RIP Harlan Ellison

It's only a short story. Ellison adapted it and expanded it over the years, but the version that appears as the last short story in the collection entitled The Beast That Shouted Love At The Heart Of The World is the one that more or less made the story's reputation.

Goethe rapidly grew to dislike his early, over-the-top ('Sturm und Drang') work, of which Die Leiden des jungen Werthers is one example. Didn't stop him conducting lifelong feuds with anyone who made fun of it though.

It was actually a banned book in many places, such as Leipzig, Denmark and Italy. No book can be wholly bad which gains that accolade.

Goethe was really a scientist and philosopher, whose dramas, poetry and novels were too rooted in literary theory to be readable just for pleasure. Certainly not in translation, although the original German can shine sometimes, particularly in Part 1 of Faust.

His best book was one he didn't write himself: his Conversations with Eckermann. It's full of the experiences of a man in his seventies who's seen and done everything, and no longer cares about whether he says the correct things or whom he offends.

I'm half-way through "A Boy and His Dog". Easy-reading, imaginative, macho, futuristic fiction. Good so far.