[Crossposted.]
Faust is the most famous work by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. [I’m only talking about the first part here because I don’t like Goethe and even people who like Goethe think that part two sucks.]
Plot:
Mephistopheles/The Devil bets God that he can tempt Faust, an intelligent scholar and a great thinker. God laughs off Mephistopheles claims, but Faust actually makes a deal with Mephistopheles: His soul against a lifetime of knowledge and pleasure.
Probably everybody in Austria in a secondary education has had to read Faust. Since I spent a year in Brazil during my school time, I fell through the cracks. Which was just as well for me because ever since I read “Heidenröslein” and its rape-apologia (more explicit in the first version, a little more insidious in the second), I have hated Goethe with the fiery passion of a thousand dying suns.
Anyway, I’m telling you this because I wanted you to know where I’m coming from when I’m saying: I’ve been meaning to read Faust for almost 10 years now, because I wanted to rectify my embarassing lack of education in that regard. And I expected Faust to be so great that I would have to, grudgingly, proclaim Goethe’s genius. But actually, Faust sucked.
I seriously don’t understand why Faust is so famous – maybe I’m missing something essential. But what stuck out for me that it completely lacked melody. Yes, it rhymes, but most of the rhymes are uneven and/or sound like a preschooler made them up.
And then I might be judging it from current standards of good writing when I should be judging it from the standards of Goethe’s time, but seriously, that guy has never even heard of “show, don’t tell.” And I not only mean that characteristics are all talked about, I mean stuff like this, too (says Mephistopheles):
I come in gold-lac’d scarlet vest,
And stiff-silk mantle richly dress’d,
A cock’s gay feather for a plume,
A long and pointed rapier, too;
Why… why would anybody say that? In a play? In real life? Unless you’re describing yourself to somebody who can’t see you?
My main emotion reading this was an annoyed “get to the fucking point already, will you?” It was sometimes interrupted by “nooooooooooo, not another choir!” and “how the hell would anybody stage this?” but mostly I was waiting for the point – and there never seemed to be one.
There are some nice quotes in the play and I actually liked wondering about how I’d stage a ghost coming from a candle but any joy I got out of the play quickly left me never to return again when the talking monkeys appeared [at least, I have finally someone to blame for Alvin and the Chipmunks. It’s all Goethe’s fault].
Summarising: Faust is probably the bookish equivalent of a hazing ritual: Once you’ve read it, you need to make somebody else read it, to gain back your power and control of the situation. I will break this cycle and I will not recommend it.
—
On a sidenote: I read the book that belonged to my mother (from when she read it in school) and then to my sister (also, from when she read it in school) – and it was really cool to see their markings in it. Apparently, my sister’s teacher gave them the job to mark all the phrases that are used in everyday German and originated in Faust. And my mom marked passages she liked. It was like time travel.
kalafudra's Stuff 
I love “Faust”. It’s such a perfect book. So much longing and passion, so much dazzling entertainment, so much discontent and sadness. And full of ideas, too. Like the play in the play on Walpurgis’ night. In new versions of the play the sexual innuendo of Walpurgnis’ night is caught rather explicitly.
You have to imagine Mephistopheles as a fascintating tempter, yet someone who doesn’t take himself seriously. Imagine him enjoying each and every verse he says, how he likes being twisted and how he wants to win Faust. He’s a perfect stage character.
* The Mephistopheles-verse you’re quoting (my interpretation not official ^^):
He makes fun of these well-to-do-fraternity-dandies and of himself. And of course the long rapier is the audience’s chance to laugh as it is phallic.
Many verses or side-stories are just for comical relief or to make sexual puns or both. (Did you get that Mephistopheles has sex with Marthe?
Or what he’s doing with the witches? Or how Mephistophlees starts to mock morals when he sings about no-premarital sex?)
A few hundred years ago sex was more of a taboo and these things meant much more to the audience.
PS: You have to imagine Goethe’s francdialect for the verses to rhyme.
I don’t think I have a problem with my imagination or that I don’t get Faust – I just don’t like it. It’s pointless, it doesn’t have a consistent plot and the rhymes are mostly cheap, never mind in which dialect they were supposed to be read.
* described it best when she said that Faust was pulp. And being pulp by itself is fine, but being pulp and being revered by people as a mastpiece is fucking obnoxious.
That Mephistopheles has sex with Marthe is pretty explicit, no? And the sexual innuendos just left me mostly cold. *shrugs*
I don’t think you can talk me into thinking any higher of this play.
Oh, I think you’d definitely like the new stage versions of the Walpurgnis night, and Walpurgis night as a ballet. Unfortunately I didn’t find those which I had in mind on youtube. But there are parts of the Peter Stein version of Faust on youtube, you could have a look.
And have a look at Grundgen’s as Mephistopheles. You ought to. Just so that we can enjoy Klaus Mann’s “Mephisto” more.
^^
… and I never said you have a problem with your imagination or that you don’t get Faust. I am quite sure you understand literature.
But maybe your dislike for fat evil old Goethe made you say “wtf” instead of leaning back and enjoying the complete weirdness of the weird parts.
And, yes, Faust is pulp. Goethe as a poet is a man of the people (as a politician he was a man of the upperclasses. I guess he was a damn annoying person with very little dignity.) and Faust was a folk-story and folk-stories are meant to be like that. Arousing laughter, dazzling, a little murder here, a little sex there. (You as a highly intellectual 21st century person are of course not supposed to find the sexual innuendo hot or hilarious, but simple people of older times sure did. Just saying.)
But its damn good pulp.
And not only pulp.
…. what do you think of Büchner and Shakespeare?
I love Shakespeare and I have only read Woyczek, which I liked.
It’s quite possible that my judgement of Goethe-the-man influenced my judgement of Goethe-the-writer. That’s why I detailed my relationship to him above.
And I also know that theatre was different 400 years ago. But my situation today is the only situation I can judge from, and from my situation, I didn’t like it. :)
[…] I still think Faust is a crappy story (even when it’s not told by Goethe), but my goodness, Murnau is one hell of a filmmaker. I seriously loved the film. Unfortunately I did not love the music that accompanied it. […]