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    Werther
    Werther
    Werther
    Audiobook (abridged)3 hours

    Werther

    Written by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

    Narrated by Laura García

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Dicen que el amor imposible de Werther, que narra la obra, creo una impresionante ola de suicidios entre jovenes impresionables de la epoca. La verdad es que esta conmovedora obra, desde su publicacion se coloco en un pedestal del que no ha descendido.
    LanguageEspañol
    PublisherYOYO USA
    Release dateJan 1, 2001
    ISBN9781611553253
    Werther

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    Reviews for Werther

    3.5/5

    1,650 ratings46 reviews

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    • 2/5
      Interessant als historisch document dat de opgeklopte overgevoeligheid van de Romantiekers illustreert, maar absoluut ongeloofwaardig en literair maar matig genietbaar.
    • 3/5
      I couldn't quite bring myself to enjoy this short tragedy by Goethe. It wasn't even 200 pages, but it took me longer than I had been expecting to get through it.It is the story of a young man in 1700's Germany named Werther. He falls in love with a young woman named Lotte, but she is already engaged to another man. Even after she is married, Werther continues to love her, and they form a friendship, which is both heavenly and torturous to the despairing Werther. The main thing that I disliked here was that I just wanted Werther to grow up and get over it. Reading the paragraph above, I must admit it is relatively sad, but really now. It doesn't even sound like the plot of a tragedy, just perhaps an unfortunate sub-plot. Werther sees negativity in everything, and is constantly wishing he was dead and dwelling on suicide and weeping over his letters / journal. I have to admit that sometimes, the idea of a tragic, heartbroken man braving the sorrows of life can be appealing in some strange way. But rather than suffer in silence and gather his strength, Werther suffers loudly and wants everyone to know it. Rather than gathering strength from his ordeals, he lets them weaken him into a weepy fool. I couldn't like him or feel any sympathy for him.This book would have been utterly atrocious if not for Goethe's skillful brilliance. He is, of course, one of the greatest writers of all time, and even in a book I can't particularly say I liked, he still manages to write beautifully and evocatively. His prose is majestically awe inspiring at times, though it does tend to ramble on a bit and sometimes wander and become pointless. I noticed while looking for quotes to collect here that I found plenty of gorgeous paragraphs, but couldn't seem to spot a single sentence or short phrase that caught my eye. And I'm not writing down a whole paragraph on my bookmark.I wasn't familiar with the story of "Sorrows of Young Werther" at all coming into it, and as I tend to start imagining possible directions a book could go as I'm reading it, it somehow became set in my mind that Werther should become a poet.Goethe's beautiful writing is here attributed to his character, since the book is Werther narrating in the form of letters he is writing. So the man's letters prove he can write, and I can certainly imagine him turning his sorrows into great material. He even loves poetry, and is a fan of Ossian (who is mentioned quite a few times). Just a thought.I couldn't say I liked this book, despite the author.
    • 5/5
      Muy buen libro,sus palabras inspiradoras,pero el final quedó sin explicar más¿Así termina?
    • 4/5
      The pain of loving in vain taken to the extreme! Young Werther’s profound expressions of deep anguish are even more heart wrenchingly dramatic when read aloud. As someone well acquainted with unrequited love, I could not help but be moved.
    • 4/5
      This was my 298th read from the 1001 Books To Read Before You Die list (which is actually closer to 1300 books now with all the updates). Obviously, since I am 68, I am never going to read all the books on the list but I do attempt to read 10 to 12 books from the list every year. There have been some duds but, all in all, I can see why the books were picked. As one of the oldest books on the list this book I suspect that this one made the list as one of the first examples of an epistolary novel.This is the account of a fervent love affair from the point of view of a young German man. Werther was sojourning in the countryside trying to escape a romantic entanglement when he met Charlotte, the daughter of a man he had met. Although Charlotte was as good as engaged Werther fell in love with her and constantly sought her presence. When her soon-to-be fiance returned he and Werther became quite friendly but Werther continued to pine for Charlotte. When it became clear she was going to marry this man, Werther left abruptly to take up a position in court. When that proved unsatisfactory he returned to the area where Charlotte and her husband now lived. Charlotte appears to have had some feeling for Werther but she was devoted to her husband and her marriage. Seeing the futility of his passion, Werther committed suicide.Goethe, we learn from the introduction by the translator David Constantine, was involved in two love triangles and, although he didn't commit suicide, he knew another young man who did. Goethe did a great job of showing the decline in Werther's mental state through the medium of letters that he wrote. Who of us hasn't experienced the heartbreak of thwarted love? It is a universal story.
