La flor azul

Por Penelope Fitzgerald

La flor azul es la última novela de Penelope Fitzgerald. Una obra exquisita, ganadora del National Book Critics Circle Award, en la que la pasión del romanticismo se fusiona con la templanza de una escritura magistral. Cuando Friedrich von Hardenberg, quien más tarde tomaría el nombre de Novalis, le habla de la flor azul a su querida Sophie, una niña de doce años de la que se enamora en un primer encuentro, lo hace en el tono misterioso, secreto, de quien no ha descifrado todavía el significado del que será el símbolo del romanticismo alemán. Fritz es un joven brillante, un genio. Ha estudiado dialéctica y matemáticas, es amigo del crítico Schlegel, del filósofo Fichte y del gran Goethe, y ahora ha de aceptar un trabajo que no desea como inspector de minas de sal. Escribe poesía, ha empezado una novela y, sobre todo, desea ser feliz junto a su «sabiduría», la joven Sophie, que ha nacido para estar alegre y reír sin cesar. Ninguno de los dos sabe aún que su búsqueda de la belleza y del infinito tendrá que enfrentarse a duras pruebas.

• Idioma: Español
• Editorial: Impedimenta
• Fecha de lanzamiento: 1 feb 2015
• ISBN: 9788415979470

Penelope Fitzgerald

Penelope Fitzgerald, de soltera Knox, nació en 1916. Fue hija del editor de Punch, Edmund Knox, y sobrina del teólogo y novelista Ronald Knox, del criptógrafo Dilly Knox y del estudioso de la Biblia Wilfred Knox. En Impedimenta han aparecido sus novelas La librería (1978; Impedimenta, 2010), A la deriva (1979; Impedimenta, 2018), Voces humanas (1980; Impedimenta, 2019), La escuela de Freddie (1982; Impedimenta, 2022), Inocencia (1986; Impedimenta, 2013), El inicio de la primavera (1988; Impedimenta, 2011), La puerta de los ángeles (1990; Impedimenta, 2015), La flor azul (1995, Impedimenta, 2014) y El niño de oro (1977; Impedimenta, 2024).

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Comentarios para La flor azul

[carltonc_5 · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

The Blue Flower is typical of Fitzgerald in that it is concise and elliptical, yet like an impressionist painting. Much is suggested and this reader enjoys that approach, but others may not.I think that all of Fitzgerald’s novels are excellent, and had read most by the time I read The Blue Flower, which is about the early life of the artist who became Novalis. I had been to an exhibition at the Hayward Gallery the previous year, The Romantic Spirit in German Art 1790-1990 which included works by Novalis. So all these factors and others combine to make this a special book for me.So I would recommend if you like a concise, suggestive style, which lets your imagination work with the book

[mirrani_1 · Calificación: 3 de 5 estrellas]

This book didn't really do anything for me one way or the other. When I finished reading I wasn't sure of a lot of things. I wasn't sure if I liked what I read and I wasn't really sure I remembered what I read either. I picked this book because it was longlisted for the Orange Prize (Now Women's Prize for Fiction) and I assumed that meant it would be an enjoyable read or have some aspect to it that would capture me somehow. I didn't dislike my time with this book, but I certainly didn't find it entertaining, nor did I see what the fuss was about. I feel somewhat pressured by the four and five star reviews I have seen to go back, read this again and try and work out where the book and I went so wrong before, but I can't really make myself think about doing that right now. Maybe in a few years I'll give it another go. For now I will just admit that other readers found something in this book that I didn't have a clue even existed. I can't find the greatness, but I won't say it's bad either.

[lucybrown_1 · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

a really hypnotically brilliant love story

[mikalina_1 · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

"We are all free to imagine what the world is like, and since we probably all imagine it differently, there is no reason at all to believe in the fixed reality of things" Professor Johann Gottlieb Fichte says speaking of the philosophy of Kant (which he believed he had greatly improved upon: Kant believed in the external world) at the first lecture Fritz attended at Jena where he studied history and philosophy. And Fritz imagines. Then Sophie - "his Philosophie" gets ill:"Shall I stay?" "If you stayed here, you would not be wanted as a nurse", the Mandelsloh replied. "You would be wanted as a liar". Fritz raised his heavy head. "What then should I say? "You look a little better this morning Söphen." "I could not lie to her, more than I could lie to myself.""I don´t know to what extent a poet lies to himself."And later, at home to his brother Erasmus:"I could not stay," Fritz told him.Paradox and irony are too reductive words for describing this powerful book about the clash of the worlds, the material and the spiritual. Now they are all dead, Sophia, Fritz, Karoline, Erasmus, the Bernhard and all the rest of them, the courageous and the foolish alike. Truly no imagination saved them from that - All dead? What about the blue flower? Oh - it blooms. With a fragrance more contagious than consumption, it flowers with a deadly flame that burns with the life we bring to it, reading....Materially: So easy reading, uncomplicated storyline, straightforward language, short. Spiritually: I share Fritz feeling when carrying the Bernhard, saving him from drowning. "How heavy a child is when it gives up responsibility". Left more than a bit blue .... heavy actually, by the reality of what lives and what dies.

