Evening star., 1928-11-06
NEW BOOKS
AT RANDOM
/. G.. NJ.

It has been said in an implication
of complaint that the book is too long
Such statement promptly posits the
query, TOO long for what?" A ques-
ton. this, which in its turn opens up
more than one road of pursuit and
examination.
Ludwig's Goethe" is not a book at
all, or so it seems to me. Rather is
it a great workshop laboratory. eX-
pertinent station. The material assem-
bled within it is human stuff-feelings
and desires, impulses and urgencies,
dreams of young enchantment, waken-
ings of stark reality, fears and hopes:
denials and acceptances, action and
idleness. gains and losses. In word,
here gathered together is every mans
share in the common lot of humanity
save that in this case the material Is
definitely conditioned by the time and
the place, by the heredity and environ
ment, by the personality and COM
manding genius of Johann Wolfgang
And to this material in its orderly
arrangement of the years and periods
of Goethe's life are being applied the
means that modern science has set for
the searching out of truth, for testing
it, for placing it beside the other truths
of its special company in the proper
measure of its value to the whole.
Ludwig. the master hand in this place,
makes use of no more than three tools.
One of these is the new knowledge of
mind in its practical bearing upon hui
man behaviors, the new psychology.
One is the relatively recent concept of
all history as a unit. ever part of it, no
matter how remote. significant as an
interpreter of the present as promise
for the future. So in the individual
every least part is revelatory of the
whole. And another tool Is the investi-
gators passion for first-hand knowl-
edge of his material, a passion that
rejects hearsay and all overworked mat
ter with its dilutions and perversions.
Goethe himself, and none other, will
serve In this momentous business of re-
creation.
Upon entering the great workshop
YOU will feel at once the stir of it's
energetic activity. And equally soon
do you come into partaking sense of
the big business on hand. You be-
come a fellow workman with Ludwig,
collaboration
Away at the far end of the long room
is an exit, wide and high, through
which at the moment a stately and
ceremonious figure is passing. That is
Goethe himself, the Goethe whom we
know now-aloof and distinctly wrath
like. BY way of this figure alone the
surprising work of this genius can be
neither evaluated nor deeply loved. Here
he is but little more than a symbol of
the classic art, its last manifestation.
To reach such remoteness he not only
passed out of the essence of the indiVid-
II hi nf nf oc
To know Goethes genius is to know his
works and this is to know the man him
self. So, for the time being take your
eyes away from that receding vision and
set them upon the youth who so fills
the room near the entrance. An aston
ishing and perturbing youth, compound
Of heights and depths of passion, driven
by every errancy of mental and physical
mood an egoist of preposterouS asSump-
tions, an irrepressible and unaccount-
able youngster, clearly outside the usual
means of discipline and training. Lud-
wig fingers long time over these early
tempestuous years, and for good reason
These years are the seed of many
harveStS, each richer than the one be-
fore 1t. Possibly you grow tired of the
boy and his many escapades. Maybe
you think they are too repetitious to be
VI fdiuE. AlA6y are IlOt. Et6peJIIIOIl Is
one of the roads to learning, and here
you are learning the boy who became
the great poet, Goethe.
In these early years, and indeed
throughout the investigation, much
comes to the surface about the loves,
the many loves, of Goethe. And this,
as well as the great bulk of the book,
has come in for complaint. Just why
Is not clear. Love was one of the
potencies of the mans genius. So,
since this Is above everything else
quest for the truth, that fact comes
out here. 1t is not as If Ludwig finding
himself in pleasant path decides to
l1nger there. Not at all. He is held to
that path by the tremendous influence
OF women upon the growing art of
Goethe's work. And here assemble, be-
sides. many man of note, who became
mnuentlal in the growth of boy and
man and master mind The great work.
shop is gradually filling with the friends
OF Goethe, each giving evidence of his
own place and influence in the world of
science and letters growing up around
Goethe, in part shaped by him, in other
part accepted and made use of by him.
here are men and women, here is the
spirit OF the age. here are currents of
thought and action, here are factS-here
Is the full sum of Goethe's personal and
contemporaneous life. All are crowded
INTO this laboratory of human existence.
all are taking part in this adventure of
genius. Here is a wealth of personal
evidence, of individual teStimony-yet
the place gives no impression of con-
fusion or undirected effort Instead, out
OF the great collection of accummulated
material. out OF the experiments in
Welgnlng and placing these various and
multltudlnous elements, there emerges a
man of genius, who all along his tri-
umphant way bears the marks of human
experience in evidence that genius is,
a1ter all, but man raised to his highest
powers.
1t seems to me that this book is.
therefore, first and foremost a piece of
scientific recreation. It Is the re-
embodying of Goethe in his own life
and circumstances for the sake of a
fairer understanding of the poetry of
Goethe, for warmer and more ap-
preciative approach to it, for its intel
lectural and spiritual reflex upon the
readers own life and outlook. Now, as
book to read, for the general reader
10 take up Here is theme of which
the whole world knows. Soms know
little about It, Some know much. But
here is a story, hundreds of stories in
truth, all projected easily from the
actual life of the hero, all mindful
OF the accuracieS of every detail. In
tereSting stories these are, which, as a
whole, serve to deliver over to readers
very great man in the magic world
Of poetry. So. taken in either Of these
two senses, here is a vital matter
treated in a vivid and rather irresisti-
BILE way by writer who has proved
himself master hand over and over
again.
long call from this sort of biog-
raphy to that of an earlier day. We
used to read the life of great man
as a regular and orderly series of
events or activities that set in with
of the personal life and influence were