Always find it hilarious how Hesse's poetic response to his 50yo mid life crisis was so misinterpreted he had to write a whole preface screaming at the hippies how they got it all wrong.
so too was his swan song The Glass Bead Game recapitulating the same story of intellectual becoming and being that he was always striving towards. Quite the capstone, winning the pulitzer for literature, it does encompass and refine many of the his previous novels so adequately it's a great work if you're only going to read one from Hesse. It's just that his others are shorter and more well known but by the time you've read a handful and go to Magister Ludi it feels redundant and a bit ornate in comparison though plenty enjoyable and insightful prose for sure
11 months ago
Anonymous
did you like Glass Bead Game? I remember getting uncomfortably horny during the last chapter but mostly feeling nothing while reading it
11 months ago
Anonymous
I found it pretty dry t.b.h. I enjoyed the short stories at the end more than the main narrative.
11 months ago
Anonymous
I did enjoy it though it is a bit long and dry which is forgivable for an opus if not for the fact that as I said it feels a bit like a greatest hits medley of his past works so it's hard to say I got much out of it whereas Siddartha was hugely impactful as a teen. Like the typical bildungsroman stuff - intellectual idealism vs an emotive being living as part of the world - that's relatable to youth is all there but less profound and the clear meat of the novel is the later chapters when the aged protagonist has climbed the ladder so to speak and turns his attention to the individuals power/lessness in affairs of legacy, impact, grand narratives and Hesse seems to walk away from the chessboard into the ocean. a legal literary move, maybe the only meaningful one, but feels like a cop-out at such a juncture.
I have pic rel to dig into. should make a thread about it when I do
enjoyed his book of quotes 'Reflections' too, worth a library checkout anyways
11 months ago
Anonymous
the minions were inspired by that book cover
11 months ago
Anonymous
also been meaning to make some threads out of this wacky Timothy Leary (yes that one) subculture 90s book from the hayday of cyberpunk psychonauts.
Think Siddhartha is deeper than you give it credit for. Most of Hesse's characters have an unreliability to them where you can't take their supposed spiritual growth at face value (Demian and Steppenwolf signpost the unreliability more with the layers of metafiction), and Siddhartha is the same. It also has the benefit of supreme elegance and economy of style, so you can finish the whole book in a few hours, which is a marvel of craft and condensation.
The whole book was great. It’s heavily I friended by Hindu and I would say even biblical thought and philosophy so if you aren’t familiar with that in a significant way you may just be bored out of your mind for a large chunk of the book.
Yes, but if you have never been “experienced” or practiced any sort of meditation that revolves around the nature of self, you may find yourself scoffing at Hesse or confused. If you’re a Christian don’t even bother.
It's a book you should read in your 50s. Hesse specifically warns against reading it too early.
Congrats, you made the dumbest possible post about Steppenwolf.
>man is in gloom and despair >just needs a woman to take him out of his shell
I think it's an over simplication of a real cultural issue such as suicide and depression
People should stop posting this "about dancing" meme when the dancing is just the bare, thin surface of this part which is mostly Harry socalizing in the "normal", physical world outside of his intellectual shell and finding things about life and himself through it (the whole first and second part of the book are very reminiscing of the "two worlds" idea I presented in Demian, but more expanded [and there's more than two worlds now]). The physical movements of dancing are not even discussed, aside from namedropping "foxtrot" and "tango" and "boston" and so on.
/lit/erati usually divide the book in three parts, the first, which is about "a lonely guy", the second, which is about "dancing", and the third, which is "dude trip". As if these were just what the book were about.
Steppenwolf shouldn't be in starters chart, most of its nuances are lost on steppenwolves such as most posters in this thread.
First thing that came to mind
I'm glad my brain isn't as rotten as yours.
Literally fricking gay. The only good part is the trippy last few chapters. Hesse is for teenagers who barely read.
Only if you've done the necessary background reading. If you don't know what individuation is, don't even touch Steppenwolf.
You're exactly the kind of reader Hesse himself complained about.
NOT FOR EVERYBODY ... especially homosexuals like you.
