In the last sentence of his book “Forms of Realism: Theodor Fontane” (1964), Peter Demetz spoke of the “gentle law of a recurring formality of one’s own way of life, which protects and reveals a playful, free life”, with reference to Fontane’s social novels. The sentence contained a utopia and at the same time, probably unintentionally, a small self-portrait of the author.
On the death of the literary scholar Peter Demetz – Culture