    • 4/5
      To our cynical, postmodern sensibilities, Werther may well come across as an arrogant, pompous and misguided young fool who is likely displaying the symptoms of bipolar disorder. However, anybody with a passing interest in the Romantic Movement should read this seminal novel. Given the bland, aseptic world we live in, perhaps we need a few messy, idealistic characters like the protagonist.
    • 3/5
      This novel would appeal to Miss Marianne Dashwood (from Austen's "Sense and Sensibility")! Werther is also all sensibility - by which Austen (and I) mean romanticism. I hate that name for the movement because I like romance but don't much care for the artistic/literary/intellectual movement called romanticism which, to quote Wikipedia, "was characterized by its emphasis on emotion and individualism as well as glorification of all the past and nature, preferring the medieval rather than the classical." This 1774 novel was one of the literary works that influenced the Romantic movement that followed in the 19th century. Unfortunately, I am more like Eleanor Dashwood and prefer emotion to be at least somewhat tempered by rationality. Thus I found Werther to be less sympathetic and romantic and more irritatingly self-absorbed and unbalanced than others might. He falls in love with Charlotte, whom he already knows to be engaged to another man, and then after an abortive attempt to take his mind off this unhappy love affair by moving to another place and working in a diplomatic capacity, which fails because he is unable to bring himself to comply with the social norms of the time, he returns to the town where Charlotte and her husband are living and spends all his time thinking about how much he loves her and how miserable he is that she is married to another! To me, he doesn't really love Charlotte but just has an intense desire for her; if he truly loved her, he would have spent a bit more time thinking about what would make her happy rather than thinking about himself all the time.
    • 3/5
      Originally published in 1774, The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe is an epistolary style story that captured the imagination of the public when first published. Men dressed in Werther’s signature outfit and women wore “Eau de Werther”. This novella is one of the first examples of romanticism, a movement in arts, music and literature in the late 18th century that emphasized inspiration, emotion and glorification of nature.The sensational story is about a young artist who heads for rural solitude after becoming entangled in an inappropriate romance. While in the country, he falls for Lotte, the daughter of a land steward. She is engaged to another and cannot return his affections. Werther’s extreme passion and torment at Lotte’s rejection leads him to contemplate suicide as his only solution.This fictional story is in actuality based on the author’s own bout with unrequited love and in this story he captures how Werther becomes fixated with the ideal he has built in his mind rather than having real feelings toward an actual woman. The Sorrows of Young Werther, although a little dated, is a well written story about the painful emotions of obsession and rejection,
    • 3/5
      A classic. Poor Werther. Too much in love or just naiv and spoiled?
    • 1/5
      I read this book because I enjoy the poetic language of Goethe. I could barely finish this particular book though. This story is a good example of why men rarely make good friends for women. I've experienced this behavior so much from men, including threats of suicide as a method of manipulation, that I felt disgusted reading the book. If there was poetic language in this book, and there probably was, I was so distracted by the stereotypical bad behavior of the male protagonist that I missed it.
    • 3/5
      Goethe's "The Sorrows of Young Werther" certainly has all the underpinnings of novels from the Romantic period -- unrequited love and plenty of rapture about the natural world.In this epistolary novel, Werther falls in love with Charlotte, a young woman who is already engaged to another man. He makes an attempt to befriend the couple after their marriage with disastrous results.I can understand why it made such a sensation when it was published in the 1770's. The pining away for Charlotte got a bit much by the end so I wouldn't say I really enjoyed this book, but I didn't hate it either.
    • 4/5
      Yes, such is the frailty of man, that even there, where he has the greatest consciousness of his own being, where he makes the strongest and most forcible impression, even in the memory, in the heart of his beloved, there also he must perish,—vanish,—and that quickly.

