The Blue Flower
{{short description|1995 novel by Penelope Fitzgerald}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
{{Use British English|date=April 2022}}
{{About|the Penelope Fitzgerald novel|the symbol|Blue flower}}
{{Infobox book|
| name = The Blue Flower
| image = Blue Flower, Penelope Fitzgerald, cover.jpg
| cover_artist =
| caption = First hardback edition
| author = Penelope Fitzgerald
| country = United Kingdom
| language = English
| genre = Fiction
| publisher = Flamingo{{Cite web |url=http://primocat.bl.uk/F?func=direct&local_base=ITEMV&doc_number=008718119&con_lng=eng |title=British Library Item details |website=primocat.bl.uk |access-date=2018-01-11}}
| media_type = Print
| isbn = 978-0544359451
| congress =
| oclc =
}}
The Blue Flower is the final novel by the British author Penelope Fitzgerald, published in 1995. It is a fictional treatment of the early life and troubled relationships of Friedrich von Hardenberg who, under the pseudonym Novalis, became a foundational figure of German Romanticism.
First published in hardback by Flamingo, the novel became the first paperback title offered by Mariner Books, then a new imprint of Houghton Mifflin. Mariner Books went on to publish paperback editions of all of Penelope Fitzgerald's books.{{sfn|Lee|2014|pages=399–401}} In 2012, The Observer named The Blue Flower one of "the ten best historical novels".{{cite news | first=William|last=Skidelsky|url=https://www.theguardian.com/culture/gallery/2012/may/13/ten-best-historical-novels#/?picture=389920307&index=6|title=The 10 Best Historical Novels|work=The Observer|publisher=Guardian Media Group|date=13 May 2012|access-date=13 May 2012}}
Setting
The novel is based on the life of Friedrich von Hardenberg (1772–1801) before he became famous under the name Novalis.{{cite book | title=The Bookshop, The Gate of Angels, The Blue Flower | publisher=Everyman | author=Fitzgerald, Penelope | chapter=Author's note | year=2001 | location=London | pages=273 | isbn=1-85715-247-6}} It covers the years from 1790 to 1797 when von Hardenberg was a student of history, philosophy and law at the universities of Jena, Leipzig and Wittenberg, and before he embarked on his professional life.
Plot
In 1794 the 22 year old von Hardenberg becomes mystically attracted to the 12-year-old Sophie von Kühn, an unlikely choice for an intellectual of noble birth given Sophie's age and lack of education and culture, as well as her physical plainness and negligible material prospects. The couple become engaged a year later but never marry as Sophie dies of consumption a few days after her 15th birthday.
The blue flower of the novel's title is the subject of the first chapter of a story that von Hardenberg is writing. In it, a young man longs to see the blue flower that "lies incessantly at his heart, so that he can imagine and think about nothing else". Von Hardenberg reads his draft chapter to Sophie and others, and asks "what is the meaning of this blue flower?" No definitive answer is given within the novel, leaving the reader to provide his or her own interpretation.{{sfn|Lee|2014|page=406}}
Background
Fitzgerald first came upon the notion of blue flowers having literary significance in "The Fox", a short story by D. H. Lawrence. She first became interested in Novalis in the early 1960s, after hearing a musical setting of his mystical Hymns to the Night. Later she conducted research on Burne-Jones and his language of flowers, and discovered that his father-in-law, George MacDonald, was a Novalis enthusiast.{{sfn|Lee|2014|pages=379–80}}
At the end of Fitzgerald's earlier novel The Bookshop, a faded blue gentian is mentioned as having been pressed into one of two books. In another novel, The Beginning of Spring, Selwyn rhapsodizes about the "blue stream flowing gently over our heads", an unattributed quotation from Novalis.{{sfn|Lee|2014|pages=380–81}}
Reception and critical review
In a 2010 introduction to the novel, Frank Kermode called it "the finest work of this extraordinarily gifted novelist".{{cite book | title=The Bookshop, The Gate of Angels, The Blue Flower | publisher=Everyman | author=Kermode, Frank | author-link=Frank Kermode | year=2001 | location=London | pages=xx | isbn=1-85715-247-6}} The New York Times Book Review opined that "There is no better introduction than this novel to the intellectual exaltation of the Romantic era ..."{{cite journal|title=Penelope Fitzgerald: The Blue Flower|journal=The New York Times Book Review|date=1997-12-07|page=12}} Writing in The New York Times, Michael Hofmann called it "a quite astonishing book, a masterpiece".{{cite web | url=https://www.nytimes.com/books/97/04/13/reviews/970413.13hofmant.html | title=Nonsense Is Only Another Language | publisher=The New York Times Online | date=April 13, 1997 | access-date=1 December 2015 | author=Hofmann, Michael}} The novel has attracted critical attention and has a chapter of its own in Peter Wolfe's Understanding Penelope Fitzgerald{{sfn|Wolfe|2004|pages=271–296}} and in Hermione Lee's Penelope Fitzgerald: A Life.{{sfn|Lee|2014|pages=377–397}}
Awards
The Blue Flower won the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction in 1997.{{Cite web |url=http://bookcritics.org/awards/past_awards/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081219185409/http://www.bookcritics.org/awards/past_awards/ |url-status=dead |archive-date=19 December 2008 |title=All Past National Book Critics Circle Award Winners and Finalists |website=National Book Critics Circle |access-date=20 July 2019}}
References
{{reflist}}
Bibliography
- {{cite book|last=Lee|first=Hermione|author-link=Hermione Lee|title=Penelope Fitzgerald: A Life|publisher=Alfred A. Knopf|year=2014|chapter=The Blue Flower}}
- {{cite book|last=Wolfe|first=Peter|title=Understanding Penelope Fitzgerald|publisher=University of South Carolina Press|year=2004|chapter=Kind of Blue}}
{{Penelope Fitzgerald}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Blue Flower, The}}
Category:Novels set in Germany
Category:Novels set in the 1790s