Popular Culture Review Vol. 17, No. 1, Winter 2006 | Page 30

26 Popular Culture Review buckets of earth next to the bed he suspects that something might be hidden in them. To his disgust, all he finds are date pits. He wonders why Goethe needs to raise date trees next to his bed when dates can be bought anywhere (116). Thus are Goethe’s scientific efforts judged by Beri. The reader further learns that Goethe is not working on any new piece of writing (he is still writing Iphegenia) and that he spends his days drawing badly. Ortheil is eager to supply these details through Beri’s naive observations. For readers familiar with Goethe’s Italienische Reise, the humor is subtle but evident, lying partly in the contrast between Beri’s literal observations and simplistic explanations of Goethe’s actions and Goethe’s own account. For those who have not read much Goethe, the humor depends more on Ortheil’s characterization of Beri and the process of his change. Beri’s innocent observations evolve as he too is drawn under Goethe’s spell. Upon reading Werther he projects Werther’s situation onto Goethe. Goethe, he decides, must be in Rome to recover from his youthful love for a married woman. (Goethe is at this point close to forty). Determined to help his new friend, Beri arranges for his childhood friend, Rosina, to seduce Goethe. Her best efforts are to no avail, and Beri is mightily puzzled as to how someone in the prime of life can so consistently resist all temptation. Goethe eventually confides to Beri his fear of entanglement and venereal disease, “the Roman girls have their own way. You know, of whomever wants to have them, they ask immediately, when is the wedding? And the others, the ones that are haveable, they are a danger for many reasons.”4 The explanation Ortheil’s Goethe gives Beri is almost identical to a complaint the real Goethe made to Herzog Carl August in a letter from December 1787,5 reflecting Ortheil’s use of source materials. It is ironic that Goethe eventually consummates his visit to Rome and gains sexual freedom with Faustina, Beri’s girlfriend. Ortheil does not dwell on whether this is Goethe’s first experience with intercourse (a la Goethe biographer K.R. Eissler)6 or merely an intense sexual experience. Through Beri’s description the reader learns that Goethe is a changed man. The happier Goethe becomes with his mysterious lover—ironically, Beri is the only one who knows her identity—the more despondent Beri. Beri’s efforts to change Goethe from an “ungliicklicher Nordmensch” (Kurzke 5) [unhappy northerner] into a happy-go-lucky Roman is successful, except that it backfires for Beri. As Kurzke observes, “Goethe’s turning towards the world contrasts with Beri’s turning inward. At the end Goethe is the free Roman and Beri the stiff stranger.”7 As Goethe successfully emerges from Wertherdom, Beri becomes the hero of Goethe’s greatest literary success. Struzyk’s Caroline unterm Freiheitsbaum is a collection of chronological scenes representing turning points in the life of Caroline Schelling, “geborene Michaelis, verwittwete Bohmer, geschiedene Schlegel” (back cover) [nee Michaelis, widowed Bohmer, divorced Schlegel]. At the beginning of the novel, Caroline, aged three, hides under her father’s desk and listens to a discussion between her father and Benjamin Franklin. One of the