      It is often difficult to parse someone becoming unhinged in an epistolary novel. It is at the point of dissolution that the reader is forced to accept that the ongoing narrative is actually what someone in such straits would be able to emote through writing. I give Goethe a pass, he was Goethe after all. The next great German would hug a horse and he didn't write many letters, those he did he signed The Crucified.

      This was a cautionary tale. Like the Quixote--we learn that reading too many books softens the faculties. One then shouldn't woo women already engaged. Or at least accept the inevitable. I liked the interlude towards the end with the recitation of poetry. Romanticism is shorn of its ideals and forced to kneel in all-too-human failure.
    • 4/5
      This novella was the work that first established the reputation of the great German author, though he repudiated it in later life. It is a book of two halves. In the first half Werther reflects philosophically about the nature of beauty in the countryside he visits and envies the certainties in the lives of the peasant families he meets. His love for Charlotte here seems an innocent and healthy one, despite her being engaged to Albert. In the second part, however, his unrequited passion grows into an obsession that eventually destroys him, distorting his healthy outlook on the world. As Charlotte perceptively observes, "Why must you love me, me only, who belong to another? I fear, I much fear, that it is only the impossibility of possessing me which makes your desire for me so strong.” This second part lacked the simplicity and beauty of the first half and was harder to read. Werther is an unattractive character by the end and I am afraid his suicide evoked little sympathy in me. This short book was a key point in the development of European literature in the 1770s.
    • 4/5
      I had somehow mentally classified Goethe as "difficult to read classics" and had avoided him thus far. But somehow when I saw this charming little volume at my beloved bookstore's "going out of business" sale, I couldn't resist it.And it was charming. And not difficult to read at all. Told mostly in letters, and letters only from Young Werther, we get none of the replies at all -- we get not only a one-sided but a "how I want to represent myself to my friend" side of a young man's descent into romantic obsession with a woman he cannot have. Part of what makes it so fascinating is how many chances and choices he had along the way -- to realize this path would never make him happy, could only end in misery, to choose to go somewhere else, give himself a chance to love someone else. But at the same time, making those different choices would make him a different person. So do any of us really have any choice at all?
    • 2/5
      Nope. Life is too short. Next!
    • 5/5
      The quintessential romantic novel, it could easily be mistaken for a handbook on how to express your most intimate feelings as far as the things of the heart are concerned. However it's the superlative skills of the author that really counts: that Goethe is considered one of the greatest writers that ever lived come as no surprise after a few pages of this marvel. To read and reread forever.
    • 4/5
      What a thing is the heart of man!- Goethe, The Sorrows of Young WertherIn The Sorrows of Young Werther, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe opens a window into the soul of his young protagonist, allowing the reader to witness first hand his tragic destiny. Young Werther suffers from a hopeless love for the enchanting Charlotte who is engaged to an older man. In a series of letters to his friend Wilhelm, Werther reveals the depths of his anguish. The Sorrows of Young Werther is a beautifully told tale of the interior of a human heart in conflict.First published in 1774, Goethe's epistolary novel has many of the hallmarks of literary romanticism: unattainable love, a passionate and sensitive protagonist, feelings bared open to the world, and a deep appreciation for nature. In his book The Novel 100, Daniel Burt calls The Sorrows of Young Werther "One of the defining works of European Romanticism."Werther is a young artist who moves to the village of Walheim where he meets the lovely Charlotte, daughter of the local judge. Charlotte's mother has died, leaving her to care for her brothers and sisters, and Werther becomes enamored of her, despite knowing that she is engaged to Albert, a man eleven years her senior. As he spends more time with Charlotte and Albert, Werther's love for Charlotte increases, and so does his torment at knowing she is unattainable. The letters Werther writes to his friend Wilhelm express both the intensity of his love and the pain it causes him.Goethe's novel is beautifully written and groundbreaking in its portrayal of a human soul. German literary scholar Karl Viëtor writes about the novel's significance:Among European novels Werther is the first in which an inward life, a spiritual process and nothing else, is represented, and hence it is the first psychological novel....The scene is the soul of the hero. All events and figures are regarded only in the light of the significance