Background
Hermann Hesse is one of the best authors I’ve ever read. His work, that’s heavily psychological and philosophical, is rich with beautiful images and ideas that display, above all else, an acute understanding of the internal struggles that comes with being human. Six months ago, I wrote an article on his magnum opus Glass Bead Game (it turns sixty this year), but of all of Hesse’s works that I have read (Siddhartha, Demian, Narcissus and Goldmund included), the one that has left an indelible mark on me the most is Steppenwolf.
I first read the book at a vulnerable moment in my life. Post graduation, I was in a space where I was figuring out what to do with my life, reflecting upon my life up to that point, and pursuing the difficult task of being self-knowledgeable, experiencing feelings such as disillusionment, loneliness, and despair. Reading Steppenwolf however, helped me to make sense of the world and the people around me, as well as develop perspective on life itself.
Published in 1927, the novel was Hesse’s tenth outing and it received mixed reviews originally because of its depictions of free sex and liberal drug use. But it would garner wider critical acclaim during the sixties (a whole band was named after the novel, think ‘Born to be Wild’) because it corresponded with the values of youth culture that included spirituality, self-discovery, sex, drugs, and rock and roll.
The novel follows a 47 year old man named Harry Haller who has come to his wits end. Despite the success he garnered as a journalist and intellectual, he hates himself, the life he’s lived, and the world around him. In short, he wants to die. His depression, stemming from his existential loneliness, has him resenting the hideousness of the modern world, which includes its frivolity, mundanity, and spiritual deadness, and the people around him who indulge in it. He reckons he’s apart from the world, like an alien, or rather, a wolf of the steppes (hence the title of the novel). Essentially, the book is about a suicidal man’s spiritual journey to fulfilment.
Structure
Structurally, the novel’s impressive. We understand the protagonist, Harry Haller, predominantly through the pages of his notebook (deemed for mad people only), which enables Hesse to present the extent to which Haller’s psyche is sick through the prose itself, which is rife with self-doubt, criticism, brutal suicidal images involving razors, as well as philosophical musings about art, modernity, and his relationship with other people. This sets the tone of the novel, of course, and reading it you cannot help but be consumed by the inextricable darkness of Haller’s psyche as a result, which can make for a chilling read in parts.
Before the pages of the notebook though, we’re first treated to an editor’s preface, whereby an acquaintance of Haller’s - the nephew of his landlady - recounts his own experience of Harry from a person to person perspective. This brilliantly emphasises the mythic nature of Harry’s character, verifying the perspective Harry has of himself, as someone who’s fundamentally alien to the world around him.
The novel features a tract a quarter of the way through the book that Harry discovers on one of his many wanderings. It acts as a linchpin of the novel because it not only describes Harry and his situation dispassionately to an uncanny degree, it’s a medium for some of Hesse’s most profound philosophy: discoursing on the human personality, the nature of genius, human interaction, and immortality. The tract serves as a guide for Harry’s self-discovery, foreshadowing the conclusions that Harry eventually comes to.
Characters
The characters in the novel are, of course, great. Perhaps one flaw I’d have with Hesse’s characters is that they all tend to be very intelligent or wise. From the works I’ve read of his, he doesn’t tend to write about average joes. But, I would say that his work does tend to be surreal, given that they are often concerning the experiences in people’s heads, so there’s that.
Hesse wonderfully presents Haller as someone who is suicidally depressed. He does so in a way that doesn’t make the reader wholly sympathetic of him either, which works given the ideas that are explored in the novel (I’ll get to them later, don’t you worry). We get a strong sense of someone who’s resentful and self-loathing to an uncomfortable (and, at times, laughable) degree, who’s childish, self-absorbed, and sentimental despite his sharp, albeit negative, assessment of human nature and his rich understanding of art, culture, and politics.
Hermoine is probably my favourite character in the novel. Hesse portrays her as Haller’s spiritual mentor and friend, despite indications of Haller’s sexual interest in her. She helps Haller in his journey to acceptance and spiritual fulfilment by making Harry aware of his entitlement, helping him understand the simplicity of life’s demands, and making him consider the flaws in his perception regarding himself, the artists he venerates, and the people around him. There’s an argument that Hermoine is Harry’s female side (his anima, as you will, Hesse read a lot of Carl Jung), but nonetheless she restores Harry’s involvement in his own life.
Characters like Maria and Pablo are great foil characters also. Pablo, who’s a simple musician (that’s literally how Harry perceives him initially), is like Harry’s antithesis. He ultimately teaches him the value of living the life of the heart. Maria, Harry’s lover, (who’s a sexworker), teaches Harry how to experience ordinary love, since (as Hermoine puts it) Harry’s all-too familiar with the experience of love in the tragic mode. Hesse expertly depicts Harry’s unfolding realisation that he is as human as the people he would typically judge, and that such people, who don’t make thinking their priority, are as complicated and dreamy and passionate as he presents himself to be in the realm of ideas.
Ideas
But of course, it wouldn’t be a Hesse article by me if I didn’t talk about the philosophy. Honestly, Steppenwolf has some of the best philosophy I’ve read. I must’ve read the tract part of the novel 10 times because that’s the part where the philosophy is most blatant. Through this novel, Hesse discusses ideas about what it means to be human, the complexity of the human personality, greatness, immortality, and the nature of life itself.
These ideas bear out in the characters, but more precisely, for example, discussed in the tract, Hesse draws attention to how people tend to cling onto their sense of self, and ultimately limit their potential: people tolerate and cultivate personalities to deny themselves of the challenging demands that our souls beckon us to undertake - to become a true human being. The tract serves to put people in perspective for the protagonist, who laments how fickle and thoughtless humans can be.
Yet what Hesse does later on, through the story itself, is shed light on how art - a discipline that tends to engage with ideals - can be born from such fickle sentiments too. Episodes in the novel that include Harry having conversations with his favourite philosophers and artists (Goethe and Mozart), Harry learns that what is considered high-art wasn’t made in the spirit to be memorable: they were made by the artist in their total state of indifference. Hesse uses such conversations to express how life has always been how it’s been and people will always be how they are, and whatever leftover - the spirit of God, the truth of beauty - that can be venerated, that can inspire individuals such as Harry, is up to chance.
Hesse also emphasises how humour is essential to succeed in the art of living: acknowledging that life, like human beings, is rife with contradictions, and that laughter is the best emulsifier for accepting how its hideousness and tragedies are entangled with its beauty and joy.
Conclusion
Steppenwolf is a tremendous novel. Despite its darkness, Hesse uses the story of Harry Haller to forthrightly discourse on the difficulties that anyone can face when traversing through life. Highly psychological and philosophical, prose written with beautiful precision, it’s a novel that can positively influence anyone’s perspective on life and the people around them.
The book is often deemed depressing, and it is understandable. But I do agree with Hesse: despite the desperation palpable in the protagonist, the depression ladled in the prose, the sadness-provoking insights on human nature; the novel is fundamentally about someone who believes in a better world.
Makes me wanna give it another read! Great stuff