The Wandering Son Presents: Read and Re-Read

In the few weeks that I've been here, I've gone through a few books  (in English, not in German, I'm afraid).  Four books, to be exact.  Two of them were new to me.  They were The Reader by Bernhard Schlink and Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bible! by Jonathan Goldstein.  The other two were old favorites: Goethe's Faust I, trans. Randall Jarrell, and The Master and Margarita by Bulgakov, trans. Mirra Ginsburg.  All of the books were excellent, and frankly, I read through them too quickly.  Before too long, I'll have to go back to each of them again.

Now, I wanted to go through the books and present a passage or a great quote from each, but I realized that the end result of this would be that no book in four would be done justice.  So I'm just going to recommend that you read all of them.  I'm also going to give you one of my favorite passages from Goethe and Jarrell's Faust. 

This comes from the scene where the doctor is translating St. John from what I assume to be Greek or Latin into German.

Faust

It is written: "In the beginning was the  Word!"
Already I have to stop!  Who'll help me on?
It's impossible to put such trust in the Word!
I must translate some other way
If I am truly enlightened by the spirit.
It is written: "In the beginning was the Thought!"
Think hard of that first line,
Make sure your pen does not outrun itself!
Is it the Thought that moves and creates everything?
It should be: "In the beginning was the Power!"
Yet even as I write it down, 
Already something warns me not to keep it.
The spirit helps me!  All at once I see the answer
And write it confidently:
"In the beginning was the Deed!"