'love, life, Goethe'

The above is the title of a philosophical study by John Armstrong which takes a look at the life of the German writer Goethe. It is subtitled 'how to be happy in an imperfect world'.

My copy, a flea market bargain, is a Penguin published in 2007. I've had it a while and looked into the first chapter and the 'Notes on Pronunciation' a couple of times. But now I've finally got around to reading it.

That is to say I'm about 60 pages into it. Only 420 more to go! But I'm enjoying it and I'm confident I will happily work my way through to the end.

Apropos 'the end', I decided this morning to take a look in the back of the book to see if there was an index. Well there wasn't, but there was something called a 'Thematic Register'. It's like an index but not as detailed.

And then I noticed some underlinings made in blue biro, not in the 'Thematic Register' but just before it, in fact in the last 3 pages of the main body of text which is headed 'The End and the Beginning'.

Here they are in context:

The Crooked Timbers of Humanity

This is part of Goethe's sanity - the fact that he isn't hysterical about the human condition, while not being naive.

- we need to be strong. One of the points he keeps on making is that we need to master ourselves.

The Task of Life

the message Goethe is trying to send us isn't a plea to understand him, or the impotent command that we become like him, but rather, that like him we should take courage in an infinitely more worthwhile task - that of becoming ourselves.