I really wanted to love this book. I enjoyed reading Goethe's Italian Journey and I've read so many flattering things about Young Werther that I've looked forward for some time to the experience of finally reading it. Unfortunately, it just didn't grab me.

The positives include Goethe's poetic descriptions of nature and the powerful imagery they evoke and the frequently beautiful language with which Werther depicted his obsession with Lotte.

The primary problems I had with the work were the repetitiveness of Werther's self-pitying missives and a certain incredulity I could not shake relative to the foundations of his compulsion. In the final analysis, a persistent feeling that Werther was silly and unjustified in his fixation and self-indulgent in wallowing in his misery dulled the impact of his fate on my senses substantially.

I am hoping for better things from Faust...

What is it about this particular novella which inspired a series of youthful suicides throughout Europe soon after its publication? Why did Napoleon insist on keeping the French translation with him during his campaign in Egypt? How did Goethe succeed in capturing the poignancy of the human heart, while fascinating a jaded but "enlightened" 18th century public? The young German author touched a universal chord with this slender volume, in which he offers tender insight on such diverse Romantic subjects as Love, Religion, Nature and Man's relationships with God and his fellow men. Why do critics consider it a classic of both German and World Literature?

Presented in a quaint literary style, this story consists of confidential diary entries and letters to a trusted friend, Wilhelm, by a senstitive protagonist, with the addition of editorial notes. (The latter results from the inveitable drawbacks of first-person narratives.) The plot unfolds as Werther, a young nobleman who interests himself in the daily activities of the peasantry, is enjoying an extended holiday in a scenic area of Germany. Free to savor the magnificent natural beauty around him, Werther is soon dazzled by the numerous charms of the delightful Charlotte--daughter of a local town dignitary. This paragon of feminie virtue and attraction appears more sensual and maternal than truly sexual.

Alas, the incomparable Lotte is already engaged to absent Albert, due home soon. Is she too naive to understand that in Werther she has acquired an ardent admirer? Is she aware of his easily-inflamed fascination, or the violent depths of his stifled emotions? Is she oblivious or heartless to his passionate despair once her fiance has returned? Just how long can she juggle two lovers, or even control her own dainty heart--which Goethe chastely and tantalizingly hides from us?

Readers will be be swept away on the floodtide of Gothe's untamed emotions, as poor Werther faces the inevitable. Ah, but which act requires or proves the greater bravery: to terminate the heart's torment by the simple act of Suicide, or to accept Life's harshness by continuing a lonely, meaningless existence? Which Hell is it better or nobler to endure: that of rejecting God's gift or that of eternal separation from the Beloved? The strain of a prolonged "menage a trois" can not be permitted to endure--neither from a literary or a moral point of view.

The last entries painfully point the way as Werther's despair cascades into definitive--albeit negative--action. Weep, hope forlornly with this ardent young man, even rage at his fate; then be swept away into the maelstrom of thwarted dreams. Analyze and pity Germany's most famous pre-Romantic hero, as he struggles though this psychological novel, for Goethe plays upon the reader's memory's heartstrings with the skill of Ossian's agonized harper.

There is no doubt about the literary poignancy of this book, or for that matter the masterful mind of its author. But it must be said that the undeniably strong sorrows of young Werther came from an all-consuming love of himself-not from love of another. Or rather he seemed in love with the idea of having someone to consume his idle days and, what he imagined, his large and thoughtful mind. His precipice, from which he condescended to view his every move, thought and encounter, was lofty indeed.

The pastoral atmosphere of the book is what captivated this reader. It's a pity Werther couldn't heed Albert and Lotte's sound advice about retuning his strong emotions...or at least spend more time under Linden trees with his Homer (this would have been my suggestion to him). Perhaps it was the poetry of the equally love-torn Ossian, which came to replace his classic text, that helped spur on his emotional demise. Whatever the case, it was painful to read of his self-indulgent romance with his ideas of love and devotion. He was kidding himself in the grandest and noblest fashion imaginable.

