Lotte in Weimar

Lotte in Weimar - Thomas Mann

Mann portrays Goethe as coldly indifferent to the wishes and happiness of those around him. Lotte travels from Hanover to Weimar in 1816 to re-visit Goethe, who wrote a famous novel about his love for her.

For 40 years, she has wanted to settle accounts with him for using her and her now-deceased husband as the mere grist for literature. She is disappointed to find that she doesn't exist as a living breathing person to Goethe and her criticisms have no meaning to him either.

Before she actually meets Goethe, she talks to three people whose lives and chance for happiness have been irreparably damaged by Goethe. Their long monologues make up the bulk of this book. It's thus not really a novel, but linked monologues and dialogue that soberly, slowly examine of the relationship of art to life.

A prerequisite to this novel is reading The Sorrows of Werther and having a strong interest in the psychology of genius and creativity. Mann, who was in exile when he wrote this novel in the late 1930s, takes some swipes at the Germans of the time for their proneness to hero worship.