The Sorrows of Young Werther

The Sorrows of Young Werther was Goethe's bestselling novel when he was alive, and I'm trying to understand why.  Written over the course of a month when Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was 24, The Sorrows of Young Werther is a seemingly typical Romantic novel, but it was written and published in 1774, well before such works were common.  It glorifies suicide, and even well over a century later, people were emulating the final suicide in the book.

I read the audiobook, which played the same annoying piano theme every 15 minutes.  To say the least, I didn't love it.  I do like the literary movement of Germany during this time - Goethe, Schiller, Lenz, Klinger - it's called Sturm und Drang, and of course, The Sorrows of Young Werther is the best example of that movement.  Perhaps there is too much foreshadowing, or perhaps I was betrayed the ending and several themes by the introduction and the general reputation of the novel.

I am underplaying how gripping this novel is.  You know he's going to kill himself in the end, but how and why?  This is a great novel, and I did find myself reading it at five o'clock in the morning, rushing to finish it.  I'm sure that my next book will be of the space-opera-featuring-a-talking-beer-can variety, but I'm enjoying my journeys into classic literature.