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the Complete Review
the complete review - fiction



Effingers

by
Gabriele Tergit


general information | review summaries | our review | links | about the author

To purchase Effingers


Title: Effingers
Author: Gabriele Tergit
Genre: Novel
Written: 1951 (Eng. 2025)
Length: 835 pages
Original in: German
Availability: Effingers - US
The Effingers - UK
Effingers - Canada
Les Effinger - France
Effingers - Deutschland
Gli Effinger - Italia
Los Effinger - España
from: Bookshop.org (US)
  • German title: Effingers
  • US title: Effingers
  • UK title: The Effingers
  • UK sub-title: A Berlin Saga
  • Translated and with an Afterword by Sophie Duvernoy

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Our Assessment:

B+ : a busy, large-scale epic that offers an impressive panorama of Germany, ca. 1880 though the 1940s

See our review for fuller assessment.



Review Summaries
Source Rating Date Reviewer
Irish Times . 9/11/2025 Declan O'Driscoll
Le Monde diplomatique . 7/2024 Hubert Prolongeau
El Páis A+ 5/8/2022 Cecilia Dreymüller
Süddeutsche Zeitung A+ 30/3/2019 Jens Bisky
Die Welt . 1/3/2019 Erhard Schütz
Die Zeit A 18/6/2019 Juliane Liebert


  From the Reviews:
  • "Most of what we learn is conveyed through dialogue, with little in the way of exposition or reflection. This results in a lack of depth or insight, and the reader’s engagement is required as the list of characters expands (a list of characters would have been useful), with many of the conversations deviating from the central concerns of the narrative. But the polyphony of voices -- sometimes deliberately discordant -- allows a vivid sense of the city as it moves from the authoritarian rule of Bismarck to the freedom and decadence of the Weimar period, towards the advance of fascism." - Declan O'Driscoll, Irish Times

  • "Tergit mêle effervescence romanesque, sociologie, politique ; elle offre une reconstitution prenante des mœurs, des inquiétudes, des mentalités de ces entrepreneurs et de ces jeunes filles intenses -- qui vont découvrir le socialisme et le féminisme. Histoires d’amour, histoires d’argent, questions nouvelles et menaces ignorées, ces Juifs-là se définissaient comme allemands, patriotes, et rêvaient de voir leurs enfants réussir à leur tour." - Hubert Prolongeau, Le Monde diplomatique

  • "Qué novela más monumental: ¡cuánta energía narrativa!, ¡cuánto dominio del elenco de personajes! y ¡cuánta capacidad de creación viva! Todo ello sostenido magistralmente a lo largo de casi un millar de páginas. Los Effinger es una de las grandes sagas familiares de la literatura alemana del siglo XX, y sólo comparable en cuanto a logros literarios y envergadura histórica con Los Buddenbrook. (...) Pocos libros ilustran mejor el devenir de Berlín en las décadas de su máximo esplendor como centro de sofisticación cultural y empuje tecnológico-económico que esta apasionante crónica de época." - Cecilia Dreymüller, El Páis

  • "Tergit versteht es meisterinnenhaft, Lebenswelten, Geisteshaltungen, Umbrüche zu charakterisieren. Sie nutzt dafür beiläufige Bemerkungen, Gespräche, schildert Interieurs, Stoffe, Accessoires, lässt die kulturhistorischen Details sprechen. (...) Dieser große Roman des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts ist in vielem außergewöhnlich. Historisch glänzend informiert, aber nie belehrend vergegenwärtigt Gabriele Tergit ein Panorama der Berliner Geschichte zwischen Reichsgründung und Zerstörung der Stadt. Ihre Bankiers und Unternehmer sind, was selten ist in der deutschen Literatur, keine Karikaturen, vielmehr ehrliche, irrende, mehr oder weniger gescheite Geschäftsleute. (...) Tergit arbeitet gern mit Kontrasten, harten Schnitten, setzt Szene an Szene im Vertrauen auf die Urteilskraft der Leser, deren Aufmerksamkeit sie lenkt, ohne ihnen Standardemotionen anzudienen, Gedanken vorzukauen. Sie schreibt für Emanzipierte, die der Vormundschaft durch eine Erzählstimme nicht mehr bedürfen." - Jens Bisky, Süddeutsche Zeitung