they have for Werther's emotion.One thing that stands out in the novel is the likability of all of its characters. This is a novel with no clear antagonist, no evil villain. Not only is Charlotte beautiful, but she is also kind, charming, and generous. Albert is a good man who loves Charlotte. Werther himself is a passionate, sensitive young man whose feelings for Charlotte are pure and innocent. And yet there is conflict in the novel. The reader feels it almost from the very first page. What should Werther do about his passionate feelings for Charlotte? Ignore them? Act on them? Suppress them and move on? What should Charlotte do, and Albert?These questions raise even deeper questions and invite the reader to reflect on his or her own beliefs about love and passion. What is love, and where does it come from? What is the role of emotion in relationships and what is the role of intellect?The Sorrows of Young Werther is well worth a read, not only for its beautiful prose, but also for its attempt to grapple with issues of love and passion.
    • 4/5
      Werther was one of the first cult novels in European history, arguably the book that put the novel solidly in place as the dominant literary form for the next couple of centuries. It was condemned by the older generation, provoked a new trend in men's fashion, was blamed for a wave of teenage suicides, and generally had all the attributes we now attach to fads like Pokemon Go and self-driving cars...It's probably a book you need to read in your teens. Re-reading it in later life, it's difficult to feel much sympathy for Werther, who insists on falling in love with a young woman who is already engaged to someone else, makes a nuisance of himself by stalking her, and then makes everyone's life even more miserable by killing himself. In the final pages of the novel, he acts like a tenor in the last act of an opera - every time you think he's finished and is about to pull the trigger, he steps back and adds a couple more paragraphs to his already voluminous suicide note. "Enough already!", readers have been wanting to shout for the last two centuries. It's an exasperating and profoundly foolish book in many ways, but it also has some very beautiful passages, so not a complete waste of time, but it's definitely best-read when you're in the mood for the love-lorn.
    • 1/5
      Wow. I do not even know where to start with this.Yes, there are spoilers. Beware!Werther is, in so many words, a stalker. Mourning the death of a young woman (girlfriend? arranged match?), he falls for an engaged woman, Charlotte. He stays at her house as invited, ingratiates himself to her father (a family friend?) and young siblings. Her mother is deceased, she has no female guidance.She marries. He hangs about. Her husband tolerates him. Makes polite upper-class efforts to get him to go away.She tries to get him to not come around.He comes around anyway.A man in the area kills a rival for a woman's affection. Werther actively defends him.Werther admits that he has considered murdering Charlotte's husband, because he just knows he and Charlotte are perfect for each other. At least he knows this is the wrong course of action.He doesn't, which is the only good thing about this book.I very rarely give a book one star. Especially if I have read the whole thing, I will quit a book if it is that bad. But this is a 1001 books list book, not long, and not difficult. Just infuriating. How can we be feeling for this sort of man, still?! I feel no sympathy for him. I feel sympathy for the murdered man and the poor woman caught in the middle. I feel sympathy for Charlotte, caught in something she doesn't want to be part of. I feel for her husband, Albert, who wants Werther gone but is so trapped by upper class mores that he can effectively do little. But sympathy for Werther? No.
    • 5/5
      One of those classics that actually deserves the name. A brilliant psychological meditation.
    • 4/5
      A fantastic character study, a bit slow in places but ultimately a quick read. Always been a big fan of German literature (Nietzsche, Kafka, Hesse, Goethe).
    • 3/5
      Was soll man über ein Buch noch schreiben, über das schon so viel geschrieben wurde? Außer vielleicht, dass man es den Schülerinnen und Schülern heute nicht mehr unbedingt aufzwingen sollte. Grund meines Lesens war die Vermutung, dass sowohl Tex Rubinowitz ("Irma") als auch Arno Geiger (Selbstportrait mit Flusspferd) Anlehnung an Goethe genommen haben. Und nach der Lektüre finde ich, dass dieser Verdacht nicht unbegründet ist, auch wenn die Anlehnungen vermutlich nicht bewusst gemacht wurden (aber was weiß man schon, was in einem Autor vorgeht).
    • 4/5
      Obsession, elation, depression, murder, rustic scenes, distance-blurred mountains and wind-swept moors, despair and suicide. A compelling psychological novel.
    • 4/5
      Not the book I expected: far more enjoyable, and oddly modern in the variety of forms combined without notice, letters to his friend, diary entries, and an outside voice coming in at the end. It's somewhat unsettling to reflect that the book's readers seem to have taken the situation recounted more seriously than the author did.

