Introduction – Germany’s contribution to the European realist novel
There are no two ways about it – Effi Briest is a sad and depressing book, and a deeply tragic one too. It tells the story of the marriage of a young girl to a much older man, and that marriage’s inevitable break down. I heard about it, as I imagine a few others may have done, because Samuel Beckett really liked it, and though I don’t like Beckett’s writing much his praise was enough to put Fontane’s novel on my radar. Beckett said of it: “I read it for the fourth time the other day with the same old tears in the same old places”, and while I can’t imagine reading it four times I do think I’ll come back to it one day, and maybe even be moved once more. It is, all in all, an excellent book.
But that’s where its problems begin. Effi Briest is a good book: it is meticulously well put together, pleasantly short for a 19th century realist novel, and has interesting characters whose fates are easy enough to be interested in. But it was published 1895, a few scant years after Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, a book which it has a lot in common with, and a book which is Great where Effi Briest is only good. I know the Germanists have tried to make Effi stand among Anna and Flaubert’s Madame Bovary as one of the best realist novels of the 19th Century, but I can’t help but feel the comparison just leaves Effi looking silly, a little girl next to these older and more experienced women.
The Daughter of the Air – Effi Briest at home
“Poor Effi”, as the narrator on rare occasions breaks their neutral facade to call her, is seventeen at the story’s beginning, though there’s very little indicate that. The girl is introduced more as a cheeky child than as an almost-adult, with she and her mother doing some handiwork together. Effi soon leaves to be with her friends, though, where they make a mess eating berries and sitting on the swing at Effi’s house. The swing is one of the recurrent leitmotifs of the story, one of those objects connecting Effi and a certain vision of her world. She is given the epithet “Daughter of the air” at one point, and it well describes the carefree attitude that she has at the novel’s outset.
But there are storm clouds ahead, even if Effi can’t see them. While they eat their berries she tells her friends about the guest to the family’s house, Baron Geert von Innstettin, who once was madly in love with Effi’s mother but was unable to marry her due to lack of funds, and who perhaps – we assume – still has some passion left over. He proposes to Effi as soon as she has finished with her friends, in spite of only having had a glimpse of her up till then, and with no small amount of pressure from her parents Effi agrees to let herself be married off.
Very little of this is described, which I suppose is one of my main gripes with Fontane. The wedding is not described, the first real meeting between Effi and Innstetten isn’t described, and the honeymoon trip to Italy is equally sparsely illustrated. You might say that this is impressive stylistic economy – Fontane knows what he doesn’t need to show. Furthermore, it surely adds a sense of mystery to the novel, making us ask ourselves what might have happened and look for clues in the rest of the narrative. Up to a point I’d agree with both of these views. But only up to a point. For I suspect that Fontane’s economy is due to a lack of funds too – I can’t help but feel he just doesn’t have the talent or confidence to attempt certain scenes, such as going inside Effi’s head while she’s giving birth.
Kessin and its ghouls
After some shopping in Berlin, Effi is whisked away to the fictional town of Kessin, out on the Baltic Sea, where Innstettin has his home. It is a quiet, isolated town with an oppressive atmosphere that leaves Effi longing for her own home. One of the best scenes in this section of the novel is one where Effi sees the train heading West and cries – it is excellent precisely because the connection between home and trains is one we have to make for ourselves. Throughout the novel trains are constantly mentioned – they always point to another life that seems to be running away from us.
Even with Innstettin, who Effi does love, or thinks she does, there is difficulty. He goes away regularly for work, leaving her all alone. The townsfolk, bar one, are no company, and the house may have a ghost in the attic who prevents Effi from sleeping well. Another brilliant moment that reveals just how isolated Effi is is when she confesses to the maid about how she didn’t sleep well the first time the ghost appears. This information, given privately, is then immediately passed on to Innstettin by his servant – it shows where the real power in the house lies, and how Effi is completely without anyone to trust.
“An Affair” of sorts
Eventually an old friend of Innstettin’s comes to town to occupy one of the various beaurocratic posts created by the new German Reich. He is, like Effi’s husband, in his forties, but Major Crampas is also a far more youthful man than Innstettin is. Innstettin is a man who is absolutely blinded by various conceptions of duty, order, and what is proper – his career is everything to him, and even though he cares for Effi it’s hard to see much passion in his interaction with her.
