Fitzgerald’s strength is that this is no Lolita. Instead, we see him as a man in his early 20s, a student of history, philosophy, and law at various universities, who has fallen in love with 12-year-old Sophie. We don’t see any of that in The Blue Flower, though he certainly speaks like a philosopher (he is a kind, thoughtful, and eloquent character). He is Friedrich von Hardenberg, famed later under the pseudonym Novalis, and his Wikipedia page tells me that he was ‘a practitioner of German Romanticism’ as well as occupied as ‘prose writer, poet, mystic, philosopher, civil engineer, mineralogist’. The main character was a real person, though not one I’d heard of. I’m not sure I’d place it above others that I’ve loved by her ( The Bookshop and At Freddie’s are both fantastic), but I did really like it.
I think I have chiefly heard people talk about The Blue Flower in the context of being upset that it didn’t win the Booker – and it’s certainly considered Penelope Fitzgerald’s best novel, as far as I can tell. Ain’t it just the way, in a week where I’ve proclaimed my scepticism about historical fiction over at Vulpes Libris, that I’ve also written about two historical novels that I’ve really liked? The True Heart fell within my ‘safety zone’ of post-1800, but The Blue Flower (1995) doesn’t – although it is the 1790s, so it’s hardly a million miles away.
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