The Blue Flower

Penelope Fitzgerald's final novel fictionalizes the short life of German Romantic poet Novalis, centering on his baffling obsession with Sophie von Kühn — a plain, unremarkable twelve-year-old he insists embodies some ineffable spiritual quality. The prose is precise and quietly funny, the 18th-century Moravian household rendered with a scholar's care and a novelist's lightness. Fitzgerald refuses to explain or resolve anything, which is exactly the point — and exactly the problem for most readers. The central romance involves an adult man pursuing betrothal to a child, presented without apology as historical fact. Add to that an elliptical structure, no emotional payoff, and dense philosophical underpinning, and this is firmly a book for patient, educated adult readers only. A genuine masterwork — but not for everyone.