  • "Effingers ist ein geradezu exemplarischer Familienroman, der freilich immer mehr zum politischen Zeitroman wird. (...) Handwerker und Erfinder, Fabrikanten und Gelehrte, starke und selbstständige Frauen, ob nun traditionalistisch oder emanzipiert: Gabriele Tergits Roman Effingers zeigt Patriarchen und moderne Manager, im Autobau so technisch fortschrittlich wie im Umgang mit den Arbeitern sozialfürsorglich. Ausgiebig verweilt der Roman in den Jahrzehnten des Kaiserreichs. Hier ist nichts vom wilhelminischen Untertanengeist zu finden (...). Vielmehr trifft man selbstbewusste, sozial engagierte und kulturell interessierte, zugleich weltoffene und patriotische Bürger, die auf den Erfolg ihrer Arbeit bauen und der Zukunft vertrauen." - Erhard Schütz, Die Welt

  • "Ehrliches, klarsichtiges Erzählen bedeutet bei Tergit nie Bloßstellen oder Anklagen, sondern wurzelt in einer tiefen Liebe zu den Figuren, zu ihren Versuchen, etwas aus ihrem Leben zu machen, sich zu arrangieren und sich dabei dennoch treu zu bleiben. (...) Tergit schreibt leicht, musikalisch, mit einem guten Gehör dafür, wie die Leute so reden, und einem feinen, zutiefst humanistischen Witz. Obwohl der Roman sich über rund 900 Seiten streckt, sind die Kapitel nur wenige Seiten lang, manchmal epigrammatisch kurz. (...) Was hier erzählt wird, ist die ganze Fülle eines selbstverständlich deutschen und jüdischen Lebens." - Juliane Liebert, Die Zeit

Please note that these ratings solely represent the complete review's biased interpretation and subjective opinion of the actual reviews and do not claim to accurately reflect or represent the views of the reviewers. Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole. We acknowledge (and remind and warn you) that they may, in fact, be entirely unrepresentative of the actual reviews by any other measure.

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The complete review's Review:

       Effingers -- published in the UK as The Effingers because ... *sigh*, publishers ... -- is, as the title(s) suggest, a family saga. The UK sub-title has it being A Berlin Saga and it is, to some extent, that too -- but it is also anchored in Kragsheim, the southern German city where watchmaker Mathias Effinger lives and works, and where his children were raised. When the novel opens, in 1878, three of the four sons are already elsewhere -- Manchester, Berlin, and the Rhineland -- with only one, Willy, left behind "learning the watchmaker's trade from his father"; there are also two daughters.
       Even as 1900 approaches, Kragsheim remains behind and somewhat apart from the times:

