Werther's Original Wednesday
Feb. 20th, 2019 09:34 amWhat I've Finished Reading
I needed a break from Phil Maddison's semi-coherent crankiness, so I read THE BEST POSSIBLE BOOK for that purpose and also, as befits its role as a Chronicle of Ancient Sunlight antidote, one of the shortest non-picture books I have ever read. It's called The Sorrows of Young Werther and it's the sad tale of an adorable doofus who never reckoned on having to live in an imperfect world when his skin and his summer days have always been perfect heretofore. I mean, he knows there's such a thing as the inherent tragedy of all life, because it gets name-checked in all his favorite songs, but no one told him it would hurt this much!!
The plot is very simple. Thackeray put it best:
( Werther had a love for Charlotte. . . )
If it's wrong to receive a story about a promising young dude who idiotically talks himself into shooting himself with his beloved Charlotte's own pistols, ostensibly to "make her life easier," as a hilariously delightful breath of golden springtime, well. . . at least I'm not the first? Werther's crazy emo charm is real, and so is Charlotte's very human equanimity. She's not heartless, and she likes Werther - but life has its way of going on. This story was based partly on a real suicide, partly on Goethe's own hopeless crush on a married friend, and uses the best parts of pity and wry self-awareness.
<3
What I'm Reading Now
I didn't give up on the Chronicle, of course! A Solitary War and Lucifer Before Sunrise are both perfectly tolerable 90% of the time, though Henry Williamson seems to have more or less given up on the ensemble cast - as Phil gets crankier and more frustrated, the people in his life fade into catchphrases and cardboard antagonists and one or two pairs of beseeching feminine eyes. The scope of narrative sympathy narrows along with Phil's own. Phil is exhausted trying to live his ideal of honest farm work, whose perfectly predictable failure he is far too inclined to blame on everyone else's decadence. His neighbors spread rumors about him being a German spy, some of which are unfair and some of which he might try to counter by not trying to get other people to listen to his favorite Hitler speeches quite so often. He frets about someday getting the time to sit down and write his generation's War and Peace, and maybe out here beyond the book we're supposed to realize that he has! but it's not enough just being as big a crank as Tolstoy; War and Peace gets its power from its soapiness, and HW is committed to making his narrative as repetitive and nearly joyless as Phil's true experiences of running a farm and failing to write a novel because he's too tired from running the farm. I added that "nearly" because every now and then there is some joy, usually in the form of some grass or a bat or the feeling of being awake at night in an inexpressibly complex living world. HW's nature writing was always his strong point, even back before he developed all these weak points.
There is also Emma Dunning Banks's Original Recitations With Lesson-Talks, an 1896 handbook for the elocution student or dedicated amateur. It's exactly what it says: 54 monologues chosen for their popularity as recitations (as opposed to their literary merit, the introduction is quick to point out - too many budding elecutionists pick their favorite poems only to have them sink like stones because they're too delicate or specific for general audiences) with stanza-by-stanza instructions on how to get the best performance out of each. It's a fascinating look at a lost world.
What I Plan to Read Next
That's the real question!![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
osprey_archer posted about C.S. Lewis' book An Experiment in Criticism a few days ago, so when I was in the library looking for something else, I saw it and took it home. Maybe that! Almost certainly more Phil, until the Phil runs out. Maybe cats who solve mysteries?
Yes, dear Lotte, I shall arrange and order everything; give me as many things to do as you like, and as often as possible. One thing, though: if I might ask you not to use sand to dry the notes you write me. . . ? Today I raised it hastily to my lips, and was left a gritty crunching in my teeth.
I needed a break from Phil Maddison's semi-coherent crankiness, so I read THE BEST POSSIBLE BOOK for that purpose and also, as befits its role as a Chronicle of Ancient Sunlight antidote, one of the shortest non-picture books I have ever read. It's called The Sorrows of Young Werther and it's the sad tale of an adorable doofus who never reckoned on having to live in an imperfect world when his skin and his summer days have always been perfect heretofore. I mean, he knows there's such a thing as the inherent tragedy of all life, because it gets name-checked in all his favorite songs, but no one told him it would hurt this much!!
The plot is very simple. Thackeray put it best:
( Werther had a love for Charlotte. . . )
If it's wrong to receive a story about a promising young dude who idiotically talks himself into shooting himself with his beloved Charlotte's own pistols, ostensibly to "make her life easier," as a hilariously delightful breath of golden springtime, well. . . at least I'm not the first? Werther's crazy emo charm is real, and so is Charlotte's very human equanimity. She's not heartless, and she likes Werther - but life has its way of going on. This story was based partly on a real suicide, partly on Goethe's own hopeless crush on a married friend, and uses the best parts of pity and wry self-awareness.
"We shall see each other again!" I cried. "We shall find each other, we shall pick each other out from among the many. I am going," I continued, "going of my own free will, yet if I thought we were parting for ever I could not bear it. Farewell, Lotte! Farewell, Albert! We shall meet again."
—"Tomorrow, I expect," she countered in jest.
<3
What I'm Reading Now
I didn't give up on the Chronicle, of course! A Solitary War and Lucifer Before Sunrise are both perfectly tolerable 90% of the time, though Henry Williamson seems to have more or less given up on the ensemble cast - as Phil gets crankier and more frustrated, the people in his life fade into catchphrases and cardboard antagonists and one or two pairs of beseeching feminine eyes. The scope of narrative sympathy narrows along with Phil's own. Phil is exhausted trying to live his ideal of honest farm work, whose perfectly predictable failure he is far too inclined to blame on everyone else's decadence. His neighbors spread rumors about him being a German spy, some of which are unfair and some of which he might try to counter by not trying to get other people to listen to his favorite Hitler speeches quite so often. He frets about someday getting the time to sit down and write his generation's War and Peace, and maybe out here beyond the book we're supposed to realize that he has! but it's not enough just being as big a crank as Tolstoy; War and Peace gets its power from its soapiness, and HW is committed to making his narrative as repetitive and nearly joyless as Phil's true experiences of running a farm and failing to write a novel because he's too tired from running the farm. I added that "nearly" because every now and then there is some joy, usually in the form of some grass or a bat or the feeling of being awake at night in an inexpressibly complex living world. HW's nature writing was always his strong point, even back before he developed all these weak points.
There is also Emma Dunning Banks's Original Recitations With Lesson-Talks, an 1896 handbook for the elocution student or dedicated amateur. It's exactly what it says: 54 monologues chosen for their popularity as recitations (as opposed to their literary merit, the introduction is quick to point out - too many budding elecutionists pick their favorite poems only to have them sink like stones because they're too delicate or specific for general audiences) with stanza-by-stanza instructions on how to get the best performance out of each. It's a fascinating look at a lost world.
What I Plan to Read Next
That's the real question!
osprey_archer posted about C.S. Lewis' book An Experiment in Criticism a few days ago, so when I was in the library looking for something else, I saw it and took it home. Maybe that! Almost certainly more Phil, until the Phil runs out. Maybe cats who solve mysteries?