Please don't think me a heartless soul, or someone who couldn't possible understand such an intense love; I just didn't see it that way. However much frustration I felt at Werther's extreme pathos, I remained in awe of the beauty of Goethe's emotive and descriptive writing. Am I contradicting myself here...with talk of emotion? You be the judge.

"What is to be done?" is the novel in which noted leftist critic Nikolai Chernyshevsky outlined his vision of a future of economic cooperation and women's rights. Though it is remembered more for its political message than its literary merit, a few words about its plot seem in order. We meet the main character, Vera Pavlovna, as she is about to be betrothed to a man who, though there's nothing especially terrible about him, she does not at all love. She meets the enlightened Dmitri Lopukhov and they fall in love, so, much to her parents' chagrin, they run off together and get married. After a few years of marriage, the odd behavior of Dmitri's close friend Alexander Kirsanov reveals to Dmitri that Alexander loves Vera, and Dmitri correctly suspects that the feeling is mutual, and that although Vera cares for Dmitri very much and appreciates all he has done for her, her passion for him was a youthful indiscretion. Ever sympathetic to his wife's interests, Dmitri contrives to get out of the lovers' way, and Vera and Alexander are happily married for pretty much all of the second half of the novel. Meanwhile, Vera has founded a highly successful sewing union, and Chernyshevsky uses this to preach the value of worker ownership of businesses and also to illustrate women's potential for industry outside the home.

Chernyshevsky admits at a number of points in the work that he wasn't born to be a novelist, and it shows--especially annoying were his inability to stay in the same verb tense and his periodic silly asides to "the sapient reader." Still, I was pleasantly surprised at how gripping I found the work; I was ever anxious to find out what was going to happen to the characters next (partly because their rather unorthodox views on marriage and other matters, especially given the time period, were bound to keep me guessing), and that made the fairly long novel go by a bit more enjoyably than I expected. Some of Chernyshevsky's views, and especially his prophecies for the future, seem a bit naive nowadays (though in my edition, translated in 1886, the translators gleefully note that Chernyshevsky predicted the invention of the electric light), but given when he was writing (1863), it's easier to see how he might fall into some of the traps that he did, and in fact the novel offers a very interesting look at Russian socialist thought in its relatively early years. All in all, though the novel's not great, it's better than it's generally given credit for, and if you're interested in the history of leftist thought or Russian literature, it's a worthwhile read.

Any reader of Russian Literature or interested political observer can recognize how this book condemns the very similar circumstances of Russian society in the post-serfdom and its modern search for idenity in Western Capitalism. Chernyshevsky does not waste anytime hiding what could be considered propaganda in a somewhat didatic novel, but well worth its weight. Considering he had been condemned to a Siberian lifetime exile and hard labor before beginning it, the book is surprisingly fresh and up beat. Definitely a book for readers of Turgenev rather than Doestoyevsky or Tolstoy.

Probably no other single novel or writing has had enough influence on the history of Russia, or for that matter, the modern world. While Marx provided the means and ideas, Chernyshevsky kindled the strongest spark towards the revolution of the peasant masses towards gender and class equality. This work, along with Chernyshevsky's others, was held in the highest esteem in the Soviet Union, shelved along with the philosophies of Marx and Engels and Lenin.

"What is to be done" swept through the liberal student bodies of the Russian universities in the late 19-century, and it was the rereading of Chernyshevsky's novel at Lenin's scholastic exile in Kokushkino that inspired the young man to forge his life's course as a revolutionary. The historical importance alone needs to be understood and appreciated.

Aesthetically, "What is to be done" leaves behind a dry taste in one's mouth; yes, the book is tedious. But at the same time, you can feel the author's energy and fervor at espousing what he really feels is the best course for Russian life, which had been left improved a little, reformed a little, but not wholly bettered since the time of Ivan the Terrible. This is functional art at its best, and it's no question why Chernyshevsky, with his views on art and science given in "The Contemporary," is believed to be the forerunner to Socialist Realism.

Any Russian lit readers should welcome the forerunner to countless Doestoevsky and Tolstoy parodies and reactions, as well as Turgenev's intended "perfect" revolutionary, Bazarov.