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Book

Effingers

Call Number

  • FICTION TERG (CEN)

Publication Information

New York, NY : The New York Review of Books, 2025.

Physical Description

853 pages ; 21 cm.

Uniform Title

Effingers. English

Summary

"Three generations of a German Jewish family undergo the tumult, upheaval, and brutality of nineteenth- and twentieth-century history in this panoramic and skillfully nuanced family drama, rich with gossip and incident, capturing a Germany now lost to time. Gabriele Tergit's Effingers is a novel both epic and intimate as it chronicles the lives and fates of three generations of a German Jewish family. Beginning from 1878 -- the year after the narrative of Buddenbrooks ends -- and ending in 1948, we follow the Effingers, a family of modest craftsmen from southern Germany, who are joined through marriage to two families of high-society financiers in Berlin, the Goldschmidts and the Oppners. The Effingers soon rise to prominence as one of the most important German industrialist families in Berlin, but with the outbreak of World War I, they fall on hard times, and must then navigate the tumultuous changes of the Weimar Republic. Full of parties and drama and the most delicious gossip, and featuring a kaleidoscopic cast of unforgettable characters, Effingers is a vibrant and keenly observed account of German Jewish life in all its richness and complexity. Tergit's journalistic precision and limpid prose dazzle in Sophie Duvernoy's elegant, fluid translation. Criminally underrated when it first came out in 1951, and only in recent years undergoing rediscovery, Effingers is a searching meditation on identity and nationality that establishes Tergit as one of the most significant writers of the twentieth century"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents

  • A letter
  • Kragsheim
  • London
  • An attempt in Kragsheim
  • Journey to berlin
  • Arrival
  • A letter of recommendation
  • A visit to the bank
  • A factory, 1884
  • The beginning
  • Oppner buys a house
  • Biedermeier makes way for the eighties
  • The crisis
  • Waldemar Goldschmidt
  • The screw debacle
  • Karl opens an account
  • The visit
  • The boom
  • An outing
  • Preparations for a party
  • The housewarming party
  • The engagement
  • A visit to Kragsheim
  • The first grandchild
  • Spring
  • Sunday afternoon
  • The paths of the children
  • The turning point
  • Gas engines
  • Theodor contemplates marriage
  • The railless carriage
  • The musicians are packing up their instruments
  • The children return
  • Sofie
  • The wedding play
  • The wedding dinner
  • A workday ends
  • The gas engine bidding war
  • Kragsheim
  • The accumulator scandal
  • Paul and Klara
  • The engagement
  • The divorce
  • 1900
  • Theodor gets engaged
  • Theodor gets married
  • Trouble at school
  • An outing by car
  • The will
  • Sofie at carnival
  • Two little girls
  • 1907
  • A new generation
  • Sunday lunch
  • Embezzlement
  • Emmanuel's death
  • The race
  • The golden anniversary
  • Future worries
  • The women's movement
  • Dance lessons
  • James
  • Shopping
  • Summer holiday, 1911
  • Youth's awakening
  • The masked ball
  • Summer travels, 1912
  • Spring
  • The Jewish state
  • The board meeting
  • Dr. Merkel
  • June 28, 1914
  • War begins
  • Flags
  • The lost battle
  • Erwin goes off to war
  • Lotte makes a fresh start
  • Sofie's adventure
  • James in the east
  • Winter 1916-17
  • The box of flour
  • News from alexander
  • Imprisonment
  • Russia
  • Imprisonment
  • Sofie's trip, 1918
  • Kragsheim, 1918
  • War ends at home
  • War ends in the Balkans
  • November 1918
  • A lady's demise
  • Martin and Marianne's correspondence
  • The pandemic
  • A new world
  • Herbert
  • Sunday lunch, 1919
  • Escape
  • A letter
  • Munich, winter 1919-20
  • The lecture
  • Kragsheim, 1920
  • Trials and solutions
  • A letter
  • Enlightenment
  • Summer in Heidelberg
  • A new philosophical system
  • The cat
  • Marianne
  • A child
  • Apartment hunting
  • Two generations
  • A car for the people
  • The girl
  • Harald
  • Sunday lunch, 1921
  • The stage
  • When ten thousand marks were worth a dollar
  • When thirty thousand marks were worth a dollar
  • When forty-seven thousand marks were worth a dollar
  • When one million marks were worth a dollar
  • When two million marks were worth a dollar
  • When five million marks were worth a dollar
  • Stabilization
  • Kragsheim
  • A magazine
  • Kipshausen
  • Selma's birthday
  • Murder
  • Reunion in Landro
  • A cozy evening
  • Spring 1930
  • The end of a life
  • The Great Depression
  • Bankruptcy
  • The gray salon
  • One last time
  • The renters
  • James falls ill
  • An encounter with Schröder
  • Whom the gods love
  • A last shred of dignity
  • Power
  • The beginning of the end
  • Things continue for just a bit longer
  • Paul loses the factory
  • The golden gable
  • A visit to a collective settlement
  • Arson
  • Summer 1939
  • Waldemar
  • A letter
  • Epilogue.

Subjects

Added Authors

Sophie Duvernoy