Paul realized how deeply Kragsheim was still entrenched in the Middle Ages. This wasn't merely a stage set for a wholly different world. Here, one time flowed into another.
       It is a Protestant city -- but: "In the next village, the old faith, Catholicism, had endured". The Effingers are Jewish, but that isn't much of an issue at that time and for quite a while longer, and in this town.
       Though Kragsheim particularly suits Paul, he feels he has to go to the big city, where there is more opportunity. Kragsheim is not only sleepy but leery of change; Paul's industrial ambitions are impossible here. The tension between progress -- and the change it brings with it -- and tradition are a major theme of the novel. Early on, Paul takes a stab at setting up shop in Kragsheim, wanting to set up a factory for making screws there (and even then: "Well, perhaps a factory is saying too much -- it might be more of a workshop"), and he goes to the mayor to: "inquire about the availability of land, property, and the tax situation". Instead of helping the young would-be entrepreneur the mayor tells him:
     I'm afraid I must disappoint you, Herr Effinger. We're interested in industry, of course; we're modern, after all, and want to keep up with progress, but a matter of that sort must be considered very carefully.
       So instead Paul sets up shop in Berlin -- supported by family money (things don't go particularly well early one) and with brother Karl, a year older than him, coming on board as well. They are very different types, the hardworking Paul always staying late at work, living humbly, and pouring most of his money back into the business while Karl lives much more for the moment, ignoring:
the Effingers' age-old principle of saving money. The Effingers had always prayed, worked, and saved as much as possible for old age, hard times, and their children. But these people no longer believed in hard times. Paul felt this whole business went against everything his ancestors had taught him, as well as the great German poets
       Summing it up more succinctly, neither has changed by 1913, when Paul's wife complains:
“Paul looks very unwell and is working too much.”
     “Karl and Annette have gone to the Riviera.”
       Even when he has become a relatively successful industrialist, Paul finds:
the people in Kragsheim have it easier. You can retire at fifty and go drink your Schoppen at the Silver Mule or go to the Golden Goose in the evenings and spend your Shabbes in the palace garden. Industry hasn't proved a blessing for mankind. The hustle and bustle of modern life is a great misfortune.
       A quarter of a century after having settled in Berlin, Paul still claims:
I never planned to stay in Berlin for very long -- just long enough to earn what I needed, retire to Kragsheim, and drink my Schoppen at the Glass Heaven.
      But, of course, you can't go home again .....
       The oldest Effinger son is the rarely seen Benno -- Ben --, who is already in England at the start of the novel and remains there, adopting it as his home and becoming naturalized and fully Anglicized -- naming his son 'Reginald' and being named a Lord. When Paul first sets out for Berlin, Ben writes him a letter of recommendation and introduction, to the banking firm of Oppner & Goldschmidt, run by Ludwig Goldschmidt and his brother-in-law Emmanuel Oppner; these two connected and then extended families also feature prominently in the story. Karl falls in love with Oppner's daughter, Annette, sight unseen, convincing himself that: "A girl from such a home surely must be charming". Lithe redhead Annette is, in fact, a beauty, and a good match for Karl -- though she is no romantic, telling her sister:
     “Oh, falling in love won’t get you anywhere,” said Annette. “I want to be rich one day.”
       Karl can provide, and so she gets what she wants. Eventually, Paul also marries into the Oppner family, taking Annette's younger sister, Klara, as his wife -- though he admits, before proposing: "I'll be honest; I've liked Klara for some time. But the family doesn't suit me" -- and she has to adapt to his more frugal, humble lifestyle.
       Paul and Karl's different choices of domiciles is also revealing, with Paul long living near the factory, while Karl and Annette eventually buy a grand Kurfürstendamm house, the fanciest of addresses, in the thick of things (and, as Annette raves: "we can host sixty in our dining room ! And we have a garbage chute !"). (Karl and Annette do live in great luxury eventually, but the novel nicely depicts how quickly times change as modern conveniences are introduced, as even flush (or free) with money long didn't always mean living in now taken-for-granted comfort: a bathroom scene in an earlier house has Karl complain: "These old-fashioned circumstances are appalling. We don't have running water, let alone hot water. Where are my diamond cuff links ? I want to wear the diamonds today".)
       The contrast between England -- where Ben clearly quickly thrives -- and Germany, where businessmen struggle, is repeatedly noted. Attitudes shift some over the course of the decades covered here, but some of the basics remains fairly steady, such as the summing-up:
If you’re Christian, your son becomes a lieutenant -- a lawyer if you’re Jewish. Businessmen aren’t considered respectable in Germany and never have been, except in the Hanseatic cities, where they think more like the English.
       Effingers covers many decades -- opening with a letter Paul writes in 1878, and closing with one he writes in 1942 (with a brief Epilogue-chapter then surveying Berlin in May, 1948) -- and generations, and so there's a huge cast of characters. (A family-tree chart (e.g.) would have been welcome and useful -- or even just a cast-of-characters list .....) The novel fairly gallops along -- 151 short chapters (some as short as a page or two), each devoted to some episode, event, or change, or presenting more or less just a slice-of-life at a particular time and then quickly moving on. The chapter titles often sum up what happens, giving some sense also of the quick progress in the novel in sequences such as:
42. The Engagement - 269
43. The Divorce - 273
44. 1900 - 282
45. Theodor Gets Engaged - 289
46. Theodor Gets Married - 295
