At 17, Effi marries the Baron von Innstetten, a man so many years her senior that he was once romantically interested in her mother. Intelligent and full of life, Effi struggles to find comfort in the tiny seaside town of Kessin where the Baron bring her. She believes the house to be haunted, and the Baron offers her no comfort. Starved of companionship, she develops an affection for von Crampas, one of the few people she can talk to in the small Prussian town. Then things dramatically improve as Effi and von Innstetten move to Berlin and set up a home there. All seems well, and six years pass, until the story comes to a devastating conclusion. Though at times melodramatic and silly, I appreciated the atmosphere of the book, and Fontane captures Effi's struggles and her isolation with sympathy and care. Structurally, I'm not sure this book entirely holds together, but it's very gripping.

i cried at the end and that was the last thing i expected from this book.

i read "effi briest" for my history of literature exam upon hearing what it's about. i decided to read it because it focuses on a woman and deals with social conventions that dictated everyone's lives and oh does it touch you as a woman.

effi is a character that you might not love but can't hate. she's a child at the beginning and reading it as a 19 year old (so 2 years older than effi at the beginning) in 21st century made me biased, probably, but from the very beginning it is pretty easy to guess that nothing good is going to come out from her marriage hence i really couldn't help but feel for her throughout the entire book.

i have a lot to say, i hope i get to do it on my exam, but one thing i want to say here is that i found all characters to be really well structured. they have traits that make them behave in a way they do, reflections that serve their purpose as a criticism of the society (for a reader at least, as some of them aren't rebellious and often submit to them, but at least they do reflect a little bit) and major characters are multi-dimensional.

a very interesting read, i liked fontane's writing especially towards the end and i'll probably check out his other works in the future.

this book took me soooo long to read and to be completely honest, i was indeed bored throughout of it quite a few times.

but altogether, finishing this story was quite painful somehow.
seeing the main character, Effi Briest, going through the up and downs of her life (which eventually turned out to be only downs) and living her life with her, left me in pain.

her failed marriage because of her cheating, her anxiety because of that, her child being taken away from her, her sickness - well, all the periods of sickness she had to go through - those were all quite overwhelming and made me emotional.

Ein leistungsfähiges Buch, aber sehr traurig. Die Geschichte von Effi, Teenager, heiratet früh und zu junge Frau, die um die Liebe wissen strebt. Ich war sehr beeindruckt, ebenso wie die endgültige Vergebung zu ihrem Mann, der soviel für eine Person ohne Liebe getan hat.

Un libro potente, ma tristissimo. La storia di Effi, adolescente che si sposa troppo presto e giovane donna che si sforza di conoscere l'amore mi ha colpito molto, come anche il perdono finale al marito, colui che ha fatto tanto per essere una persona priva di amore.

In late 19th century Germany, 17-year-old Effi Briest is married off to a man 21 years her senior, a former suitor of her mother. Her new husband, a civil servant based in Pomerania, is a quiet, serious man, who enjoys touring museums, and who's idea of a fun night in is retracing their entire honeymoon from his notes. Effi, meanwhile, is young, vibrant and, prior to her marriage, carefree, and enjoys being outdoors, going for long walks.

The apparent incompatibility between the couple, the husband Innsteten's long absences, and Effi's desire for excitement see her developing a relationship with a military officer. Knowing it to be wrong, she takes advantage of Innstetten's promotion and their resultant move to Berlin to move on and focus on her marriage. The past, however, catches up with her, and, though he professes that he loves her, Innstetten's feels compelled to follow the moral and social code of the day.

As a commentary on the strictness of that code,, and the problems that it could create, Fontane's novel is taut, subtle work, telling its tale simply and effortlessly, with no melodrama, and the novel is all the more powerful for it. The characters are well drawn and strongly defined, and as I reader, I found myself sympathising with both Effi and Instetten. Due to their respective desires to 'do the right thing', they both end up suffering.

Having said that, there is something about Effi that I found intensely annoying. She is childish, and selfish - Fontane himself describes her thus: 'Effi was not for reheated leftovers; fresh dishes were what she longed for, variety'. I did find myself losing patience, and sympathy, with her. Whether that was Fontane's intention, I do not know, though he does allow Innstetten to describe her as 'a spoilt young lass'. I feel that Fontane is trying to establish that neither one nor other party to this ultimately doomed marriage was responsible for its breakdown, but rather circumstances and social mores were to blame.