Goethe's Faust

[crystalis39]

Faust has been on my bucket list for a very long time. Ever since I was a wee lass who just finished Madoka almost ten years ago. But I never got around to it until now. I read both parts over the past couple of days. They were fun reads, but I liked the first better than the second. Some thoughts under the cut.

So when I first decided to actually read the Faust duology (I'm specifically referring to Goethe's version, though the general mythos has been around longer), I actually didn't know it was written as a play! Like, to be performed and stuff. I really like theatre (particularly musicals, though this is not one), so that was a pleasant surprise. So it's basically a script, a fairly easy read.

The thing to remember about classic literature is that it's not, like, inherently stuffy or pretentious or anything like that. What's considered classic today was basically just what was popular at the time (or at the very least, cult hits). Faust is a very funny play. I love the dynamic between Faust and Mephistopheles. The sillies. My skrunklies.

Part 1 is pretty small in scope - most of it is about Faust pursuing this woman named Gretchen, while Mephistopheles acts as his terrible, terrible wingman. It's delightful. Doesn't end too well for Gretchen, though. Part 2 is much bigger. Basically Faust acquires a taste for MILFs and gets isekai'd to ancient Greece in pursuit of Helen of Troy. It doesn't end well for Helen, Faust goes back to modern Germany and becomes a landlord to cope. Mephistopheles makes capitalism worse. Faust gets a change of heart about the whole evil landlord stuff and decides to make things nicer for his tenants. Doing good feels good, so Mephistopheles thinks he won, but then God's like "nuh-uh!". That's that. Unfortunately I am not a Greek historian or anything so I definitely missed some deepcut references that would've improved my enjoyment of Part 2. As it stands, though, it's fine. It retains the humor of the first part, at least!

So like, pretty good. I'll read Don Quixote next.

Comments

[crystalis39]

Yeahhh I don't think my copy of II was annotated (Annotated basically means there's a bunch of notes throughout, right? Anyway I read Kaufmann's translation for part I, but I went with David Luke's for part II) but there was a really long preface/introduction which I, being the true fool that I am, skipped. There were probably cool deets in there, but oh well.

Didn't he wait until after his literal death to publish the sequel? That's buckwild. Honestly kinda based from a creative standpoint (I'd want my final piece to be full of all the things I like, too) but as a casual reader it really does feel kinda bloated.

[ioplokon]

I haven't read Kaufman, but the Luke translation is a good one. With an annotated edition, it will probably have end notes rather than footnotes, so you'd have to keep flipping back (or, what I prefer, read them at the end of a scene/chapter - or just look for stuff that you're curious about!). If you want more of Goethe's weird interests but in a bit more accessible/less 'I am trying to write my Definitive work' form, I really recommend Elective Affinities - which basically takes the metaphor of 'chemistry' in romantic relationships and literalizes it (there's also Werther, which I think is good but a mega downer & can kinda get in your brain. My old prof said she stopped teaching it bc she could see some students were like, Too into it. Idk, people also get Too into Faust but that tends to be less bad... unless they are nazis bc, well, that is the tricky thing w/ Romanticism. You have all this really interesting humanism stuff but also... a dangerous nationalistic bent + naturalizing social relationships and hierarchy tends to go badly)