[katebadenoch · Calificación: 1 de 5 estrellas]

Tried to finish it. I really did. The first few chapters were engaging... the rest was just awful

[sharlene_w · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

I was suggest this book by my library system's "Next Read" program because I have read and enjoyed a couple of Tracy Chevalier's books. The Blue Flower reconstructs the life of German romantic poet Novalis, whose real name was Fredrich von Hardenberg. It brings to life his life and surroundings in 18th-century Germany, particularly his relationship with young Sophie von Kühn, a mere child when they met. The attraction of historical fiction is being able to experience a taste of life during that time and place and Penelope Fitzgerald does a wonderful job with her descriptions of that time.

[thorold_1 · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

The thing about Heinrich von Ofterdingen that probably grates most on a modern reader is the way it treats the poet's Great Love. Poor Mathilde only has about three lines in the whole book (when she blushingly agrees to teach him the guitar, marry him, etc.). The irony here is that this probably reflects very closely Novalis's own Great Tragic Love, for the unfortunate teenager Sophie von Kühn. He met her during a visit to her family when she was 12 and he in his early twenties, they became engaged on her thirteenth birthday, and she died a couple of years later, before they could marry. Penelope Fitzgerald takes this incident as the hook for her historical novel about Novalis, The Blue Flower. Significantly, we never see him as anything other than a charming but rather selfish young man who is training to be a mining official, whilst Sophie is just a dim and slightly puzzled little girl. Fitzgerald puts the focus on the busy social life around them: their various siblings (as usual Fitzgerald handles the eccentric child-characters brilliantly), the frustrated intelligent young women who are rather hoping that Friedrich might notice them, their parents, teachers and doctors. The book has its irritating aspects - for instance, I didn't like the slightly clumsy Germanisms she puts in to disguise the fact that we're reading the book in English ("the Bernhard"), but on the whole it's an amusing, moderately thought-provoking palate-cleanser when you've been exposed to the worst aspects of Romanticism. And it's not quite a satire: there's a strong element of explaining where the Romantics were coming from, trying to give us a feel for what it might have been like to live in a time when science had made all questions ask able but - at least for practical everyday purposes like healthcare - hadn't yet answered very many of them.

[candyschultz · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

The Blue Flower was the first Penelope Fitzgerald I broached. The book is a slice of the life of Friedrich von Hardenburg, aka Novalis, a late Eighteenth Century philosopher. I had absolutely no interest in von Hardenburg and was not excited to read about him. Well, I couldn't put it down. It was so good I can hardly wait to get to the next Fitzgerald. I don't need to say anything more about this book. It is semi-biographical and utterly delicious.

[k9binkley · Calificación: 3 de 5 estrellas]

This book is written beautifully but it gets bogged down by all the adjectives. It didn't always keep my interest.

[dcnorm1 · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

My first reading of Fitzgerald and certainly my first familiarity with Friedrich von Hardenberg (1772 – 1801), upon a portion of whose life this "true" novel is based. The style is a simple one, almost Hemingwayesque, but the muscularity of the words is even stronger. Everything counts, nothing wasted, nothing simply for posing or show. The story itself is compelling and evocative. Compelling in being in part a doomed love story; another, in beliefs, intellectual beliefs, and love can engage one another in remarkable and strange ways. For von Hardenberg expresses in his love for an otherwise unremarkable woman his philosophy that what one sees is what one believes; that it is in the mind that outward reality is created. He rejects an attractive, intellectually vigorous and aware woman in favor of a child with barely a thought, for the latter can be his "philosophy," someone who he can create as his mind wishes. And it is evocative in portraying the life of provincial late 18th century "Germany" in language and sentences and paragraphs that leaves one slack-jawed with wonder.

[carmarie_1 · Calificación: 1 de 5 estrellas]

Ugh. I did not like this book! It was really hard to read and I skimmed through at least 2/3rds of it. I really don't see how it recieved so much praise and so many awards. Maybe because of the research that went into it, I dunno. I usually like Orange Prize picks, as well as Critic picks. But, yea, not on this one.

