So has any one read of or heard of his book? I justed started reading Demian and I have to say its really good.
Along with Joyce and Marcel, Hesse is my favorite novelist of the 20th century. I’ve read a number of his novels, Siddhartha, Narcissus and Goldmund, Journey to the East, Beneath the Wheel. They’re all great, but Steppenwolf is closest to my heart, and I think it’s his best. The way it celebrates the nature of living and learning to live made it something of a textbook for me, about returning from isolated thought and depression to things that are alive like music and art and love and death. And the laughter of the immortals started to haunt me too. I think it’s like Harold Bloom says of Hamlet and his expanding consciousness, when Claudious orders “bring me light” and Hamlet dances,the spontaneous fireworks of the imagination, as when Harry goes down to the valley to shoot cars and when he finds his own case study on the empty streets.
Siddhartha, of course, and Narcissus and Goldmund, the latter of the two which I respect a bit more. They’re similar, in any case. I started Steppenwolf, but I can’t quite remember where I put it.
I’ll have to agree with what Sil said, and further recommend his fairy tales.
Ah yes, I’ve read <I>Steppenwolf</I> for my literature course, and I truly enjoyed it. I’ve been thinking about reading more of his books, but it’s still on my to-do list.
I read Siddhartha in my tenth grade literature class - I can say that was one of the better books I was required to read in there. Unfortunately, I haven’t read any of his other works.