poncho's Reviews > Faust, First Part

Faust by Goethe was the very first book (apart from textbooks, of course) I ever put my hands on. It was assigned to me when I was in middle school for my Spanish class. I know it's a German play, but the teacher was encouraging us to read by asking the whole classroom to donate a book for the course, put it in a box with the others and then randomly pick up one of them each month — now that I think of it, the teacher should have payed more attention to the books we brought, since I don't think Faust was appropriate for a twelve-year-old. I chose, however, this play by Goethe, having no idea what it was about. And, well, I remained so for twelve years more, since I never read more than ten pages perhaps, until four days ago that I finally got a copy of it. Unlike many readers I know, I didn't acquire my taste for literature and reading from an early age; I didn't grew up reading stories and I didn't ever feel like I was immersed in a magic world of fantastic creatures and rainbows — what some people claim literature is about. Instead, I got interested in such delightful activities for two main reasons. One of them was that I was a Radiohead fan in high school and there's this song based on Orwell's 1984, but I was told that it was based on Animal Farm (false), so I thought it would be a good idea to read it. The other reason is that by this same time I took a philosophy course and I remember I was so amazed by Plato's allegory of the cave that I finally decided I wanted to know more about life, and I thought books had the answers of the many questions I asked myself and everything I wanted to know; that within their pages I was going to find the answer. Now that I've read a little bit more, I've come to realize that literature is such a passionate and sublime art indeed, but it hardly provides answers and it actually makes you question more and more — which is great, don't get me wrong, for it makes you try harder to think for yourself — but I'd say one answer makes two more questions. In this everlasting search for meaning I found myself in Dr. Heinrich Faust, the main character in this poetic play. Even though, unlike him, I haven't studied philosophy, medicine and theology with ardent zeal, I do feel like a wretched fool. I think Goethe's point was to make an emphasis in this lack of something in human understanding and that no matter how hard we try there'll be always something greater than us that we won't be able to understand with our minds designed for only three dimensions, like Ivan Karamazov said. It's important to take into consideration the fact that Goethe did believe in God, that for him, God was this higher being that begot mankind; but he was not in favor of the way the Church was organized; and both, believes and disbelieves are brought up to discussion throughout the whole play. He believed, for instance, that God made the Universe perfect and so did the Angels believed; but that's when Mephistopheles, the fallen angel, enters the scene, asking for permission to say a word. He says the Universe isn't perfect since Man still feels miserable. Then he makes a wager with God upon Faust's soul, with arguments based on the book of Job, that is, that if Faust's life is changed by blow after blow of tragedy, he would stop being God's faithful son, though unlike the Biblical character, who at the end realises about God's highness, in this play Faust seems to be more and more miserable. Also, there's the fact that in Job the fallen angel didn't exactly hang out with him, like Mephisto did with Faust. Thus, when the man's life comes to an end, he on whose side Faust is, will keep his soul. Therefore, there are many converging points in both books, but they differ from each other.

So Faust is a very learned man who has studied everything that ever existed, and yet he still feels he's missing something about existence, something that isn't written down in those books and that perhaps cannot be put to words. He even struggles while trying to translate the word logos in the Gospel of Luke: "In the beginning was the Word". He wonders whether it was the deed instead of the word, because he feels that words, literacy, do not lit his soul the way perhaps a passionate deed would. He then expresses the words that have become famous because of their depth and their importance in this work: 'Two souls, alas, dwell in my breast, each seeks to rule without the other.' Thus, he begins to look beyond theories and tries something new: magic and alchemy. I don't want to get into specific details about the plot,  but there's a point when he summons the Earth Spirit, something that according to some sources, was Goethe's own contribution to his supernatural play, being no former record of such a spirit either in Christianity or in pagan mythology — I think for Goethe, the Earth Spirit represented an instance of God, like when Moses saw the brush burned in fire. And it's the Spirit who lowers this learned man to his human condition, making him aware of his delimited understanding. Faust, however, persists and trying to prove his godliness, he tries to commit suicide, when suddenly the the church bells ring and an angelic choir from above is heard, announcing Christ's resurrection. Later in the play, Faust finds a lost poodle and takes it home, when suddenly the animal reshapes into Mephistopheles, who unlike the Earth Spirit, makes the doctor believe he can achieve anything if he stays with him and serves him when his soul leaves his body; to which Faust answers that little does he care for the afterlife when all he wants is to actually feel he's living this life. The agreement is settled with blood.

"Gray, my friend, is every theory,
and green alone life's golden tree."

Then at a witch's place, Faust sees a beautiful woman in the mirror and he asks Mephisto to grant him the wish of possessing so beautiful a woman and after some mumbo-jumbo by the witch, he takes a potion of sorts to achieve his passionate goals. Then he meets Gretchen, also known as Margaret, and that's what Faust's misery gets worse — and even worse for Gretchen, who before meeting Faust and his horrid companion was such a pure creature that at first Mephisto does not think he can get her. Eventually Gretchen is persuaded by Faust enchantments — of course, gotten by such a supernatural aid — but as her passion towards Faust increases, misfortune falls upon her family, until the final disgrace comes, before which Faust is ushered by Mephisto to the  Walpurus Night: an exotic event hosted by witches and having paganism as entertainment — I guess it's like the Super Bowl for witches. Later, we find out that during this exotic and frightful evening, Gretchen lost her mind after his brother, murder by Faust's evil companion, called her a whore in his last adieu, so she drowns her baby, is taken to prison and given a death sentence. Faust blames Mephistopheles for distracting him at the Walpurus Night instead of taking him to save Gretchen. This is when I realised Goethe used Mephisto to point out the flaws of our minds, sometimes in earnest, sometimes in jest, like people's tendency to blame external, sometimes supernatural causes for their mistakes. Gretchen's given the chance to scape prison helped by her lover and his friend, but instead of going evil ways, she chooses what would seem as tragedy and condemnation to some, like Mephistopheles, but under the gaze of the Heavenly, she's saved, leaving an open door for Faust to go the same way and make the right decision. I'm afraid Goethe wrote the second part until the last year of his life. The redirection of Margarete's path was perhaps inevitable once she entered Faust's toxic influence, but in the end she had the chance to choose either condemnation or salvation, and perhaps that's Goethe's main point: to remark virtue through iniquity. It works similarly, perhaps, as Milton did in his Paradise Lost. As a matter of fact, like the latter took the epic poems as notary influence, Shakespeare had the same kind of impact with the author of Faust — nonetheless, his gift and his technique stand on their own.

This is a must-read classic and it is one of those books I call a literary delight. But all the subjects I've tried (perhaps unsuccessfully) to expose in this review are precisely the reasons why I don't think Faust is a good choice for a twelve-year-old beginner. Not because of its difficulty, but I think as one grows older one has a better chance of appreciating Goethe's perfectly constructed verses, of having a different perspective upon all the sorrowful, theological, obscure and erotic points by him exposed. It's frightening yet beautiful; it's heavenly yet humane; it's a play and a poem. I'm not as learned as Doctor Faust, but I think I found in reading this book the kind of fervor he was looking for.

"I awake with horror in the morning,
and bitter tears well up in me
when I must face each day that in its course
cannot fulfill a single wish, not one!"

[Faust and the Earth Spirit. Illustrated by Goethe himself.]