Read-along – Werther (2 of 2)
Book Two – and The New Sorrows of Young W.
We’ve finished The Sorrows of Young Werther! And this Sunday, 29 September, will mark exactly 250 years since it was first published.
What did you think? I’d love to hear your thoughts and reactions.
Here are my takeaways:
Now that we’re finished, if you’re not quite ready to leave Werther behind, there are several other artworks you can enjoy, inspired by the novel.
Following Werther’s initial success, there was a booming industry in prints that illustrated the narrative. Interestingly, one of the most popular scenes was one that doesn’t occur in the novel: Lotte at Werther’s tomb. Here is a 1791 example in the British Museum:
More than a hundred years after the novel was written, it inspired Jules Massenet’s masterpiece, the 1892 opera Werther, in which perhaps the most famous aria is Werther’s ‘Pourquoi me réveiller, Ô souffle du printemps?’ (‘Why do you awaken me, O breath of spring?’), which you can listen to here, sung by Luciano Pavarotti.
As I mention in my video above, the novel Lotte in Weimar (1939) by Thomas Mann fictionalizes a visit that the real Charlotte Kestner-Buff made to Weimar to meet the ageing Goethe. Mann’s subtitle is The Beloved Returns and in the last few pages he (finally) includes a touching conversation between the one-time lovers.
In 1972, another German novelist, Ulrich Plenzdorf, published The New Sorrows of Young W. This novel opens with the death of Edgar Wibeau, at the age of seventeen, in East Germany, electrocuted by a paint duster of his own invention. Edgar’s father, who has been absent for twelve years, conducts a sequence of interviews with Edgar’s friends, trying to make sense of his son’s death. Written in East German youth slang, the novel draws heavily on Goethe’s novel.
We have already mentioned the 2010 film Young Goethe in Love (originally titled Goethe!), directed by Philipp Stölzl. It is not currently available to stream, but the DVD seems to be available secondhand from some online retailers.
And finally, this very month, a new Canadian film adaptation, Young Werther, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on 9 September 2024. Set in modern-day Toronto, this feature debut by director José Lourenço, starring Douglas Booth and Alison Pill, is said to preserve ‘the pertinence of Goethe’s dark and philosophical work in a bright and fun romantic comedy for a modern audience.’ I look forward to it hitting cinemas!
I hope you enjoyed reading The Sorrows of Young Werther. If you would like to join our next read-along, we’re going to start reading The Haunting of Hill House next Friday.
I didn’t get on with the first part of the book. The second part was better for me – but I still wouldn’t say that I enjoyed it, but I did find it rewarding. I think I probably couldn’t avoid seeing it with my 21st Century view.
The section where Charlotte tells Werther that it because she is unattainable that he is so obsessed with her was a turning point fort me. (Werther, of course, thinks Albert must have come up with such a wise thought – he’s a man of his time.) At that point, I started to think of Werther being in love with love rather than Charlotte (apologies to Lorenz Hart), making him look even less attractive.
I’ll admit that I lost patience with Werther. I found myself wanting to yell ‘Grow up, man!” (If anybody knows ‘Oklahoma!’, I think my views are more ‘Many A New Day’ – so I do find Werther quite trying.) His inability to understand other people’s point of view seems to be a real flaw. Charlotte, Albert, Wilhelm and others all try to point Werther in the right direction but he insists of wallowing in his misery.
I simply refuse to find Werther romantic. He’s not only a danger, but also – potentially – a threat to others. The section with the young man who becomes a murderer shows the route that Werther could take – and if you didn’t already know what was about to happen, you might really worry for Charlotte.
The final section dealing with the messiness of death is heartbreaking. Whereas, we assume, Werther expected a quick death, he lingers in pain. The book has all led to that action, and I must admit it makes me wonder about the alleged ‘social contagion’ of suicide. In fact, I find it hard to imagine anybody finding Werther attractive – but I seem to be in a very small minority.
Can anybody change my mind?
Thank you, Henry - Book 2 was quite a different ride from Book 1! Very propulsive and striking. I loved the moment where the Editor intervened and we were able to step outside the claustrophobia of Goethe's viewpoint and start to access the experiences of those around him.
The book's final chapters felt to me like a powerful portrait of isolation and mental ill health. I imagined that Werther's collapse and death might be treated as glamorous or heroic; in fact, Goethe portrays it as frightening, lonely and tragic.
I'm very glad to have read it. Hilarious that it's been reimagined as a 'bright and fun romantic comedy'!