
On Tangled Paths
Description
<b>'Sparkling, tender, sympathetic, delicately ironic, and psychologically astute' - Phillip Lopate, <i>New York Review of Books</i>
'<i>On Tangled Paths</i> has the flawless logic and beautiful design of the novella at its best' - Paul Binding, <i>Spectator</i></b>
Lene is an orphaned seamstress; Botho is a nobleman and an officer in one of the Prussian army's most glittering regiments. But whatever their differences of class and education, their hearts are equal to each other. Over the course of a summer in 1870s Berlin, they enjoy a clear-eyed, tender love affair, in spite of the judgements and warnings of those around them.
The end comes all too soon, and Botho marries a wealthy cousin. When, years later, Lene too has an opportunity to marry, her ex-lover must choose between holding on to regret or letting go of the past - along with the possibility of getting Lene herself back.
Full of tender irony and vivid evocations of a quickly expanding Berlin and its bucolic surroundings, this small masterpiece gives us a love story poised between the strict social codes of the 19th century and the sometimes bewildering freedoms of the 20th.
<b>Part of the Pushkin Press Classics series: timeless storytelling by icons of literature, hand-picked from around the globe.
Translated by Peter James Bowman.</b>
Theodor Fontane (1819-98) was born in a small Prussian town and then moved to Berlin. He worked for most of his life as a journalist, and spent many years in London as a foreign correspondent for the Prussian intelligence agency. He began writing novels at the age of fifty-seven, and these works earned him an enduring reputation in German letters. Several of his realist masterpieces are published or forthcoming from Pushkin Press, including <i>No Way Back</i> and <i>Effi Briest</i>.
Peter James Bowman holds a PhD in German Literature from Cambridge. He has translated works by Stefan Zweig and Johanna Spyri as well as Theodor Fontane.
Reviews / Votes
Sparkling, tender, sympathetic, delicately ironic, and psychologically astute -- Phillip Lopate * New York Review of Books * No writer of the past or the present awakens in me the sympathy and gratitude, the unconditional and instinctive delight, the immediate amusement and warmth and satisfaction that I feel in every verse, in every line of one of his letters, in every snatch of his dialogue -- Thomas Mann On Tangled Paths has the flawless logic and beautiful design of the novella at its best -- Paul Binding * Spectator * There is an undertow of sadness to this novel, yet to read it is a joy, for its humanity, subtlety and visual immediacy -- Ruth Pavey * Independent * The immense pleasures of the novel lie in the author's cool-headed approach to what, in other hands, could have been a forgettable melodrama * New Yorker * [Fontane's novels] place him in the first rank of German writers * London Review of Books * Theodor Fontane's first true masterpiece; it has a perfect beginning, a perfect ending, and no superfluous sentence in between -- Henry Garland * Germanic Review * A tender and wistful love story... [Peter James Bowman's] translation is excellent -- Martin Swales * Translation and Literature *More details
Other editions
Additional editions

Persons
Content
ON TANGLED PATHS 9
Afterword 189
Historical Persons and Places Mentioned in On Tangled Paths 203