The Beloved Returns

THE problem facing a major novelist of to-day is to find a method of synthesis by which the tradition of the novel as a ‘ prose epic ‘ can be combined with the innovation of the novel as a ‘stream of consciousness.’ This book approaches such a synthesis. It is a masterly tour de force in both conception and writing, and though perhaps the subject matter will be a stumbling-block to the general reader, it deals essentially with universal human nature and eternal human values.

The action covers a few days only. Charlotte Kestner, the Lotte of The Sorrows of Werther, comes in old age to Weimar, ostensibly to visit a sister, but in reality to meet Goethe once more. She has lived a happy, commonplace life as the wife of a bourgeois professional man, and the mother of nine children. But secretly there is another pattern, which has been a mirage all through her actual existence — the ‘might have been’ pattern of her relations with a man of genius, now accepted and acclaimed as the greatest figure of his age.

The story is that of her arrival, of the visits she receives from members of the Goethe circle, of the dinner party at which the meeting with the great man takes place, and of a drive from the theatre when she and Goethe part again. During the course of the story the whole history of his life emerges, as well as a vivid picture of the society at Weimar, but the real fascination of the book is the dramatic revelation, by means of conversation and soliloquy, of the personalities of the chief actors, and the ironic light that this revelation throws on the mysteries of genius and character, on life and art, on ‘the phenomenon of greatness, of the great man who is as much man as he is great.’

W’e see Goethe in his assured position of the Grand Old Man, surrounded by sycophants, proud of their association with him, but inwardly keenly critical of his susceptibility to flattery, his impatience with lesser minds, his domination of his son, his refusal to understand the ideals and aspirations of younger writers, his total lack of consideration for others, his meanness in money matters. In a reverie, we follow the workings of Goethe’s own mind. He plans his work: ‘But who shall play the fiddle to my words? Who understand, who hearten and praise before it comes to birth? Without it, I lose my zest.’

The insolent egotism of the artist stands naked. His mind seizes on knowledge, abstractions, perceptions, and human experience with a hypersensitive consciousness unknown to the common world, and re-forms them by the creative process into works of art; but it must be fed itself continually by the ideas of others, the lives of others, the love of others, the freedom and happiness of others.