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Goethe doesn't just write in German, he is the very definition of the German language. This book, as well as das Leiden des Jungen Werters, have clearly shown to me the beauty of die Deutsche Sprache.
Because of this reason I would recommend everybody with only the slightest knowledge of German, to read this in the original language. A translation could never grasp the majestic feeling in which Goethe seems to soak all his words.

Die Wahlverwandschaften is in the first place a book about interpersonal relationships. The titles refers to the chemistry that occurs when certain people are placed together. In this book, a wealthy couple, Eduard and Charlotte, invites two friends: one, a frail, polite girl, the other a solemn guy, who temporarily is out of work. It does not take long until things start to change in this once stable family: in no time Eduard falls in love with Otillie, the girlfriend of Charlotte. And Charlotte starts having feelings for Hauptmann, the friend of Eduard.

The passion, the forbidden love, is a theme that Goethe handles well. The desperate feelings that the protagonists experience are translated into descriptions of intense craving for something that cannot be. Especially interesting is how each person deals differently with the emotions he or she experiences and this supports the main point of the work: people are slaves to their personalities.

One should not live his life without having read at least one work by Goethe. It makes you think about the way we experience emotions, and how we are all part of a mysterious game, driven by even more mysterious forces. Emotions can be as destructive as they are beautiful. ( )

Dopo un anno ritorno da Goethe, da quello stesso Goethe che mi ha tormentata per settimane infinite con il suo Werther, da quello stesso scrittore che mi è stato vicino e mi ha fatto compagnia con le sue parole sincere, profonde, sensibili.
Ho fatto ritorno tra le braccia di Goethe dopo un anno esatto e, dopo un anno esatto, continuo ad amarlo e ad essergli amica.
Il suo romanzo, anche questa volta, mi è stato un amico leale e, forse, persino più di un amico: esso è stato per me confidente e - per citare Kafka - esso è stato per me il coltello col quale frugare dentro me stessa. Ho forse capito meglio l’amore, l’essere affini, affinità, ma, soprattutto, l’essere affinità elettive.
- rapporti umani = rapporti chimici - così ho goffamente, ingenuamente, rozzamente scritto a matita a margine di una pagina di questo romanzo. Perché anche noi siamo fatti di elementi chimici, noi siamo chimica, ed è dunque la chimica che ci attrae gli uni con gli altri.
Ho amato questo libro, l’ho amato e me ne sono presa cura tanto quanto, spero, lui abbia avuto cura di me, del mio cuore giovane e colmo di sogni e di speranze, del mio cuore innamorato dell’amore e del romanticismo, e della mia anima forte e fragile a un tempo, cauta e avventata, pacata ed irruente. Goethe si è, un’altra volta, preso cura di me con la più totale delicatezza e gentilezza.
Goethe ha sempre cura di me, si pena per e con me, mi aiuta a gioire e a piangere, a morire e a rinascere. Questo scrittore è la mia medicina, così lo sono i suoi romanzi e questo, questo breve e immenso romanzo, è una autentica professione d’amore incondizionato e puro. ( )

It is very important you read a good edition of this book- as it affects the translation. I read one edition almost to the end and restarted from another, and it was an entirely different experience. The one I preferred, invariably, was the one you can find for free on the "Online Library of Liberty" website.

As per the novel, it was amazing. There are ups, downs, tribulations, foils, the switching of motivations and emotions, love, obsession, and overall unity of form. It is a surprising journey from inception to denouement and there is something to be garnered from each and every character. The language, indeed, at times approaches the sublime as well (as well as Odette's diary entries--aphorism in themselves) that unite the entirety of the experience together in a closely knit flashion.

4.5 stars--well deserved too! ( )

Elective Affinities is a bit of slog (hard to tell whether that's because of the translation from German language or the inscrutableness of turn-of-the-19th-century German aristocracy), but it's also not without certain charms. If it weren't for Ottilie's observations as scattered throughout, I wouldn't have been able to finish it; she's a highly entertaining character amidst a cast of bores.

Goethe has chosen pessimistic themes such as tragedy, death, and fatalism to illustrate an optimistic one, that of love. Well, the scientific or chemical attraction of love and how the laws of man regarding love and marriage are no match for laws of nature for the latter requires a conformity that may not be natural at all.

I can't imagine to whom I would ever recommend this, but I'm glad I read it. ( )