Comment

Dec 18, 2012bibliofinn rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
Beautiful novel, well translated. Fontane excels at showing his characters in all their complexity. He doesn't choose sides, but instead shows two people who are in many respects admirable but with small flaws that over time drive the other away. They struggle to find a balance that will allow them to stay together. The temptation for too many current novelists would be to paint one or both as a monster with outsize failings. Too bad there aren't more of Fontane's novels available in English.