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The Sorrows of Young Werther
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
I can't remember the last time I read a work of 18th-century fiction but this was the perfect tonic for my current reading mood.
All you need to know is that the well-to-so young Werther falls in love with a perfect young woman, only to find she's betrothed. Heartache ensues.
This book epitomizes the idealism of a former age, where the words Nature, God and Man all come capitalised. Full of swelling breasts and fainting maidens and contented peasants. A less cynical age, more awake to the granduer of the world around us, more unashamedly romantic, less obsessed with existential neuroses.
The bulk of the book consists of letters written by Werther to his confidant, charting his burgeoning love and mental unravelling. As I've said before, the letter is a criminally under-appreciated device in fiction.
This original Werther would not win any of today's prizes for fiction, but it's a piece of our literary heritage we'd be the poorer for forgetting.
All you need to know is that the well-to-so young Werther falls in love with a perfect young woman, only to find she's betrothed. Heartache ensues.
This book epitomizes the idealism of a former age, where the words Nature, God and Man all come capitalised. Full of swelling breasts and fainting maidens and contented peasants. A less cynical age, more awake to the granduer of the world around us, more unashamedly romantic, less obsessed with existential neuroses.
The bulk of the book consists of letters written by Werther to his confidant, charting his burgeoning love and mental unravelling. As I've said before, the letter is a criminally under-appreciated device in fiction.
This original Werther would not win any of today's prizes for fiction, but it's a piece of our literary heritage we'd be the poorer for forgetting.