Clare Hall Book Club

Join the College’s Book Club as they discuss Elective Affinities by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

Eduard and Charlotte are an aristocratic couple who live a harmonious but idle life in their estate. But the peace of their existence is thrown into chaos when two visitors – Eduard’s friend the Captain and Charlotte’s passionate young ward Ottilie – provoke unexpected attraction and forbidden love. Taking its title from the principle of elective affinities – the theory that certain chemicals are naturally drawn to one another – this is a penetrating study of marriage and adultery. Inspired by Goethe’s own conflicting loyalties as he battled to maintain his relationship with his wife and control his feelings for a younger woman, Elective Affinities, first published in 1809, is one of the greatest works of the romance era: a rich exploration of love, conflict, and the inescapable force of fate.

The book can be found in Google’s Good Reads, Penguin Classics 2005 (320 pp), and in the Gutenberg Project as a free Kindle and E book.

All College members are welcome to attend in-person, meeting in Clare Hall’s Meeting Room, or via Zoom. If you are not on the mailing list and would like to be, please send an email to gloria.carnevali@icloud.com, confirming your Clare Hall connection and putting the following as the email title: I would like to join the Book Club mailing list.

Learn more about the Book Club on this page.