Faust de Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

La première chose que je dois mentionner avant de commencer cette critique est que j’ai dû saisir les informations d’édition. D’après mon expérience, je n’ai eu à le faire que lorsque je travaillais avec un faux ou un livre antérieur à la numérotation universelle.

Cet exemplaire particulier de Faust n’est ni l’un ni l’autre, mais plutôt une production en édition limitée du genre de livre «Je suis trop spécial pour posséder des livres de poche» de la Franklin Mint. Il comporte des pages dorées (éventuellement produites par une bombe de peinture), une reliure en cuir (ou en cuir), un marque-page intégré qui ressemble à de la soie (peut-être de la rayonne) et de délicieuses lithographies tirées d’une version allemande.

Ce dernier morceau était le scellant lorsque j’ai payé 5 $ US pour cet objet de fantaisie dans une friperie. C’est une pièce absurdement longue, mais étant donné mon expérience précédente de lecture de Goethe, j’ai pensé que le pire des cas était que je finirais par crier « VOUS GODDAM SISSY ! » au livre quelques fois tout en l’appréciant secrètement.

Comme il y a tellement de thèmes « faustiens » dans la culture populaire, j’ai également supposé que j’avais l’essentiel* de l’histoire. J’avais donc prévu de m’ennuyer un peu, mais j’espérais toujours être tourmentée, ensorcelée, éblouie et à lunettes.**

Quoi qu’il en soit, sur l’histoire. Vous pouvez deviner la première partie ; Le Dr Faust est un érudit qui s’ennuie, LE DIABLE apparaît, un pacte est signé dans le sang, et ainsi de suite.

… et c’est là que les choses sont devenues intéressantes !
(voir spoiler)[

I’m a big one for surprises in classic literature. It’s probably the main reason that I recommend Moby Dick to people – There’s lots of stuff going on in such books that you wouldn’t find in anything but the most honest of plot summaries; like amputees rubbing their stumps together, slow and sexy like.

…So I felt hot on the trail when Faust and Mephistopheles make their first stop, at the bar. Bonus: the Devil’s tights are TO DIE FOR.

Next surprise: As soon as these fine, upstanding allegories are done hanging around the watering hole, they go searching for underage girl for Dr.Faust to seduce, with the help of Mephistopheles’ gilded tongue slipped into the ear of said girl’s nanny.

The other reason I’m a fan of reading classic literature is that I get slight philological tickles. That might sound like a condition best treated with a topical ointment, but moments like the one above have me wondering where the great schism between the text of Faust, and the vague soul-for-knowledge-trading Faust in popular culture comes from.

Thinking along those lines, it makes some sense that at the time the book was written that the first thing a scholarly man of high virtue might be expected to do when given a free pass would be to

a) go to a place of low repute and
b) do his best to grab a bite of some unblemished peach.

AND THEN!: He knocks her up, and heads off for Walpurgis Night to do the funky monkey with all sorts of other allegories, including a Proctophantasmist, the subject of the one of the longest footnotes in the book.

The Proctophantasmist is apparently some guy who dissed our man Goethe but who was later discredited after he decided that applying leeches to his pooper cured his demonic possession, or something. Well, ol’ Wiley-G sure slapped the smile off of Pooper-Sucker’s face by writing him into the play!

Wait…what?

After dancing on the mountain (which apparently takes upward of nine months), Faust comes back and finds that his previously unblemished peach is actually a severely damaged fruit***, and she’s under lock and key after treating their offspring to a couple rounds of the classic game “Let’s see if the baby can breathe underwater.”

Faust and Mephistopheles could have paused for some mourning, but the book has far too much ADD for that, and so they wander off to a royal court where Mephistopheles convinces the king that printing money is the best thing ever.

This sort of bizarre commentary on currency is exactly why I signed up, and at this point the book was, if not growing on me, certainly weird enough to delight…

…and so it’s really unfortunate that soon after things get terribly, terribly boring. The pair then go on a mystic quest through Greek mythology, and 100 pages of hard-to-read begin; more “an epic” than “EPIC!” if you get what I mean.

During the « long 100 pages, » as they might be called, and during which my love for reading wilted like a thing that wilts a lot, dozens of characters are introduced that the educated reader “should” be aware of from mythology. They vanish just as quickly while chorus groups have pages of lines, and events from the Iliad and Odyssey are heavily referenced…Homeric fan-fiction really.

I feel the need to mention these boring things as I’m somewhat self conscious about the fact I’ve been writing a lot of reviews where I describe the book as dragging in the middle, but if this one is any indication, I’m pretty sure it’s the books and not my attention span.

The drag in Faust comes in a section longer than entire plays, and considerably more of an eye-watering-yawn-inducer than other, better, plays using Greek mythology. Satre’s The Flies is a fine example of something better.

Only highpoint: Faust seduces and knocks up others, they also die tragically after their children. It’s like the tragedy mentioned in the title is that Faust has lethal sperm, and the Devil is just hanging around because the Make a Wish Foundation sent him.

After turning away from said tragedy, again with apparent apathy, Faust becomes emperor and dies after planning to dredge a wetland. Things get really Christian, except for some weird bits requiring a run to the dictionary, resulting in finds like this:

Lemur
nocturnal Madagascar mammal, 1795, coined by Linnaeus, from L. lemures (pl.) « spirits of the dead » in Roman mythology. So called for its nocturnal habits and ghostly stares.

And this happens:

Shortly afterwards Mephistopheles finds himself distracted by the hind quarters of sweet little boys, and Faust makes it up to heaven with what one assumes is something like « a C, for trying. »

If you haven’t guessed it by now, I’m giving you pretty much the entire plot. This is to discourage you from reading the book.

I mean, I get why this is important: it’s one of the first major works in German to have a huge poetic scope and to reach back to the Greek world for inspiration. Both of these would be critical for the education of some of my favorite Germans. It just that the second half, which Goethe wrote far later in life, is such a mind-numbing bore.

So please consider that, and the following as contributing influences to my two star review: This may or may not be amazing in German, or judging by reviews on this site, Arabic. In English, with this translator, however, the pictures and rare pretty line are the only thing saving about half the book.
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