       Covering such a large span of time, some events are quickly checked off in a single chapter: the five-page one on 'The Pandemic' covers the so-called Spanish flu, with two pages devoted to it and its spread generally ("The flu traveled north. The Eskimo died in Alaska. Entire villages in Labrador were depopulated. The flu traveled south and west. It raged on the Fiji Islands and in the Philippines. Seven thousand out of thirty thousand Samoans died in Western Samoa") before then honing in on (some of) the Effingers, a young Effinger accompanying his mother shopping but soon telling her: "I don't feel well. I'd rather go home"; his decline is rapid, and two pages later we've reached the point where: "They all believed that, somehow, his heart could be convinced to keep beating. But it couldn't be done. It stopped". Ah, well, one less Effinger to worry about.
       The use of such a large, often widely dispersed cast of characters works best in covering times such as the First World War, Tergit presenting the very different experiences of many of the family members during those years, giving a good sense of all the different ways in which the war years were experienced and the variety of hardships that were faced. There's little from any of the actual fronts -- though that too is covered -- but Tergit gives a very good sense of life in a variety of circumstances in those war years.
       In quieter times, the large cast of characters can be more unwieldy (and hard to follow) -- not least because Tergit also jumps ahead from time to time (the first two chapters describe life in 1878; in the third already: "It was 1883"). Rarely do any characters dominate the narrative -- Paul and his efforts do, to some extent, for much of the early going, but he doesn't remain truly at the fore, and the novel shifts around, not quite losing track of the characters but often with much of their lives spent off-scene and then summed up when they pop back into the action. (Some are also more or less lost along the way: wayward son Herbert, one of Karl and Annette's three boys, is shoved off to the United States early on, to avoid a scandal or two ("A convenient solution that allowed the family to avoid all responsibility"), and while he returns to the fold briefly after the war, he's soon enough shoved off again and pretty much never heard from or of again (but then, as one of his cousins notes: "I suspect he's never been quite normal. At any rate, he was always below average. It happens, I suppose").)
       After mostly calm and for a while even very comfortable years leading up to the war, the German defeat and the postwar years bring with it greater, faster changes. As Paul's daughter recognizes:
     A new era has begun, thought Lotte, but it's different from what we imagined.
       Lotte is perhaps the most prominent figure in the later parts of the novel, but is herself long uncertain of her course. Marriage -- especially getting the girls married off and settled -- had been a priority in the earlier years, but times have changed some. Lotte has ambitions -- but no specific ones. Her cousin has her pegged, responding to Lotte yearning:
     Lotte envied them, and said to Marianne, “If only I could study in Heidelberg for a semester !”
     “You don’t know what you want.”
       Lotte does wind up studying in Heidelberg -- after a half-hearted engagement fizzles out -- and there too, typically, remains uncertain what to study, trying her hand in a variety of fields. At one point she goes in for:
     Paleography. Not that it matters. The field’s so vast that you begin by searching for connections between Goethe’s color theory, Egyptian architecture, and Marxism, and end up writing an essay on the Gothic letter E.
       Among those she encounters there is Enkendorff -- whose: "reputation in Munich as the greatest mind of his generation had followed him to Heidelberg" -- who is writing his dissertation on: "the nihilism of nihilism, about the death of our world at the hands of consciousness". With Kant over her head, Lotte doesn't wind up with Enkendorff but rather someone closer to home, marrying a cousin, tying the Effinger-clan -- specifically, the Paul and Karl branches -- into an even tighter knot. Difficulties in finding a place where the new family can live together are only one of the issues that turn this into a rather peculiar and open marriage -- though admirably, they do remain family.
       Times are tough in the immediate postwar years, with Lotte -- married and a mother -- fumbling along, claiming: "I'm going to get my doctorate" while admitting: "I'm a bit disappointed by the whole thing; I'm not making any progress, and everything I'd hoped for -- book publishing, archive work -- seems pointless". Times are tough: even greatest-mind Enkendorff: "is trying to find a post at a bank to keep his head above water". (Though, of course, banks soon also prove not to be the most stable of businesses .....) We don't learn what comes of Lotte's doctorate-ambitions, but she does make good -- becoming an actress (under the stage-name 'Angelika Oppnen') and launching a successful career on the stage, her first big success an expressionist take on the title role in Wilde's Salomé (though as someone points out about Lotte's interpretation of the role: "She was very charming, but she went against Wilde and Salomé herself").
       Lotte isn't the first in the clan to enjoy artistic success: her aunt Sofie, one of Oppner's children, dutifully but disastrously married and quickly divorced, and soon is: "flitting about painters' ateliers in Paris !" (as the gossip back home has it), becoming a well-known artist. However, as an art dealer eventually sums her and her work up to Lotte:
She was an important, highly cultivated dame du monde, who knew how to make life enchanting. But you, of all people, must see that her work does nothing more than pander to the fashions of the time.
       The hyper-inflationary period is nicely dealt with in quick sketches of its rapid progression -- as also suggested by the chapter-titles covering it:
117. When Ten Thousand Marks Were Worth a Dollar - 655
118. When Thirty Thousand Marks Were Worth a Dollar - 661
119. When Forty-Seven Thousand Marks Were Worth a Dollar - 663
120. When One Million Marks Were Worth a Dollar - 665
121. When Two Million Marks Were Worth a Dollar - 667
122. When Five Million Marks Were Worth a Dollar - 670
123. Stabilization - 676
       The older generation struggles to adapt, unable to believe that all the foundations they had believed in -- above all, the state and the banking system -- could not, in fact, be relied upon. As to day to day life, it's summed up in descriptions such as Lotte on tour:
     Every day, she collected her earnings and dashed off to a banker friend to buy shares. The shares rose with the dollar, which meant that Lotte could sometimes afford more than the bare essentials. If she had any money left, she made sure she spent it quickly, since it would be worthless by morning.
       Then, of course, comes the rise of the Nazis, its description also deftly handled by Tergit. The Jews are prominently targeted -- but, as even Martin Schröder, a friend of Karl's son Erwin at university and Marianne's longtime not-quite-beau, and representative of the educated sort that went with the flow over the years ("I joined the party very early on" he can tell those who doubt his Nazi-bonafides, when their time comes), realizes: "I don't know whether we can prevent our culture from collapse by expelling foreign elements -- it doesn't really amount to much".
       Control of the important factory -- now manufacturing cars, but soon to make tanks -- is easily wrested from Paul, as he and Erwin are charged with: "economic sabotage, insufficient deliveries during the war, falsification of accounts, and fraud". It's incidental that the judicial system still works, almost an aside when Tergit notes: "Paul and Erwin were acquitted of the charges in a brief formal hearing"; that changes nothing, of course.
       As Tergit sums up at one point:
     Hitler, however, called evil good, and good evil. “The lawmakers are not doing their job, and the weak are being exploited.” None of this was new; there was nothing new under the sun. He wanted to overthrow an empire and install himself in its place.
       (The close similarities throughout these later chapters to the goings-on in the United States in 2025 are disturbing -- down to the credulous: "“The Führer,” said Fräulein Dr. Koch, as though she had guessed his thoughts, “will not abandon those who turn toward him.”")
       The disaster washes over the family more quickly than most of them can react to it -- with some of the older generation barely able to react at all, in their bafflement at what is happening around them (which includes the fact that: "they’re killing people in droves. It's just that no one knows yet"). (Lotte, at least, knows when it's time to pack up.) When Bertha, one of Karl and Paul's sisters, writes that even: "Kragsheim has changed completely", it's of course all over.
       There is some hope in the future generations -- Lotte's daughter, Susi, for one, best positioned for starting a new life (thanks also to Lotte's foresight), though one of the novel's saddest bits has Lotte describe her when she's still small, suggesting also what it takes to survive and thrive (namely, not to be like any of the family members and, god forbid, not have any sense of imagination):
     “I’m quite sure she’s no child of ours,” said Lotte. “I read various things to her yesterday, Schiller’s ‘Bell’ and ‘The Diver.’ Things she can understand, you know. And she said to me, ‘Mother, if you enjoy reading to me, I’m happy to listen !’ She has no imagination whatsoever, but she’s a wonderful child -- so conscientious and hardworking!”
       Effingers has been compared to Thomas Mann's Buddenbrooks, but aside from being generation-spanning family sagas there's limited resemblance. Aside from the time covered -- Buddenbrooks came out in 1901, when the action in Effingers just starts to really get going ... --, stylistically Tergit's novel is miles apart from Mann's. Though there is some stylistic variation in Effingers, Tergit often writes in rapid-fire sentences and short paragraphs -- so different from Mann's long and dense sentences and paragraphs. Tergit also uses repetition -- including several chapters that have sequences which are similarly introduced, e.g. a chapter beginning: "What a beautiful spring day, that Saturday in March 1913 ! How sweet the air was at nine o'clock in the morning!", repeated then at eleven, one, five, and then six o'clock in the evening, before closing: "What a beautiful spring day, that Saturday in March 1887 ! How sweet the air was at three o'clock in the morning !" A chapter set in the spring of 1913 begins and is structured the same way, as is one in 1930, the air always sweet; the Epilogue also opens and closes with the same refrain, the year now 1948.
       Tergit rarely lingers over any exchange or scene long enough for it to get in any way ponderous -- but that also means that it can feel like she skims across a great deal of surface (though certainly with pointed observations along the way). If there's a feel of rather little follow-through in exploring what actions and decisions mean it's because it often isn't necessary: it's all clear enough, soon enough, no need to chew over the details. So, for example, in a chapter pitting 'Two Generations' and their ways of doing business against each other, Tergit has Paul and Erwin discuss financing in the times of rapid inflation, Erwin explaining why its unwise to issue credit and why one should take out loans when the mark is likely to fall. The chapter and argument concludes with Erwin deferring to Paul -- "Very well. I cede to you on all points -- against my better judgment" -- with the consequences manifesting themselves soon enough, but Tergit not having Erwin go into I-told-you-so mode, or Paul beating himself up about his poor decision-making.
       Tergit's approach works well -- the grand scale and the family focus quite well-balanced (even if quite a few of the characters are rather lost in all the busy-ness), giving a good sense of rapidly changing German life over these decades. While hardly encompassing everything, Effingers is more than just a Berlin-novel, or novel of Jewish life in Germany across these decades. Tergit juggles a great deal, and while some is lost in all of that, she covers a tremendous amount of ground, succinctly but often also very well. A nice, big book to lose oneself in.

- M.A.Orthofer, 26 October 2025

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Links:

Effingers: Reviews: Other books by Gabriele Tergit under review: Other books of interest under review:

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About the Author:

       German author Gabriele Tergit lived 1894 to 1982.

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© 2025 the complete review

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