      Now to re-read Lotte in Weimar, which will mean a lot more.
    • 5/5
      awesome and then some.
    • 4/5
      I expected to dismiss this book, having read others' reviews in advance. Goethe himself often wished it forgotten after he wrote it, when it still haunted his legacy. Maybe he felt embarrassed by the biographical aspect and his own youthful foolishness. He was too hard on himself. It may be easy to deride Werther's sorrows and weakness, but Goethe did a fine job of capturing youth's irrational passions. There's a reason why it's so hard for adults to relate to teenagers, and I think this classic sums it up perfectly.Werther has to start high before he can fall, and he begins very high. His adoration of a pastoral scene is enough to trigger tears of happiness in him, demonstrating how commanded he is by emotional highs and lows. A storm is brewing - literally, as he is about to meet Charlotte for the first time. At first he is merely an admirer, desirous of her company but not overly wounded that she is engaged to Albert. He is still full enough of life that he can argue with Albert that moroseness is a sin: extreme dramatic irony on a re-read. But gradually admiration turns to obsession, as he begins to idealize his love and then encounters hardships with his attempt at a career, doubled by the impending marriage of Charlotte and Albert becoming fact. After that it's a swift slide to the bottom.Interesting arguments surface. Werther compares a wounded heart to dying of a disease; that there can only be so much pain before one's endurance is overcome, no matter how determined the mindset. Here he clearly ranks emotion above reason as the force which commands him. With this imbalance locked in, no appeal can save him. At this point the reader's loathing is liable to be set in as well. Just snap out of it! Accept what is, and move on! It's compounded by Werther being directionless and possibly too proud and lazy for his own good. He lives off his mother's allowance, and how old is he? Clearly I'm thinking like a parent, or at least a mature adult. To understand this character, I need to cast my mind further back.Can I never recall admiration for an unobtainable girl that led beyond reason? It would be a cold, hard life I've led if I could not. In youth our passions command us. We can hear and speak reason, but only within the context of values largely determined by our feelings. Urgency comes from desiring the company of an ideal vision of the opposite sex, unaware how much we are projecting onto the nearest target and value accordingly beyond what reason dictates. Puppy love transgresses into puppy idolization, to the detriment of the worshiper and the worshiped. I choose to pity Werther out of sympathy, but only up to the point where he contemplates suicide. That state is only obtainable by the sustaining of blind romantic notion far beyond anything I achieved. It is a reality that some are not so lucky. To deride Werther is to deride all youth who give way to irrational despair. Understand him, and you may perceive a life to be saved.
    • 4/5
      This is of course a great classic, which had a profound impact on the culture of its time. Sometimes, I truly appreciate great classics, for themselves as works of art, not just as for artifacts of culture. But sometimes, I can't make the breakthrough and get really involved with a work -- I observe it, rather than experience it. "The Sorrows of Young Werther", for me, was such a book. I am glad I finally read it (I have certainly read enough about it, over the years) but I won't do so again. Perhaps if I read German, or perhaps if I were a third as old as I am ----- .
    • 2/5
      Soo, I know this is part of a historical period, and it's very representative of a literary movement and yada yada yada. But seriously, dude - man up already. And I mean this in a very non-sexist way.
    • 5/5
      This book is spectacular. The prose of Goethe is stunning and the depth of emotion is amazing. Do not read this book if you are in a melancholy mood; it will intensify those emotions and may pull you from melancholy to despair. Despite that negativity it is a stellar exploration of human love, affection, friendship and emotion.
    • 5/5
      Amazing book about a platonic love that can't be lived by the force of destiny.