Without Lifting A Finger

Not a showcase of great writing (so I won't need to read more Penelope anytime soon), but I'm learning a little bit (mostly names and places) and I can appreciate the research (can't make everything up when it's "historical"). I can see, however, what at least one critic has said: Weak in terms of the philosophy behind the movement and the man. Perhaps her Blue Flower will inspire me to dig deeper? * 'But there is something else which I have written and which I want to read to you while I still have time,' Fritz told Karoline. 'It will not truly exist until you have heard it.'      'Is it then poetry?'      'It is poetry, but not verse.'      'Then it is a story?' asked Karoline, who dreaded the reappearance of Fichte's triads.      'It is the beginning of a story.'      'Well, we will wait until my Aunt Rahel comes back from the evening service.'   ...

Flip-flopping between Bernhard's Lime Works and Fitzgerald's The Blue Flower (via Bernhard, Kropotkin and Novalis, I got to Fitzgerald's "opus" -- wasn't sure about historical fiction, not my fave genre, but I figured it would be relatively short and informational: OK so far). * Anyway, Blue Flower kicked up Dr. John Brown. From Blue Flower : Dr. Brown, of Edinburgh, had cured a number of patients by refusing to let blood, and by recommending exercise, sufficient sex, and fresh air. But he held that to be alive was not a natural state, and to prevent immediate collapse the constitution must be held in perpetual balance by a series of stimuli, either jacking it up with alcohol, or damping it down with opium. From the online Britannica :