Henry Von Ofterdingen: A Novel

Rating:
Summary: Where's the Beef?
Review: Coming to this book I only knew Novalis as a master of poetry, not as a novelist. And now I know why. The novel centers on Henry, a budding scholar and would-be poet who has had a vision. In this vision he sees a blue flower, and in its shape, the image of an unknown woman and he feels he must discover her identity. As he travels to Augsburg in the company of some merchants and his mother, he encounters many interesting personalities before he comes face to face with his dream. This book suffers mostly because of the eighteenth century tradition of digression. For instance, in one scene where Henry meets with an older poet and asks him to tell him a fairy tale, the tale itself eats up 20 pages of this novel. The tales that surround the main novel are thin, transparent, and lifeless. And what is left of the book is either taken up by philosophical or merely descriptive prose. While I highly recommend reading the authors "Hymns to the Night" this book is boring at best and awful at worst.

Rating:
Summary: A Great Treasure
Review: I had been looking for this book for awhile and I finally found it here. It is full of amazing imagery. This copy is in English in case the discription is unclear.

Rating:
Summary: Fantastic!
Review: This is one of my favorite Romantic novels. It is filled with amazing imagery, fairy tales and myths mutated into new forms, and a powerful dialectic. Sadly, the novel was never finished by Novalis, but it is definitely worth the read anyway. Much of this book is based on Novalis' (Friedrich von Hardenberg) own life. If you would like to read another great novel that deals with Novalis' life, look at Penelope Fitzgerald's The Blue Flower.