Always find it hilarious how Hesse's poetic response to his 50yo mid life crisis was so misinterpreted he had to write a whole preface screaming at the hippies how they got it all wrong.
so too was his swan song The Glass Bead Game recapitulating the same story of intellectual becoming and being that he was always striving towards. Quite the capstone, winning the pulitzer for literature, it does encompass and refine many of the his previous novels so adequately it's a great work if you're only going to read one from Hesse. It's just that his others are shorter and more well known but by the time you've read a handful and go to Magister Ludi it feels redundant and a bit ornate in comparison though plenty enjoyable and insightful prose for sure
did you like Glass Bead Game? I remember getting uncomfortably horny during the last chapter but mostly feeling nothing while reading it
I found it pretty dry t.b.h. I enjoyed the short stories at the end more than the main narrative.
I did enjoy it though it is a bit long and dry which is forgivable for an opus if not for the fact that as I said it feels a bit like a greatest hits medley of his past works so it's hard to say I got much out of it whereas Siddartha was hugely impactful as a teen. Like the typical bildungsroman stuff - intellectual idealism vs an emotive being living as part of the world - that's relatable to youth is all there but less profound and the clear meat of the novel is the later chapters when the aged protagonist has climbed the ladder so to speak and turns his attention to the individuals power/lessness in affairs of legacy, impact, grand narratives and Hesse seems to walk away from the chessboard into the ocean. a legal literary move, maybe the only meaningful one, but feels like a cop-out at such a juncture.
I have pic rel to dig into. should make a thread about it when I do
enjoyed his book of quotes 'Reflections' too, worth a library checkout anyways
the minions were inspired by that book cover
also been meaning to make some threads out of this wacky Timothy Leary (yes that one) subculture 90s book from the hayday of cyberpunk psychonauts.
Neat section on The Glass Bead Game and AI
https://www.nothuman.net/images/files/discussion/4/37561d7460de8b72d318bacea6d16d11.pdf
Think Siddhartha is deeper than you give it credit for. Most of Hesse's characters have an unreliability to them where you can't take their supposed spiritual growth at face value (Demian and Steppenwolf signpost the unreliability more with the layers of metafiction), and Siddhartha is the same. It also has the benefit of supreme elegance and economy of style, so you can finish the whole book in a few hours, which is a marvel of craft and condensation.
The whole book was great. It’s heavily I friended by Hindu and I would say even biblical thought and philosophy so if you aren’t familiar with that in a significant way you may just be bored out of your mind for a large chunk of the book.
> Its gay
> But the gayest parts of it is the only good part
Anon..
>it was not meant to be an instruction manual
I loved it personally
Yes, but if you have never been “experienced” or practiced any sort of meditation that revolves around the nature of self, you may find yourself scoffing at Hesse or confused. If you’re a Christian don’t even bother.
Yes, yes
Its a book you should read in your 20's. It us really embarrassing that Hesse was over 50 when he wrote it.
It's a book you should read in your 50s. Hesse specifically warns against reading it too early.
Congrats, you made the dumbest possible post about Steppenwolf.
Anime-tier nonsense.
I kinda saw a hole in it when I was reading it.
>man is in gloom and despair
>just needs a woman to take him out of his shell
I think it's an over simplication of a real cultural issue such as suicide and depression
the first 70 pages or so are good. the next 100 pages are about dancing, and then the rest of the book is some kind of LSD trip
i rate it 2.5/5
People should stop posting this "about dancing" meme when the dancing is just the bare, thin surface of this part which is mostly Harry socalizing in the "normal", physical world outside of his intellectual shell and finding things about life and himself through it (the whole first and second part of the book are very reminiscing of the "two worlds" idea I presented in Demian, but more expanded [and there's more than two worlds now]). The physical movements of dancing are not even discussed, aside from namedropping "foxtrot" and "tango" and "boston" and so on.
/lit/erati usually divide the book in three parts, the first, which is about "a lonely guy", the second, which is about "dancing", and the third, which is "dude trip". As if these were just what the book were about.
Steppenwolf shouldn't be in starters chart, most of its nuances are lost on steppenwolves such as most posters in this thread.
>Reads Steppenwolf
>Born To Be Wild plays