THE BLUE FLOWER

Donada Peters does her usual masterful job with this little gem, reading the text as beautifully and subtly as it is written. Penelope Fitzgerald's short novel of love and German intellectuals is subversive and humorous, and Peters captures all of it in her characterizations of the quirky von Hardenberg family and the lives that intersect theirs. It's as much character study as it is philosophy, and while one might question Fritz's obsessive and romanticized devotion to a young, unformed maiden that is the heart of the story, Peters makes getting there as pleasurable and intellectually stimulating as any philosophical debate. J.M.D. (c) AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine [Published: AUG/SEP 02]