The Sorrows of Young Werther (Modern Library Classics) by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Sorrows of Young Werther (Modern Library Classics)
Book Review: Haunting and relatable
Summary: 5 Stars
The Sorrows of Young Werther is an everchanging book. At first, Werther despises people who are the depressed kind. Later, he becomes one of them himself. And it is all because of one woman. He is very good friends with her, and is always longing for more. The problem is, she is not interested in him that way, and she is married. The transition of Werther's outgoing cheerful personality is almost immediate. He becomes more and more withdrawn. Almost anyone knows the ending, if they have read the back of this book. One of my favorite things about this tragic story is how it is told in the ninetinth century speak, which I had to adjust to, being only fifteen. It is worth the trouble though, and is frighteningly relatable. Who on earth hasn't liked someone who just wanted to be friends? This book fully deserves five stars.Book Review: Ever
Summary: 5 Stars
The greatest love story ever, replete with a self-inflicted bullet wound to the head. Goethe wasn't ahead of his time, he was ahead of his species. And 225 years later, he still is.Book Review: The greatest love story ever written
Summary: 5 Stars
As I said on the title, compared to Werther, Romeo and Juliet is a simple boring theatre piece. The second greatest book I've ever read. If you don't like this book, you are short-minded or too bored of life. Every letter gives you an emotion, IT IS REALLY WORTH IT.Book Review: A Tragic Love Story
Summary: 5 Stars
This book is possibly the most moving account of a young mans love. The words are so beautifully written and with such poignancy the reader is left with a heavy heart aching for the tragic young Werther. I personally found reading this book to Beethovens Moonlight Sonata created a mood suited to the occasion. Not for the recently broken hearted
Book Review: A Little Novel that Caused a Huge Sensation
Summary: 5 Stars
We tend to think of our era as unique when we descry the impact that the media has on our young people's behavior. Well the same thing happened 200 years ago when this book was first published. Impressionable young readers who identified so completely with Werther went out and committed suicide by the droves. Werther is the prototypical Romantic male, who "feels" more deeply than the rest of humanity. Unlike Heathcliffe, who settles on revenge as an answer to his thwarted designs, Werther takes it out on himself. Of course, there's a great deal of self-destruction at work in Heathcliffe's persona too.
I would recommend this to a reader who is just getting to know Goethe. I read it when I was about eighteen and it definitely struck a nerve with me at that time. It made me want to read everything by Goethe I could find in translation.
Read it, and if you like it, as I am sure you will, go on to Goethe's two great Romantic novels, Elective Affinities and Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship. I found in my earlier readings that I never went wrong with Penguin Classics translations. They're normally all top-notch, whether Greek, Latin, French, German, Russian, etc. PS: If you're a young reader, please don't take Werther too much to heart. It's only a novel, ok?