Rating: 
Summary: Meaningful if you can relate
Review: For anyone who has ever entered into the absurdities of love, compulsion, and confusion, this book will hold a lot of meaning. The book is absurd on a lot of levels, but the annoying self-pity contrasted what may or may not be a love story cast light on the confusing nature of humanity.
Rating:
Summary: The German Shakespeare
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: The Sorrow of Loving Too Much
Review: I always find it sad that more people do not read Goethe for pleasure alone. Yes, he was a "scholarly" writer but his works, although profound, are written in an easily understandable style. I think too many people have been needlessly scared off by Goethe's monumental intelligence and his philosophy. This is too bad. His books revolve around themes that are universal, subjects to which all of us can relate: romantic love, nature, God, beauty. Eighteenth-century German literature was propelled by a revolution in romanticism, and writers such as Goethe celebrated their most cherished ideals in as ornate and eloquent a manner as possible. While the tendency of American and British writers to ignore the sublime and the romantic in favor of stark realism does have its place, that does not mean that the sublime and the romantic should be casually tossed aside. The Sorrows of Young Werther is not Goethe at this best (you need to read Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship for that) but it the best introduction to Goethe anyone could find and a lovely novella in its own right. The Sorrows of Young Werther opens more amazingly than any book I have ever read and it is not overstating things a bit to say that Goethe gives us something profound and beautiful on each and every page. The Sorrows of Young Werther is comprised, for the most part, of letters written by a hopelessly romantic young man named Werther to a friend named Wilhelm. These letters not only detail Werther's doomed love for the beautiful Charlotte, they also contain the most beautiful meditations on just about everything important in life: love, beauty, nature, philosophy, art, religion. In Werther, Goethe clearly shows us the problems inherent in loving and idealizing something a bit too much. I think many readers will have a problem with the character of Werther. He is simply too romantic to be real. And then there will be those who will wonder how a man who is capable of uttering the most gorgeous and flowing words about beauty, art and nature can fall so hopelessly in love with one woman that he seems to forget all else that he holds dear. Well, Werther, in the best romantic tradition, has invested all the emotion he feels for art, beauty, religion, etc. in Charlotte. Once readers realize this, I think the ending of this novella will make sense to them. Yes, Werther is an extreme but once you come to understand him, he does make perfect sense. As I said, this isn't Goethe at this best or his most sublime or even, believe it not, his most romantic, but this is certainly the best place to begin if you are just beginning your study of this monumental author or of German romanticism in general.
Rating:
Summary: What a wonderful little book!
Review: I have just finished reading Goethe's Sorrows of Young Werther and I don't think I've read anything so powerfully moving in years. It is at once both tragic and beautiful. The story consists of letters that Werther has written to a friend describing his passion for "Lotte", his charming, but very married, love interest. We watch as the overly-romantic Werther gradually becomes unhinged and finally kills himself when he realizes he can't have his beloved. Besides this lovely, sad story you also get Goethe's beautiful translation of Ossian's poems near the end. Reading this novella brought back memories of how I once had such passionte yearnings for the loves of my own life --- before I thankfully (and regretfully) got more worldly-wise. This one will be high on my favorites list and will be re-read often.
Rating: 
Summary: A very demanding read...
Review: I know this novel is regarded worldwide as a classic but frankly I don't see what the fuss is about. Forbidden love? Like that hasn't been done before. It is also a very demanding read requiring the reader to delve deep in between the lines to realize what's going on. Not my cup of tea at all.
Rating: 
Summary: An unfair reading ?
Review: Is the writer responsible for the harmful results of his work , when he did not intend those results at all? Is there some moral fault in Goethe for writing a work which led to the suicides of many young people?
I do not know the answer.
'The Sorrows of Werther' a story of obsessive and doomed love is told in the form of letters sent from Werther to his friend William. The infatuation with which he begins in time turns to a maddening obsession from which he cannot free himself. 'Love or Death' is the choice, and the choice becomes Death.
I confess that my own attitude upon reading this work even as a young person was somewhat distant and ironic. Perhaps unfairly Goethe represented to me and represents the height of that enlightened cultured Germany , the Germany of Bach,Mozart, Beethoven, Kant which in the twentieth century descended into absolute barbarism and was responsible for one of great crimes in human history, the Holocaust. Reading this story with that immense Horror in the background the story seems like a kind of toy, a kind of poor joke not to be taken very seriously. Who can possibly care about one lovesick little yokel when the pictures of concentration camps are in the mind?
Iknow the work swept Europe and was highly innovative in its day. I know it is considered a classic of German and Western Literature. But for me this story has no emotional resonance whatever. Perhaps this is unfair, but perhaps it too indicates that reviews are written by people who have their own histories and memories. And that these help create their own readings, whether for bad or for good
Rating: 
Summary: The Insanity of Werther
Review: My friend Jordie and I have read The Sorrows of Young Werther as well as several reviews of the novel and we have come to a single conclusion: He's mentally unstable. We find that it is NOT A TRAGIC LOVE STORY, but rather a story of a depressed, diluted individual completely disconnected from reality. Werther is too full his own virtue and cannot grasp the reality of his relationship to Charlotte. Werther's reaction to the events of his life are too emotional and over-dramatized. As we would say in German, ER IST VERRUECKT!!
Rating:
Summary: It's All About Werther
Review: The key to really enjoying this work is to focus on the character. Of course, most of the work is writing in the form of letters, which makes the task exceedingly easy. Though this book can be very depressing (to some) and involves a lot of crying and reflection, Werther is so well-developed that I must praise Goethe for such a wonderful accomplishment. Personally, I could spend hours debating about Werther. This work definitely goes beyond what it indicates (forbidden love) to reveal a lot about our intricate natures as well as being a classic work of Romanticism.
Rating:
Summary: If you are worried about something...you should read it.
Review: The young man Werther fell in love with Lotte, the woman who has fiance. He worried about that helpless love, and at last he decided to kill himself...
The ending was sad, that is to say, it was shock. I cried from this shock. After I finished to read it, tears didn't stop running.
Whatever I read it many times, I always cry at the ending.
Some people say this book is about recommandation of suicide, but it's not recommandation of suicide for me, and I have an opposite thought.
After I read this book, I wanted to say this message to Werther:
"You could find new love again, and you could get happiness, but why did you decide to kill yourself? Didn't you find other ways except to die?"
When you get over the sorrow or pain, you can get happiness. If you killed yourself, you can't get happiness. And you will make your family and friend sad.
In this book, Lotte's fiance Arbert denied suicide. I deny suicide too.
I'm a 16-year-old high school student now. I think I may feel sorrow or pain from now on. But when I feel sorrow or pain, I can't kill myself. It's because I can get happiness when I get over them.
This book made me realize so. And it gave me confidence.
If you are worried about something, I want you to read this book. I think this book will give you confidence.
Rating:
Summary: The Sorrows of self-indulgence
Review: 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.
|
