litsociety
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Joined: 15 Feb 2007
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 Posted: Sat Nov 08, 2008 11:45 pm Post subject: November 2008 Selection |
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The Sorrows of Young Werther
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Goethe's loosely autobiographical, epistolary novel from 1774 gives a very intimate account of a young man's stay in the fictional village of Wahlheim in Germany. Werther is enchanted by the simple ways of the peasants there. He meets and falls instantly in love with Lotte, a beautiful young girl who is taking care of her siblings following the death of their mother. Lotte is, however, already engaged to a man named Albert, who is in fact 11 years her senior. Every day serves as a torturous reminder that Lotte will never be able to requite his love. Werther was an important novel of the Sturm und Drang movement in German literature and it also influenced Romantic literature that followed. The book made Goethe one of the first true literary celebrities. Toward the end of the author's life, a personal visit to Weimar, where Goethe resided, became crucial for any young man's tour of Europe.
All Quiet on the Western Front
Erich Maria Remarque
Paul Baumer enlisted with his classmates in the German army of World War I. Youthful, enthusiastic, they become soldiers. But despite what they have learned, they break into pieces under the first bombardment in the trenches. And as horrible war plods on year after year, Paul holds fast to a single vow: to fight against the principles of hate that meaninglessly pits young men of the same generation but different uniforms against wach other--if only he can come out of the war alive. "The world has a great writer in Erich Maria Remarque. He is a craftsman of unquestionably first rank, a man who can end language to his will. Whether he writes of men or of inanimate nature, his touch is sensitive, firm, and sure.
Death of Ivan Ilyich
Leo Tolstoy
Hailed as one of the world's supreme masterpieces on the subject of death and dying, The Death of Ivan Ilyich is the story of a worldly careerist, a high court judge who has never given the inevitability of his death so much as a passing thought. But one day death announces itself to him, and to his shocked surprise he is brought face to face with his own mortality. How, Tolstoy asks, does an unreflective man confront his one and only moment of truth? This short novel was the artistic culmination of a profound spiritual crisis in Tolstoy's life, a nine-year period following the publication of Anna Karenina during which he wrote not a word of fiction. A thoroughly absorbing and, at times, terrifying glimpse into the abyss of death, it is also a strong testament to the possibility of finding spiritual salvation.
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde brings his enormous gifts for astute social observation and sparkling prose to The Picture of Dorian Gray, his dreamlike story of a young man who sells his soul for eternal youth and beauty. This dandy, who remains forever unchanged—petulant, hedonistic, vain, and amoral—while a painting of him ages and grows increasingly hideous with the years, has been horrifying, enchanting, obsessing, even corrupting readers for more than a hundred years.
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