The Sorrows of Young Werther (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

In this literary classic, Werther falls for a woman already engaged to another. He carries on about it for a good while, she gets married, he eventually goes crazy and (spoiler alert) commits suicide.

The Sorrows of Young Werther is the story of obsession. Werther (rightly) recognizes the folly in worldly pursuits of others:

What manner of people are they whose soul resides wholly in ceremony, whose only thought and striving year after year is how to push in one place higher up othe table? And it's not that they have nothing else to do. On the contrary, their tasks accumuluate- precisely becaue by their petty irritations they are kept from advancing the things that matter . . .

Fools, that they can't see it is not really a question of what place you occupy and that the man at the top rarely has the major role. Many a king is ruled by his minister and many a minister by his secretary. Who then is the top man? 

And yet he fails to see the same in himself. His love for Lotte quickly grows from a fond friendship to a dangerous obsession. His pinings are a good description for love- if they were correctly oriented towards God. Consider the following applied towards the Lord instead of a woman:

'I shall see her,' I say aloud in the morning when I wake and with all cheerfulness look towards the lovely sun, 'I shall see her!' And for the whole day then I have no further wish. Everything, everything is consumed in this one prospect.

I have so much and my feeling for her devours everything. I have so much and without her everything is nothing.

This is how we should feel about Jesus. When we apply this ultimate love and desire towards others, though, disaster ensues. (Our love for others comes second to love for God.) Werther's story is a tragedy. He's not alone- "All human beings are disappointed in their hopes and deceived in their expectations." So shall we always be when we pursue what does not satisfy (see verses on satisfaction in God). Our hearts our idol factories, always seeking to place people or things in God's place and obsess over them like Werther does. When we do so, we come to ruin.

I enjoyed a few nuggets of wisdom or beautiful writing here. "And I like those authors best in whom I rediscover my own world," so this was a helpful reminder (whether or not Goethe intended it) of the futility of false gods. But overall, this wasn't my favorite. What is perhaps sadder is that this was apparently modeled on Goethe's own experiences.

Rating: C