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Title: The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe ISBN: 0-679-72951-8 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 16 June, 1990 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $11.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.38 (45 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: The Sorrows of self-indulgence
Comment: There is no doubt about the literary poignancy of this book, or for that matter the masterful mind of its author. But it must be said that the undeniably strong sorrows of young Werther came from an all-consuming love of himself-not from love of another. Or rather he seemed in love with the idea of having someone to consume his idle days and, what he imagined, his large and thoughtful mind. His precipice, from which he condescended to view his every move, thought and encounter, was lofty indeed.
The pastoral atmosphere of the book is what captivated this reader. It's a pity Werther couldn't heed Albert and Lotte's sound advice about retuning his strong emotions...or at least spend more time under Linden trees with his Homer (this would have been my suggestion to him). Perhaps it was the poetry of the equally love-torn Ossian, which came to replace his classic text, that helped spur on his emotional demise. Whatever the case, it was painful to read of his self-indulgent romance with his ideas of love and devotion. He was kidding himself in the grandest and noblest fashion imaginable.
Please don't think me a heartless soul, or someone who couldn't possible understand such an intense love; I just didn't see it that way. However much frustration I felt at Werther's extreme pathos, I remained in awe of the beauty of Goethe's emotive and descriptive writing. Am I contradicting myself here...with talk of emotion? You be the judge.
Rating: 4
Summary: People still do it, perhaps without the style
Comment: OK, young fool falls in love with married girl. Becomes friend of the couple. Husband starts to get annoyed. Hero declares his love and then commits suicide. You can read that in the paper once in a while. So, why is this a great novel and a landmark of Romantic literature? Because it has a lot to make us think. A famous fact related to this book is that, short after it was published, a series of suicides took place in Europe, mostly by young guys in the same situation as Werther. That should set clear the influence and strenght of the novel. It is extremely well written; the scenery is gorgeous -rural, upper class Germany in the Eighteenth century. The book is written as a secret diary addressed to a trusted friend, and to any readers, young or old, it will strike a chord in their hearts. Tell me, who is there that never experienced dreams of punishing that insensible beloved from school by committing suicide and then have her cry and repent at the funeral? But most of us are still here, with her or, most likely, with someone else or alone. We survived love's infatuation; Werther did not, and he is now a prototype of unlimited love (or lack of maturity, depending on your point of view). I prefer to see it as a great story written, at an early stage, by one of the greatest geniuses of all time. "Werther"
Rating: 5
Summary: The German Shakespeare
Comment: Goethe (1749-1832) is the most important of the German writers, a poet who surpassed the constraints of his time, being the brightest representative of German Enlightnement. Faust, his masterwork, portrays the inner struggle of a man who had everything on earth but who was profoundly disillusioned by the rigid limits imposed upon human life and creation, that in the search for the infinite of possibilities, sold his soul to the devil in order to grab with both hands whatever might come from the struggle between Good and Evil. Much of that human fight and quest is anticipated in the "Sorrows of the Young Werther", one of Goethe's first works and his very first romance, and a truly good one. Here the theme of the quest for the infinite and meanings in life is ever present and is beneath all the impossible interplay of Werther (Goethe himself), Lotte ( a feminine Lot, always looking backwards to face doom?) and her nondescript husband Albert.
As in Faust, the protagonist (Werther) had it all with books, and the only one he carries and reads is Homer, where, in his own words, no limits were yet established for human growth and expansion. As in "Romeo and Juliet", his is an impossible love, a human triangle that had to be bisected by a voluntary and violent farewell to his beloved Lotte - and to his life, something he finally accomplishes with the full knowledge of his beloved friend. The romance has a magnetic force upon the reader, who follows attentively the protagonist trough his epistolar via crucis with his friend Wilheim, untill the dramatic end. In my opinion, the romance is directly antipodal to Flaubert's Madame Bovary and as good as Madame Bovary, the latter being an ode of form against substance, the primacy of form against substance, while Goethe's romance is sheer substance (love, hate, etc...) at its height, and, along with Madame Bovary, must be reckoned on the list of the 100 best romances ever written. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
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Title: Faust I & II (Goethe : The Collected Works, Vol 2) by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ISBN: 069103656X Publisher: Princeton University Press Pub. Date: 05 July, 1994 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: The Stranger by ALBERT CAMUS ISBN: 0679720200 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 13 March, 1989 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
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Title: The Selected Poems of T'Ao Ch'Ien by T'Ao Ch'Ien, David Hinton ISBN: 1556590563 Publisher: Copper Canyon Press Pub. Date: 01 May, 1993 List Price(USD): $11.00 |
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Title: Giacometti Portrait by James Lord ISBN: 0374515735 Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux Pub. Date: 01 June, 1980 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: Goethe's Faust by JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE, WALTER KAUFMANN ISBN: 0385031149 Publisher: Anchor Pub. Date: 04 December, 1962 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
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