no priest attended him

"The Sorrows of Young Werther", Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, 1774

Werther is a new kind of tragic hero to me: One with a distinct weakness, though said weakness does not cause his downfall at the hands of the State or the Enemy, but at his own hands. "The Sorrows of Young Werther" seems to be highly notable for its controversial views on suicide (especially in the 1700s), and also for its cult following as an overwhelming number of people latched onto this tragic hero like few before him.

On all accounts, this story is a confessional where Werther's plight is discovered via letters to a close friend. As we read, he reveals himself as tender, intelligent, but moreso than intelligent, _passionate_ and sensitive toward nature. This is what draws in the dreamer, as they identify with good Werther. To go further, it is not uncommon for such a dreamer to identify with suicide; I find through all these literary studies as well as life studies that fantasies of death or sabotage of self can overwhelm one who has difficulty reconciling their true identity with the walking dead of most of the self-unrealized humans who surround them. In short, loneliness can eat the dreamer.

Werther's downfall is romantic passion. It is a bit pathetic to me that he'd kill himself over a girl, but his passion for this woman, Lotte, is part of his idealistic allure. Furthermore, that the torture of the one "thing" you want more than anything you've had or could have which is completely unattainable would drive someone to suicide really isn't that far fetched, is something we can empathize with, regardless if it might be pathetic. In a way, what makes us pathetic also puts us beyond that of the mere animal. Werther's passion over Lotte is based on Goethe's own unattainable apple of the eye; however, the downfall of Werther is based on a total other human being, and while these writings are every bit as sensitive and insightful on the human condition of the dreamer or intellectual non-conformist, it's clear that Goethe couldn't all together come to terms with suicide enough to do it himself. While far from promoting such actions, however, he was bold enough to put forth the act of suicide as a human reality and honestly explore how one could commit such an act. He's perhaps much like Kierkgaard in "Fear and Trembling", who cannot all together understand how Moses is able to have such faith in the absurd (by agreeing to sacrifice his son, Isaac, believing he will do this and see his son again in the material world), but can discuss it creatively and fluently. It opens discussion, in the case of "The Sorrows of Younger Werther", into a topic previously considered to be taboo.

Besides its philosophical discussion on suicide, Goethe offers many other insights on humanity through the filter of the sensitive artist. Let's see (looks through the pages), It is as if a curtain had been drawn from before my soul, and this scence of infinite life had been transformed before my eyes in the abyss of the grave, forever open wide. Can you say that anything _is_, when in fact it is all transient? and all passes by as fast as any storm, seldom enduring in the full force of existence, but ah! torn away by the torrent, submereged beneath the waves and dashed against the rocks? It is moments such as this existential bit (which goes on but I do not want to quote the whole paragraph), which make the book even more enriching in philosophy, and paint the whole picture of Werther's beautiful mind. Goethe goes deep into the crevices of this character's consciousness and has him confessing not just his love for Lotte, but his entire being.

I actually think writing about this book gave me a deeper appreciation for it than when I initially finished it. To truly enjoy, you must meditate on its controversy at the time of publish, the poetry of its language, the way it pins-down the dreamer and shows the suicide in all of us who know what we're a part of. I'm not sure if it'll spark more reading into Goethe, but it may. For now, I have this, and I'm sure extra readings will even further bring out the details of good Werther's thinking and feeling.

the garden of laughter

"Candide", Francois Voltaire, 1759

After reading Michael Wood's excellent and exhaustive introduction on Voltaire's satirical masterpiece, "Candide", I've got no cause to write some retread interpretation. Instead, I offer my exhilaration upon my first of many readings of this novel, and what it means to my own work.

First of all, I sit in stream-of-postmodern-conscious and reel out all my anxieties, and I call it writing (which it is). Yet, I see Candide and his friends, who have been beaten, torn to shreds, tending their garden, and I forget to tend mine. I see Voltaire tending his for 94 pages and shredding the art of philosophy he made his legend off of, and I forget to *laugh* as he laughs at humanity.

To see Candide go through the the horrors, lie on a bed of philosophy and hope, travel the lands only to find perfection and deny it by some strange nature expelling himself from a land not natural to himself, all in the name of refuting Optimism, may be of the darkest joys I have ever partaken of. Even as he comes about his lovely Cunegonde, she is exposed as hideous and he marries her out of duty -- and I like the thought that this is reality realized through the previous ideal of marrying Cunegonde, or the idea of her.

No character leads a pointless existence, no episode drags, the pace of writing is extreme and refreshing to my eyes. There is an inkling of sentimentality toward the end, an existential nuance amidst the absurdity, even if it's the absurdity of destiny (a stylized contradiction in my reflection only). I love that Voltaire can even tease himself through Pococurante, and his pickiness toward literature, which the melancholy philosopher Martin chides when Candide suggests he's happy for his ability to criticize ("Which is to say...that there is pleasure to be had in not taking pleasure"). I can't say enough of the two day experience in reading "Candide", and how it reminds us that 1) Everything is indeed not OK and it's OK to confront this, and 2) Laugh at it, it's absurd.

Perhaps then I write my satire. Or just read more of them. Or, at the simplest and most useful, I walk around town and remember to laugh, that it's chaos and no one knows what to do and, indeed, we are asses. And I just laugh.

PS: The packaging with the various comics including the front cover of the opening of the novel and how Candide is thrown into his horrors, as well as the maze to discover the origin of Pangloss's social disease, are awesome, as well are the apt appendices (including excerpts from Voltaire's philosophical encyclopedia, a poem on the earthquake at Lisbon and its use toward refuting Optimism, and an alternate opening to the Paris chapter).

PPS: I also learned what an auto-da-fe is: When heretics were publicly charged and invited to make an "act of faith"; though in the circumstance in "Candide", Pangloss was hanged and Candide flogged in this horrid world.

"'What is Optimism?' asked Cacambo - 'Alas!' said Candide, 'it is the mania for insisting that all is well when all is by no means well.'"