[auntieknickers · Calificación: 3 de 5 estrellas]

My clearest memory from this book, based on the life of the German poet Novalis, is the scene of the German household doing a year's laundry all at once!

[altheaann · Calificación: 2 de 5 estrellas]

I picked up this book because it had a pretty cover. I noticed it had a blurb on the front from A.S. Byatt, whom I rather like, and it also noted that the author, Fitzgerald, was a winner of the prestigious Booker Prize. So I looked at the back cover, and saw that it was a historical novel about the early life of the German Romantic poet Novalis - which was quite a coincidence, since I'd just that month been reading about Novalis and looking at some of his poetry online. So I grabbed it!

However, at first I couldn't get into the book, and as I read through it, it began to actively annoy me.
Fitzgerald obviously did a lot of research for the book, reading Novalis' letters, writings, documents from the time period... (late 18th-century).
Unfortunately, rather than working these period details subtly into the narrative, she just bluntly inserts random facts into the text, even when they don't really serve a purpose in the story. It's distracting, and struck me as poor writing technique.
Her personal, 20th-century opinion on everything also shines through - and it's not a positive opinion. In my opinion, the 'job' of historical fiction is to take the reader into the time and place described, and to make the reader see things from the characters' point of view. Instead, we find out that Penelope Fitzgerald thinks that people in 18th-century Germany ate disgusting cuisine, were unhygenic, penurious - and for some reason she seems to think they were always freezing cold, even though Germany has a mild climate and particularly nice summers. I'm sorry, but if the characters would think that a pig's nostril was a delicacy, I want to FEEL that it's a delicacy while I'm reading the book. I don't care if the author personally thinks it's gross. By the end of the book, I wondered why she even chose to write about these people, since her opinion of not only their culture and lifestyle - but of them personally - was so low.

Fritz (Novalis) is portrayed as faintly ridiculous and a cad, and his love interest, the young Sophie, as air-headed and ugly. Both of their families come across as caricatures - one of the ridiculously strict and religious variety, and one of the jolly yet greedy and grasping type... I can certainly appreciate books where the characters are all unlikable - but I didn't get the impression that these people really were, historically, that bad - just that Fitzgerald personally regards them with a kind of snide contempt. There's no one in the novel that the reader gets to even really, feel that you know, due to the distancing style of the writing. Fitzgerald uses an odd style of referring to people using an article: "The Bernhard," "The Mandelsloh." Even if this was a custom at the time (I don't know if it was - it's not a modern German usage), such a construction should be saved for dialogue, not when the author is talking about her characters.

I couldn't believe the multiple pages of rave reviews printed inside the front of the book - I really didn't think it was impressive in any way.

[patsymurray · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

This is a touching and amusing story that manages also to say a great deal about pain and the human race and how we came to be the way we are today. Fritz, later Novalis, believes that the world (and everyone in it, including his young love,Sophie) is as we perceive it to be (or at least that was my understanding of his philosophy) and that belief goes a long ways towards making his life bearable.

[leslie398 · Calificación: 3 de 5 estrellas]

Despite the lovely prose, I couldn't really connect to the main characters - especially Sophie. Fitzgerald doesn't convey what this girl had that made Fritz, then Erasmus, and finally the Father become so smitten.

[lxydis-1 · Calificación: 2 de 5 estrellas]

"how does she do it?"

[helenliz_1 · Calificación: 2 de 5 estrellas]

This was an odd book. the writing was, at times, lovely, but I couldn't get into the spirit of it. A fictional account of the early life of the man how later became the author Novalis. he just failed to engage me. Not sure I can explain why.

[alisony-1 · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

Set in the late 1700s in Germany, The Blue Flower is a fictional account of the life of Fritz von Hardenberg, who would later become known as the romantic poet and philosopher Novalis. Born into a noble, pious family, young Fritz's future has already been mapped out for him; he will follow in his father's footsteps in the Salt Mines Directorate. Yet as he studies, Fritz's predisposition for thought and romanticism leads to him becoming utterly entranced with the 12 year old Sophie whom he believes to be his muse.The Blue Flower was a lot more 'readable' than I'd expected. Whilst Fitzgerald plays with Fritz's elevated thinking (which touches on humorous madness at times), there was so much more to this novel than simply being an account of the early life of this renowned man of literature and philosophy. With well researched historical detail, we are swept back to the times of eighteenth century nobility in Germany, as von Hardenberg breaks all the expected rules of his position and intellect in his pursuit of this vacuous child from a lower class family.4 stars - first class historical fiction that swept me away with it.