Meanwhile, Crampas knows poetry, and dazzles Effi by introducing her to Heine’s works. Even though he has a wife, that doesn’t stop him from seducing her. The consummation of their affair takes place in a carriage, deep in the woods late one night on the way back from a dinner – a thoroughly Romantic location. It lies at the centre of the novel in terms both of structure, and in terms of pages.
But after it, there’s almost no hint that the affair took place. Effi meets him a few more times, and we forget about him. It may be that I didn’t understand the nuances of the German I read the novel in, but that really did seem to be all there was to it. There aren’t any more chapters devoted to him. He just fades out. Effi, for her part, doesn’t really seem to be all that into the affair. Like a leaf floating the air, she just seems content to be blown around by his passions.
Growing up and its Consequences
With the prospect of an imminent promotion Innstettin decides, much to Effi’s relief, to move to Berlin with her. She goes ahead to choose a flat, but deciding she doesn’t want to see Crampas again, she feigns illness until Innstettin himself comes out, a few weeks later, having finished up at home in Kessin. Her illness is a key incident because it shows how Effi has gone from being a carefree dreamer to having something akin to a cunning nature of her own. From being a child who it is easy to like, I found myself turning a little bit against her.
But time passes, and everybody gets on with life. Effi’s daughter, Annie, grows up a little, and Effi herself reaches about twenty-five years old before anything else happens. It is then, quite by chance, that Innstettin discovers Crampas’s old love letters to Effi. Even though the whole thing lies deep in the past he decides that his honour still demands he duel with Crampas, so he arrives in Kessin and kills him in single combat in another sparsely described scene – “The shots came; Crampas fell”. Crampas tries to say something, but dies before he can have any last words. Innstettin goes home, having already sent Effi away, and gets on with his life. Fontane’s realist style does well to take any kind of magic away from the conflict.
The Ending of the Story
Effi can’t go home – her parents forbid it – but she does get a little money from them and rents a small flat, also in Berlin. She has few visitors, except for one of Innstettin’s servants whom she had been responsible for hiring, and who now decides to carry on serving her. Only twice does she see her own child, but the second time, in a meeting organised with Innstettin’s blessing, Annie is completely monotonous and shows no signs of affection towards her mother. Effi sends her away after only a few minutes, and cries. But her inner turmoil is avoided by Fontane – another moment where he seems to have lacked the confidence to go inside her head.
Eventually though, Effi gets to go home after her parents take pity on her. She has some happy moments, then dies of a chill. It is a frustrating ending because there really is no reason for her to die. Both Anna Karenina and Madame Bovary had relatively good reasons to justify their tragic fates. But with Effi, I can’t help but feel like Fontane was just shrugging his shoulders and saying “well, I have to finish the novel somehow”. I also am not sure I am a fan of the implications of the end, which seem to suggest that death is inevitable for adulterers. It’s strange to me because Fontane is generally a champion of progressive social changes in the novel. It’s like he can’t bring himself to have an ending that fully goes against convention.
The one thing I did like about the ending, though, was the glimpse we get of Innstettin. He now has served a short stint in prison for the duel and is back at work, having also had the promotion he wanted. But all his love for his job has vanished. He is tormented by the feeling that all of his career ambition is actually meaningless, that the duel was a mistake too. I didn’t want to see him have a gruesome comeuppance, but I was glad to see him face the consequences of his own actions. In much the same way Effi’s parents express the beginnings of doubts concerning the whole marriage, once she is back at home and dying. Even though Fontane isn’t willing to keep Effi alive, I suppose he does make the most of her death.
Conclusion
I suppose I can recommend Effi Briest, but only with reservations. If you are going to dip into Fontane, it seems to be an excellent place to start – but given how few of his works are translated, there’s not much choice to begin with. He called Effi his “first real success”, and it is a success. But as much as we often like to read good books, variety also seems to be pretty important in considering what to give our time to. And unfortunately there is another novel which involves trains, adultery, parents and children, and the battle of the individual against social pressures – another novel which is, I think, far better than Effi Briest. That’s the unavoidable problem here. If it weren’t for the book being useful for my German exams next year, I’d be feeling a little disappointed that I hadn’t just read Anna Karenina another time through.
Am I completely wrong here? Have you read Effi Briest and did you enjoy it? Comment below!
Picture of the Baltic Sea by Mantas Volungevicius [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)] is used without changes.