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“[Irretrievable is] one of Fontane’s most idiosyncratic achievements, and certainly one of the finest literary autopsies of a foundering relationship…. The pleasure of the novel lies in its subtlety—in this case, a discreet exploration of marital psychology. Here again, trouble starts within and, like a dry rot, eats its way outward….But even after the couple ostensibly reconcile, there’s really nothing left; by the end of this mild yet anguished work, all that remains of the marriage is a lifeless residue of thwarted yearning—‘nothing but the willingness to be happy.’ As so often in the fiction of Theodor Fontane, that’s not enough to save the characters, but it’s a marvellous subject for a novel.” – Daniel Mendelsohn, The New Yorker
“A minor masterpiece of translation. . . ” —The Times Literary Supplement
“No writer of past or present stirs in me that kind of sympathy and gratitude, that immediate, instinctive delight, that reflex gaiety, warmth, and satisfaction, which I feel reading any of Fontane’s verse, any line of his letters, any scrap of dialogue.”
—Thomas Mann
Paperback
Published by NYRB Classics
Feb 15, 2011
| 288 Pages
| 5 x 8
| ISBN 9781590173749
Ebook
Published by NYRB Classics
May 02, 2012
| 288 Pages
| ISBN 9781590175699
