It does feel very modern, which I guess is about right for a late eighteen-century literary phenom.. I have heard about its enormous influence and copycat suicides, thanks to the translator's introduction! Goethe is brilliant and I feel for him being typecast as the Young Werther Guy for the rest of his very long life, but on the other hand people can't help what they read when they were 17 and let's face it, Werther is a lifelong-impression-class work of fiction. It makes perfect sense that he'd have a huge fanbase of people who had only read this one book (I'll probably read something else by him soonish, not just to avoid anguishing his ghost with more Werthercentrism, but also because he seems like an interesting guy).