I found one flaw in this book: Fontane has that peculiar habit of describing the most unneccessary things in vivid details, whilst brushing off the important plot points in a tiny little sentence.

I loved this book nonetheless, simply because Fontane so masterfully describes people, who feel real and have their flaws. And who simply are stuck in the rigidity of the time they are living in.

It´s not a perfect book, but it´s still fabulous. Effi Briest is recommended reading in the German schools, but I never had to read it for school. Even more so, I´m glad that I finally picked it up.

Okay, I have to get this off of my chest:

Let´s just appreciate this ugly cover for a minute. I suppose the bird is a symbol for the main character Effi, who tries to break out of her marriage a.k.a the birdcage. Whoever designed this cover was very clever.

Honestly, the German book industry is the worst. They can´t write a decent blurb without spoiling the whole book and they can´t even design a beautiful cover.

Effi is childish, immature and annoying, yet I feel sorry for her for being stuck in this unhappy marriage. Fontane does a tremendous job in conveying Effis loneliness, the boredom she experiences and her craving for being passionately loved. Unfortunately she  is married to a most unpassionate man.

This is so good and such an immersive reading experience, I could kick myself for letting this book linger for so long on my shelf. Thanks to the masterminds behind booklikesopoly for making me read this book :).

[...] haben wir den guten alten Doktor Hannemann, der natürlich ein Däne ist [...]

A danish doctor with the name Hannemann ... now that´s interesting. Because the Germans in the border region sometimes call the Danes Hannemänner and I always wondered, why we do that. Apparently Effi Briest is the reason for it.

Effi marries Baron von Instetten,who has been madly in love with Effi´s mother twenty years prior. Both have not much in common in regards to their personalities and their interests. Even Effi´s father comments upon the fact that the mother would be a more suitable wife for Instetten than Effi could ever be. 

That´s just lovely.