Kyle's review
The Sorrows of Young Werther and Selected Writings by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
1774. Most people know what this book is about before they read it I think, but if you don't here come spoilers: it's about Werther, who falls in love with a woman engaged to another and eventually offs himself. Might sound kinda pathetic, but the character and the writing make this little book a gem. If I had to compare it to anything I'd compare it to Marilynne Robinson's Gilead and Roland Barthes' A Lover's Discourse. It is epistolary for the most part and a philosophical consideration of love and unrequited love, as well as nature, art and God. When Werther killed himself I felt like it was the right thing for him to do under the circumstances, or at least that I could understand why he did it. So enchanting.
"The Sorrows of Young Werther" is one of the most depressed and depressing books I have ever read. I know Goethe is a genius, but this is a book that brilliantly and effectively rips one's heart out.I feel compelled to say that suicide is never enchanting. I have survived the suicide of two people very close to my heart. The first one took me twenty years to get through. the second was easier, It has been fifteen years and I am almost at peace with it.