[scohva · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

This novel is centered around young, late eighteenth century German student, then writer, philosopher, and salt mine inspector Friedrich Von Hardenburg, who would become the poet Novalis. When he falls in love with unremarkable looking and somewhat stupid 12 year old Sophie Von Kuhn, his family and friends wonder how someone with such genius could ever fall in love with someone with so little to offer. Told in 55 short chapters, The Blue Flower was often funny, and the most compulsively readable book I've read so far this year. The characters, especially the von Hardenburg family, were wonderful. There was a great sense of Germany (at least among the upper class) of the time, with a love of conversation, learning, and family showing the influence of both the Enlightenment and Romanticism.

[tandah_1 · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

A very clever and possibly profound book but one that requires time, and possibly a re-read to appreciate all the aspects of the story.

[sianpr · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

A tightly written and often humorous story about Novalis. However, the story of his infatuation with a 12-year old girl and his engagement to her at the age of 15 left me feeling very ambivalent.

[stillatim · Calificación: 3 de 5 estrellas]

Fitzgerald's last novel, and, quite frankly, the praise it receives often seems to be more a result of her dying after writing it than the novel itself. Often described as 'strange,' 'magical,' and 'short,' The Blue Flower is certainly concise. But strange? It's a reasonable faithful depiction of Novalis's falling in love with a 12 year old. Yes, *that's* strange, but that doesn't mean the novel is. Magical? In the sense that psychotic episodes might be enchanting, maybe.

None of which is to take away from the book's great merits: beautifully written, hysterically funny, and particularly enjoyable for trainspotting purposes (*love* the catty Schlegels and the jokes at Fichte's expense).

But my suspicion, and hope, is that Penelope is floating above us somewhere laughing at the human being's ability to mistake irony for passion. Here we have a novel in which a silly but highly intelligent young man falls in love with a 12 year old girl who is, precisely, a 12 year old girl. He does not fall in love with the 27 year old woman that the reader really wants him to fall in love with. His brother proceeds to also fall in love with the (now) 13 year old girl instead of the (now) 28 year old woman he should fall in love with. This is the background for one of the most famous symbols in romantic literature, the blue flower: what is it? Why on earth would you want it?

Anyway, the moral of this story is i) that all men are remarkably silly. They're either romantics who get rewarded for blathering on at great length about nothing, pietists who will put their family through hell, or morons in other less obvious way. And ii) that if you're a sensible, intelligent woman who thinks she's found a sensible, intelligent man, give it a year and he'll reveal himself to be remarkably silly by falling in love with a child or thinking that, because you're a little nervous around him, you hate him (he will then run away from you). Also, you will all die of consumption.

Rest in peace Ms. Fitzgerald. May your ghost encourage others to write beautifully.

[akblanchard_1 · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

The Blue Flower tells the love story of German poet Novalis’s doomed engagement to a girl much younger than he is. Thirteen-year-old Sophie seems rather empty headed, and it’s hard to tell exactly what he sees in her, other than her name, which means “wisdom” (would he have fallen for her if her name had been Gretel, I wonder?). His family doesn’t approve of the match because Sophie’s not of the nobility, and she’s weak with tuberculosis. Nonetheless, the two get engaged, and after enduring horrific medical treatments, Sophie dies, just as she did in real life. The main characters in this book are inaccessible; the reader can’t answer the most basic questions about their motivations: why does he love her, really? Does she love him? Only thing I can think of is that to Fritz, Sophie represents his anima, as Carl Jung would say, and as a young, inexperienced Sophie just goes along with his plans. It’s not a living breathing (or in Sophie’s case, coughing) teenage girl he loves; it’s that somehow in his mind he has identified her as his coveted “blue flower”.The only characters that are in the slightest bit lively are peripheral to the central love story, Fritz’s (Novalis’s) good-hearted brother Erasmus and sister Sidonie, Karoline, who loves Fritz even though she fails the literary interpretation test he gives her (best scene in the book, in my opinion), and “the Mandelsoh” Sophie’s no-nonsense older step-sister. I’m glad I read this book because it gave me a glimpse into the customs of a distant place and time (early 1800’s Germany) but I didn’t find it easy going. Even though this book won a lot of accolades when it was published, I think the author made a mistake in putting such inaccesssible characters in such an unfamiliar setting. Either make the characters opaque or the setting, I’d say, not both.

[amaraki-1 · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

Most interesting to me for its portrayal of life and social structure in German towns as the 18th c turned into the 19th. The protagonist was extremely romantic with ideas that were incomprehensible to me , out there is woo-woo land. Author displayed skillful narrative technique and interspersed a wry humourhere and there -- quite necessary in this story of a hardcore Lutheran family.