A review by fearandtrembling
Irretrievable by Theodor Fontane

3.0

Reading about dreamy aristocrats in 2020 made me want to roll out the guillotine at the start of this book, but despite my own resistance, I persisted. In between checking the news for updates on plague and the return of right-wing reactionary forces in my country I found the prose in this novel clean, clear, and strangely restful. I was suspended in a strange dream-state. Beats me what any of this is about, but I slowly grew to appreciate the carefully-observed psychological landscape of these characters. It's written with a light yet probing sensitivity. If I was a different frame of mind I might have been more absorbed, I think, and perhaps it wouldn't have seemed like such tedious work to get into the headspace of the book.