suspect that was a normal age for marriage. I am suspecting as you have that the ending will not be good.

I think I'm going against the flow here by saying I found Effi really annoying and self indulgent. I would have felt differently if she had been "led astray" by her young cousin who is obviously very attracted to her, that would have seemed understandable. Crampas however, is the same sort of age as her husband and she knows what he is like from the very beginning. She just seems to drift along like a leaf in the wind although she is very aware of what are the socially acceptable norms.

I started off feeling very sympathetic towards her and it gradually disappeared as the story progressed.

Interesting that you should say that, Hilary - I have just been reading a few more chapters, and while I was reading I thought that Effi had a quite selfish streak in her. Innstetten may be rather dull but also seems to genuinely adore Effi, while she craves excitement and being the centre of attention.