Reading, for fun (yes, I should be editing those articles instead), between sneezes (I still have a cold), Beerbohm's wonderful essay 'Quia imperfectum' (1918) from And Even Now. Far funnier and more charming than one would expect, given the topic – which purports at first to be unfinished artworks, but which ends up being Goethe. And not just Goethe, but something which makes me, once again, fall into that adoring affection which so many Beerbohm fans experience – it is a beautifully gracious debunking of Goethe, a deflation kindly masked as an apology for that greatest of pomposities, that most patronizing of purities, that noblest of bores.
What is so wonderful about this is that so few other writers seem to have dared to point out what I have always acutely felt, that Goethe is indeed an extraordinary bore. Germans, of course, always place him with Shakespeare, Racine, and so on; and even those who don't seem terribly interested in the man never seem to feel on firm ground in being critical about his writings. But take the obvious books – the first part of Faust: a crazed and fantastic mess of scenes, some very strong but not very natural, all driven more by concept than real dramatic sense; or the second part of Faust – no, I don't get it either, and clearly nobody does. The poems? Snore. Werther? A faddish tangle of adolescent irresponsbilities. The travel writing? That always seems more about Goethe than about anything he looks at – one constantly has that smoothly vain feeling of, Oh how much nobler this scene is, now that I, the Great Man, have gazed upon it.
Recently I actually tried The Elective Affinities, as the ideas seemed so interesting – but it is far too heartless: throwing different types of people together, writing about their cross-relationships and crossed affections, assuming that type attracts similar type (and how unperceptive, how emotionally clueless, is that!?), and treating their losses and miseries as though they are all animals in an experiment that has yielded potentially useful data.
No: he's a bore. And I don't think it's just about language, either: okay, so, Faust is incredibly difficult to translate without making it sounding ridiculous; and although my street German works well enough, I cannot for the most part read dense German prose. But even with Rilke, Celan, Morgenstern, I can get a sense of the beauty of what's going on, even if I understand only a small percentage of it – not, though, with Goethe: it just seems to keep going, on and on, perfect in structure and empty of surprise, chug chug chug chug chug.
I suppose Max said it better, as he always does: that "a man whose career was glorious without intermission, decade after decade, does sorely try our patience". So: maybe, for Max as well as for me, this is merely envy....
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