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Title: The Glass Bead Game: (Magister Ludi) by Hermann Hesse, Richard Winston, Clara Winston ISBN: 0-312-27849-7 Publisher: Picador USA Pub. Date: 01 December, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.38 (56 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Hesse's Best
Comment: When in my 30s, after having read several of Hesse's novels, I attempted to read The Glass Bead Game. I couldn't get past the first 50 pages. I was unprepared to accept Hesse as a humourist and satirist. Now, approaching 60 and having learned not to take life or Hesse so seriously, I thoroughly enjoyed the book and consider it Hesse's greatest. A mature Hesse, who understood life's ironies, wrote The Glass Bead Game for a mature audience, who could laugh at life's ambiguities.
The Glass Bead Game is comprised of a novel, 13 poems, and 3 short stories. I think the reader would enjoy the novel more by reading the book in reverse order, starting with the three short stories: The Rainmaker, The Father Confessor, and The Indian Life. The underlying theme of the stories is that the forfeiture of self, or self-interest, leads to redemption or an awakening.
The poems superbly unite the novel's cultural, spiritual, and mental perspectives. Hesse's best known poem "Stages" is included. Here's a four line excerpt:
"If we accept a home of our making,
Familiar habit makes for indolence.
We must prepare for parting and leave-taking
Or else remain the slaves of permanence."
The novel is set in the future and located in the sequestered province of Castalia. This is a world of academia that consists of theory, analysis, interpretation, and debate - all elements of "the game". Absent from Castalia are action, creativity, originality, and experiment.
The protaganist, Joesph Knecht is raised in this culture. He also lived at a couple of subcultures outside Castalia. At Bamboo Grove, under Elder Brother's tutelage he learned to meditate, play I-Ching, read Chuang Tzu, and learn Chinese studies. (All this self absorption without gazing at his navel; instead, he stared at the carp.) Later at a Benedictine monastery he was the guest of Father Jacobus, with whom he discussed politics, religion, philosophy, music, and history. Knecht learned everything to play "the game" and was elevated to the role of Magister Ludi. But his knowledge went unapplied beyond Castalia.
Even those within Castalia were not immune to mid-life crisis. Knecht, while in his 50s is impacted by the words in "Stages":
"Serenely let us move to distant places
And let no sentiments of home detain us.
The Cosmic Spirit seeks not to restrain us
But lifts us stage by stage to wider spaces."
Anyone who has made a break from the routine will enjoy The Glass Bead Game.
Rating: 5
Summary: Magisterial
Comment: A magisterial work of art (excuse the pun)! A synthesis of profound philosophy, captivating storytelling and that distinctive smattering of sublime moments particular to the greatest of novels. In masterful fashion, Hesse achieves a seemingly impossible balancing trick of, on the one hand, invoking the game as a metaphor for the sum of human experience and knowledge yet, on the other hand, never allowing the reader to directly encounter it's practice. Would that it were so that one were fortunate enough to have the time to re-read this book many times over.
Rating: 3
Summary: Too bloated and unclear to enjoy
Comment: Hermann Hesse is my second-favourite writer, but this is the only of his eleven novels which I found boring, bloated, and a chore instead of a delight and joy to read. It's not because it's long (I love long books, the longer the better in fact, and this book is far from the longest book I've ever read), but because there's a lack of focus on a real plot. Hesse was a master at writing short memorable novels; by the time this one ends, in media res, you get the feeling that he realised he'd created a monster and needed to slay it before things got any further out of control and there were another 400 or so pages dedicated to the life of Joseph Knecht! All of his other books, even the earlier less-memorable ones like 'Peter Camenzind' and 'Knulp,' can be summed up by giving distinct synopses of what happens in each chapter, or a memorable scene from each chapter. You don't get that here. It's so given over to the story of the life of the mind that it loses track of the lively things which make his other books so enjoyable. I never even made out any sort of plot beyond describing things that happened to Joseph Knecht. Hesse's other books usually have friendship as one of the important plots, like the friendships shared by Narcissus and Goldmund, Peter Camenzind and the poor cripple Boppi, and Max Demian and Emil Sinclair. The other characters in this book don't seem to do much in the way of friendship with Knecht besides philosophising. Father Jacobus would have made a great dramatic foil, but unfortunately he only appears in one chapter and then this potentially great character never shows up again. Even the most important foil, Plinio, gets bogged down in boring philosophy discussions. The closest we get here to a story of real human friendship is that between Knecht and the old Music Master, who is his mentor and father figure besides just a friend. This relationship is truly touching and one of the better parts of the novel.
Other problems with this book, besides being overly long and being bogged down in bloated conversations and philosophical meanderings, is that we're never really told how this Glass Bead Game is played. We get a general sense in the Introduction on its origins, but other than that there's no sense of how it's played, or how Knecht and his friends go about making their own sketches for future Games. And if it weren't stated in the introduction, I'd have no idea this story takes place in the 23rd century. A story set in the future doesn't have to be a sci-fi story, but it at least should be obvious that this story isn't set in the present. Where are all of the future technologies, for example, and where are all of the women? The only woman in this book is Plinio's wife, who doesn't even have a name. This book reads like it was written during WWII, which it was, not like a true book about a futurist utopia. We don't even know who's telling the story; is it an original document, a biography by an Castalian admirer, or a biography from a non-Castalian?
I also had a problem with Plinio Designori, the first person to come along and challenge Knecht to reevaluate the monastic and overly intellectual and stagnant lifestyle he's living in Castalia. After Plinio leaves the school, which he was attending as a privileged outsider, he doesn't return till their college years. He's offended and hurt that his friendship with Joseph isn't the same as it was before, and then years later, after Knecht has already become the new Magister Ludi, he confesses the depth of his feelings over this matter. I sympathise with Plinio, since this has happened to most people, but after you get over the wounded ego and hurt feelings, you usually come to realise that it's normal for friends to grow apart and develop other interests, particularly if they've been apart for awhile like he and Joseph were. People move on. This was bothering him for twenty whole years?
The poetry section and the "Three Lives" stories are so much better and much faster reading. I felt the story finally majorly picked up when there were only about 20 more pages left to go, and then bam, it ends so abruptly, in media res, with a lot of unanswered questions. I think I would have liked this book a whole lot more had it been condensed into maybe 300 pages and given more room to exploring Joseph's relationships with characters like Father Jacobus, Fritz Tegularius, and Carlo Ferromonte. I can admire Knecht for following his convictions, even though they went against the grain, and coming to these beliefs only after decades of careful thought, but I'd be able to sympathise with him a whole lot more if we got a clear idea of just how he got those beliefs, instead of being bogged down in layers of bloated and superfluous verbiage.
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Title: Steppenwolf: A Novel by Hermann Hesse, Basil Creighton ISBN: 0312278675 Publisher: Picador USA Pub. Date: 01 December, 2002 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Demian by Hermann Hesse ISBN: 0060931914 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 01 July, 1999 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: Narcissus and Goldmund by Hermann Hesse ISBN: 0553275860 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 01 February, 1984 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse ISBN: 0553208845 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 01 December, 1981 List Price(USD): $5.99 |
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Title: The Journey to the East by Hermann Hesse, Hilda Rosner ISBN: 0312421680 Publisher: Picador USA Pub. Date: 01 February, 2003 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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