hey
we’re starting soon
are you coming in?
do you remember we said we’d meet at nine?
The human race is a monotonous affair
are you on your way?
Most people spend the greatest part of their time working in order to live
so you’re not coming in
and what little freedom remains so fills them with fear that they seek out any and every means to be rid of it
okay well
that’s fine
but I would have appreciated a heads up
that’s fear talking
do you know what i love about peasants
what
how simple they are
what do you mean
they’re so simple
like instead of how normal people have a LOT of things
they only have a FEW things
do you mean poor
no
guhh
it’s not the same
it’s GOOD
so it’s not poor
it’s SIMPLE
my dear friend
today i experienced the sheer glory of hearing Charlotte tell her brother she did not particularly care for The Vicar of Wakefield
okay but so like
what else is going on
i dont understand the question
what’s going on in your life besides Charlotte
what is the destiny of man, but to fill up the measure of his sufferings
and to drink his allotted cup of bitterness
okay sure
but
could we talk about something else that is not Charlotte
but then that would not be Charlotte
no i know
that’s the point
but what would poor Charlotte do
Hmmm. I’m disappointed that it wasn’t more about caramels.
TFW you invent a new novel form, but it’s the kind of novel that gives the others a bad name.
Young Werther is one of those characters who makes me mutter a shamefaced “it me”
Uggh. The Manchild With All The Feelings who told me for months that he would break up with his girlfriend to be with me, only to beg her to take him back as soon as he realized she was fine without him, very fittingly gave me this book. So much man-pain.
He probably unironically identified with him. You definitely dodged a bullet with that one.
Someone in my AP English class read this and did her presentation to the class about it, and she was just so horrified, saddened, confused about it. I suspect she didn’t really know about suicide before reading this? It really seemed like a new concept to her.
I had to read this for school and I’ve never hated a book and its titular character more. So much manpain.
young werther took the title of most insufferable navel gazy german youth over from tonio kröger and i really didn’t think that was possible…
Young Werther is the OG of insufferable navel gazy German youth, though, beating Kroger by a century-plus.
They can be worse when they’re *not* navel gazy: I present to you Hans Castorp.
“okay sure
but
could we talk about something else that is not Charlotte
but then that would not be Charlotte
no i know
that’s the point
but what would poor Charlotte do”
This is eerily like talking to my mother. (Her dog’s name is Charlotte.)
I cannot wait to hear what her opinion on The Vicar of Wakefield is. Probably that there aren’t enough squirrels in it.
Charlotte has such long legs!
…wait, I’m just falling into the trap of talking about Charlotte, aren’t I.
That is her plan. Look at those searching eyes and those daintily crossed paws. You’d just love to talk about me, wouldn’t you? Don’t worry. I won’t mind.
My pretty husky crosses her paws like that, too.
dainty dog paws are the best dog paws
Our Aus Shepherd/Border Collie does as well, with THE most demure ladylike expression on her face. “My goodness! Have you ever met such a well behaved dog as I?”
This was my reaction too! That dog has impossibly long legs, and she is so cute!
But, unlike this dude, your mother is right!
I have a friend whose dog Charlie looks just like this, except black. They should date or something? Play ball? Be adorable? Anyway, your mum is the kind of person I’d follow on Twitter solely for dog pics.
This Charlotte needs to have sonnets and villanelles written to every aspect of her beauty. She is beyond gorgeous.
Not enough extended poetry recitations – nothing gets girls going like extended extracts of pseudo-Gaelic poems – they love all that man brooding
In college, I had to read this in the German. I think it makes Werther even more insufferable.
It’s those damn compound words and endless clauses.
Trust me, for German native speakers who had to read that thing for school, it’s just as insufferable. I was so, so glad when it was finally over. And then people turned it into a running gag to dramatically sigh “Klopstock!” at every opportune moment to remind us of the suffering we had to go through, reading that book.
Bahaha! That scene…crinnnnnge.
Obligatory Kate Beaton comic:
And yes, reading this in German somehow made things even more overwrought. When German literature has emotions, it has ALL THE EMOTIONS.
Also I used this comic for the last slide in my presentation on Goethe in college, and got an A.
We saw the opera of it with subtitles, and the line, “I’m going for a walk – can I borrow your guns?” made the audience laugh, which I don’t think was supposed to happen.
I saw the opera of it, with Jonas Kaufmann as Werther, and he made me cry at the end. But that’s because he’s Jonas Kaufmann. I still find Werther the character massively annoying.
ALL THE EMOTIONS in the SAME SENTENCE that goes on for A PAGE AND A HALF.
Heck. ALL THE EMOTIONS IN THE SAME WORD.
http://betterbooktitles.com/post/3165590662/werth…
This comic and a brief mention in one of my classes is all I know about this novel.
*thunder rumbles*
KLOPSTOCK!
My favorite thing I ever wrote for an actual grade in college was an assignment where we had to write to Werther as either ourselves or another character outside the book. I wrote as Jeeves on behalf of Bertie Wooster and it was THE. BEST.
I really, really want to read this now.
Same. Jeeves could give Werther some solid advice.
I think Bertie could also be of use, as he’s so cheerful and funny, and he has tons of experience dealing with Bingo Little, Gussie Fink-Nottle, et al. mooning over girls.
I had to do this in college too–mainly to amuse my English professor–and I can’t for the life of me remember which characters I used. It’s going to drive me crazy now! Too bad all my undergrad papers are on a 3X5 floppy disk somewhere.
I read this in grad school, and I have blocked out everything about the book except my exasperated reaction. Could he not have gone for a walk MUCH SOONER?
Counterpoint: this cover exists, and may have kickstarted me into puberty :http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41rpL%2B9DY4L._SX327_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg
*fans self*
so sorrowful, that Werther
I saw a modernized one-actor performance of Werther, where the play took place entirely on top of school desks pushed together and with indie-rock songs playing as interludes, and it was really good.
They (somehow) made it more cheerful and the opening line was: “Ich habe eine Bekanntschaft gemacht” 🙂
so sorrowful, that Werther
I always assumed Sorrows was an allegory for the self-destructive nature of the outward-looking cultural orientation of the German peoples of the time, of a piece with Herder’s Treatise on the Origin of language, its rough contemporary. But then, “Texts from a Metaphor Foundational to the Idea of Nationalism” wouldn’t be very funny.
Metaphor Foundational to the Idea of Nationalism would like you to talk to it about Charlotte though.