Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by eat_a_lemon
The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.25
It's an alright story that eventually begins to suffer with some severe tonal shifts towards the climax. While initially an interesting if not somewhat boring reflection of an artist's life moving to a town and falling in love with an unavailable woman, his descent into obsession with her happens both far too slowly and too quickly at the same time. The first-person collection of letters did more to disservice the story than uplift it, because I often felt like Werther was telling me how to feel about his anecdotes, and I was being spoon fed his ideas - I think the translation I read (Michael Hulse) did not do any favours to aid my enjoyment.
The outbursts of passion Werther has at his confession veers the line between tragically heartbreaking and comically exaggerated. There truly are some beautiful ideas and prose set up in this story and expressed brilliantly about man, the absence of difference between adult and child, and religious guilt in the face of human passions, that never really feel like they get their payoff. There are better stories about passion, misery, and religious guilt (I spent the last few chapters wishing it would spark in me what I felt in the last few pages of "The Well of Loneliness, only to be rather disappointed), but it has merits as introducing this type of story to a wider audience at the time of publishing.
The outbursts of passion Werther has at his confession veers the line between tragically heartbreaking and comically exaggerated. There truly are some beautiful ideas and prose set up in this story and expressed brilliantly about man, the absence of difference between adult and child, and religious guilt in the face of human passions, that never really feel like they get their payoff. There are better stories about passion, misery, and religious guilt (I spent the last few chapters wishing it would spark in me what I felt in the last few pages of "The Well of Loneliness, only to be rather disappointed), but it has merits as introducing this type of story to a wider audience at the time of publishing.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicide