Book Review - Herman Hesse: The Glass Bead Game
Considering my long hiatus on LJ, I thought it would be nice if I wrote something. Following the link on MWT (Ner's) blog to Jeri's blog, I saw one of her book reviews, which gave me this idea. I read a lot (not that I want to brag), mostly sci fi, a little fantasy and some classical literature.
The first book I'm going to review is Herman Hesse's Glass Bead Game. During my high school education, my professors always suggested Hesse as a required reading for any would-be intellectual. I always fancied him as highly larpurlartistic, so I decided not to dabble into his works until I reached university. Now, with the first year of university behind me, I finally got my hands on a book written by Herman Hesse! Before I go into detail about the book, here's something about the author.
Hesse is a Nobel prize winning German writer and poet. He lived in the times of WW I and even joined the Imperial army. Despite this, he called out to German intellectuals not to fall to patriotism, which created future problems for him with the German press. He lived to see the rise of Nazis in Germany, just before WW II. He was relatively unknown to the larger public until The Glass Bead Game and the aforementioned Nobel prize he won for it, which skyrocketed his works into the classics of European literature.
His work is under the strong influence of psychoanalysis, which was at the time on the rise. Coupled with the influence of psychoanalysis is the recurring themes from Asian culture and religion, especially Buddhist traditions (e.g. meditation). These two influences are a reasonable combination, considering the roots of psychoanalysis are in Hindu and Buddhist views of the subconscious and other elements vital for psychoanalysis. An interesting tidbit of information is that Hesse personally met Carl Gustav Jung.
The Glass Bead Game is a novel written as Bildungsroman, a typical German novelistic genre which describes the psychological and social influences on the protagonist, chronicling his life from early childhood. The novel's protagonist is Joseph Knecht. Knecht surname is a sort of a pun because the word 'knecht' in German means a knight or a servant. It can be said that this duality of meaning in Knecht's surname is analyzed and discussed through the whole novel, and his biography only serves to illustrate to the reader this constant shifting between the slave and the leader role and position Knecth experiences during his life and education.
The opening chapter of the novel announces that Knecht is a legend at the time when his chronicler (years, or even centuries after Knecht's death) writes this. He was one of the most (in)famous Magister Ludis of the Glass Bead Game. Magister Ludi is yet another pun, this time in Latin and not in German, because it can mean master of the game or master of the school. Hesse never fully explains his Glass Bead Game, but only insinuates its scope and meaning through the book. The game represents the synthesis of science and art, all in all, all culture human kind has achieved during its existence. It consists of complicated formulas and a whole artificial language with which everything from art to science can be expressed, and even more importantly, interconnected. Hesse compares the game to music or mathematics, possibly because it follows a set of rigid rules akin to mathematical formulas and musical notation, but on a much larger scale.
The novel follows Knecht's education from his earliest age in an elementary school to his introduction to life in Castalia. Castalia is a region in Hesse's future Earth where the Glass Bead Game is practiced and its players are educated. It is a heaven for intellectuals, following strict monastic laws and principles and it's fully devouted to science and arts. It can be said that Castalia is the larpurlartistic and sciencepurscience utopia, where higher education and refinement is a cause unto itself.
Throughout his novel, Hesse questions the real purpose of higher forms of culture manifested in arts and science, rivaling the themes of survival and every day life with refined education. His Glass Bead Game represents the pinnacle of that which is viewed as extravagant and useless in human culture, but because of that, he makes it the most valuable and the most fragile thing culture can offer.
The novels plot is a bit slow, and the novel is full of digressing essays which reflect the author's thoughts on the subjects I mentioned before. Despite the novel's setting centuries in the future, there's no advanced technology mentioned. Hesse didn't bother with describing the rest of the world, focusing only on Castalia.
I'm glad to say that it was a smart thing for me to wait with reading Hesse's Glass Bead Game, because if I have read it in my high school years, I doubt I would even scratch its depth of meaning. I've borrowed more of Hesse's novels from the library today and I hope reading them will be as exquisite as it was reading The Glass Bead Game!
The first book I'm going to review is Herman Hesse's Glass Bead Game. During my high school education, my professors always suggested Hesse as a required reading for any would-be intellectual. I always fancied him as highly larpurlartistic, so I decided not to dabble into his works until I reached university. Now, with the first year of university behind me, I finally got my hands on a book written by Herman Hesse! Before I go into detail about the book, here's something about the author.
Hesse is a Nobel prize winning German writer and poet. He lived in the times of WW I and even joined the Imperial army. Despite this, he called out to German intellectuals not to fall to patriotism, which created future problems for him with the German press. He lived to see the rise of Nazis in Germany, just before WW II. He was relatively unknown to the larger public until The Glass Bead Game and the aforementioned Nobel prize he won for it, which skyrocketed his works into the classics of European literature.
His work is under the strong influence of psychoanalysis, which was at the time on the rise. Coupled with the influence of psychoanalysis is the recurring themes from Asian culture and religion, especially Buddhist traditions (e.g. meditation). These two influences are a reasonable combination, considering the roots of psychoanalysis are in Hindu and Buddhist views of the subconscious and other elements vital for psychoanalysis. An interesting tidbit of information is that Hesse personally met Carl Gustav Jung.
The Glass Bead Game is a novel written as Bildungsroman, a typical German novelistic genre which describes the psychological and social influences on the protagonist, chronicling his life from early childhood. The novel's protagonist is Joseph Knecht. Knecht surname is a sort of a pun because the word 'knecht' in German means a knight or a servant. It can be said that this duality of meaning in Knecht's surname is analyzed and discussed through the whole novel, and his biography only serves to illustrate to the reader this constant shifting between the slave and the leader role and position Knecth experiences during his life and education.
The opening chapter of the novel announces that Knecht is a legend at the time when his chronicler (years, or even centuries after Knecht's death) writes this. He was one of the most (in)famous Magister Ludis of the Glass Bead Game. Magister Ludi is yet another pun, this time in Latin and not in German, because it can mean master of the game or master of the school. Hesse never fully explains his Glass Bead Game, but only insinuates its scope and meaning through the book. The game represents the synthesis of science and art, all in all, all culture human kind has achieved during its existence. It consists of complicated formulas and a whole artificial language with which everything from art to science can be expressed, and even more importantly, interconnected. Hesse compares the game to music or mathematics, possibly because it follows a set of rigid rules akin to mathematical formulas and musical notation, but on a much larger scale.
The novel follows Knecht's education from his earliest age in an elementary school to his introduction to life in Castalia. Castalia is a region in Hesse's future Earth where the Glass Bead Game is practiced and its players are educated. It is a heaven for intellectuals, following strict monastic laws and principles and it's fully devouted to science and arts. It can be said that Castalia is the larpurlartistic and sciencepurscience utopia, where higher education and refinement is a cause unto itself.
Throughout his novel, Hesse questions the real purpose of higher forms of culture manifested in arts and science, rivaling the themes of survival and every day life with refined education. His Glass Bead Game represents the pinnacle of that which is viewed as extravagant and useless in human culture, but because of that, he makes it the most valuable and the most fragile thing culture can offer.
The novels plot is a bit slow, and the novel is full of digressing essays which reflect the author's thoughts on the subjects I mentioned before. Despite the novel's setting centuries in the future, there's no advanced technology mentioned. Hesse didn't bother with describing the rest of the world, focusing only on Castalia.
I'm glad to say that it was a smart thing for me to wait with reading Hesse's Glass Bead Game, because if I have read it in my high school years, I doubt I would even scratch its depth of meaning. I've borrowed more of Hesse's novels from the library today and I hope reading them will be as exquisite as it was reading The Glass Bead Game!