B is for The Blue Flower: Penelope Fitzgerald

I had a very difficult time with this book. I was struggling to find a book that started with "B," as per my Reading Challenge, and Google recommended this one to me. From what I gathered in reviews on this book, it is very important and a masterpiece. I couldn't quite agree with that.

The novel opens with this pair of college friends, Fritz (who we later find out is the main character) and his friend Dietmahler. Dietmahler is visiting Fritz's home for the first time. Fitzgerald talks about this visit for the first three or four chapters, and then suddenly focuses solely on Fritz, without any conclusion on Dietmahler's visit. Up until this seemingly random switch, it seemed Dietmahler would be the main character, the one who's journey we would be following. That is not the case.

We then follow Fritz on his journey to find the Blue Flower, as he wrote in his story of the same name. I didn't find any suggestions as to what the Blue Flower was, so I allowed myself to draw my own conclusions: perhaps Sophie or her youth, as he is striving for the entire rest of the book to win Sophie and ultimately marry her. This proves impossible with her death in the end, proving that the Blue Flower is unattainable.

About 60% of the way through the novel, we return to Dietmahler's visit for a few sentences, but again forego him for Fritz and his search of the Blue Flower.

We do receive more mention of Dietmahler as Sophie becomes increasingly sick and her family seeks help and a cure for her. He comes into the picture again, but doesn't really play a major role. This was confusing and off-putting to me because of the emphasis he received in the beginning. I must need to go back and re-read the beginning in the context of the whole novel and perhaps it will make more sense to me.

I wasn't all that fond of the writing style either. This was my first Fitzgerald novel, so I might need to read more of her works before I draw a full conclusion towards her writing, but I found myself often drifting from the story because her writing was not at all engaging to me. I was bogged down by the way she wrote and had to work really hard to keep going.

Over all, I would not recommend this book, but perhaps that's because I didn't understand the moral or the point or appreciate the beauty. Maybe after I finish my 2018 reading challenge, I can give the book another chance, turning to other reviews and studies to maybe understand more of what Fitzgerald was doing. I'm not deterred or disappointed in my inability to understand The Blue Flower, because I know I don't need to understand everything I read.