Product Description

Eduard and Charlotte are an aristocratic couple who live a harmonious but idle life in their estate. But the peace of their existence is thrown into chaos when two visitors – Eduard’s friend the Captain and Charlotte’s passionate young ward Ottilie – provoke unexpected attraction and forbidden love. Taking its title from the principle of elective affinities – the theory that certain chemicals are naturally drawn to one another – this is a penetrating study of marriage and adultery. Inspired by Goethe’s own conflicting loyalties as he battled to maintain his relationship with his wife and control his feelings for a younger woman, Elective Affinities is one of the greatest works of the romance era: a rich exploration of love, conflict, and the inescapable force of fate.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #271908 in Books
• Published on: 2005-02-24
• Original language: German
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

About the Author
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe was born in Frankfurt-am-Main in 1749. At twenty-four he wrote Goetz von Berlingen, a play which brought him national fame and established him in the Sturm und Drang movement. Goethe began work on Faust, and Egmont, another tragedy, before being invited to join the government at Weimer. He finished Faust before he died in 1832. R.J. Hollingdale has translated eleven of Nietzsche's books and published two books about him. He is honorary president of the British Nietzsche Society.

Customer Reviews

A great love story.
The main themes of Elective Affinities are the relationships between two men and two women when Eduard and Charlotte, a married couple in early middle age, invite Ottilie, a young girl, and a male friend of their own age to stay on their country estate. The title of the book relates to this situation and a scientific theory of the time and is explained by Goethe in the text.

Before he wrote this novel Goethe, a father in his fifties, had fallen in love with a nineteen year old girl. Goethe then writes about a similar event; Ottilie and one of the two men fall in love. These characters in the novel prove their bond to be absolutely pure and unconquerable. One feels that the relationship in the novel is the embodiment of Goethe's love, or at least his idealised love; it is the thing that he wants his love to be. Goethe also studies the reaction of those around the couple to the relationship and perhaps uses these other characters to examine his conflicting feelings. For instance we are introduced to Mittler, who reveres the marriage bond as utterly sacred and who is a staunch opponent of divorce (which was common in late eighteenth century Germany).

Every event in this book bears on another and, as a whole they seem to resonate togoether, on one note. The result is one of the great love stories, where the empathy between the author and his characters shines through.