Why I love Hermann Hesse
It is the spring season after all, so I figured: why not pilot a new series during the season of new beginnings? The new series is called Why I love [insert author], which is my opportunity to celebrate some of my favourite authors. I’m starting the series off with a writer I’ve written about a couple of times before: Hermann Hesse.
I won’t give an extensive introduction on the author because I’ve written articles on his novels Steppenwolf and Glass Bead Game, but, in short, Hesse was a German-Swiss poet, novelist, and painter during the late 19th/early 20th century who’s work explored spirituality, self-knowledge, and one’s search for authenticity. Growing up as a troublesome, lonely, and brilliant child, Hesse displayed an inclination towards spirituality during his time working at a Bookshop in Tübingen at the age of 18, as well as exposing himself to philosophers and artists such as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Friedrich Schiller, and Friedrich Nietzche. Figures who would shape the material of his works in years to come.
Now, I was first introduced to Hesse through Benjamin McEvoy’s podcast Hardcore Literature, where he did an instalment on Hesse’s most popular work Siddhartha. From there, a friend of mine (Josh, I’m talking about you) said that I should read Steppenwolf because it turned out I was suffering from the same sickness of the soul that Hesse presented through the character of Harry Haller. This plunged me into the Hesse rabbit hole that I’m truly grateful for.
What become evident to me was that Hesse was clearly an author with an acute understanding of the chaos of the world around him and the difficulties of people have living life in such a fallen world. A poet and philosopher first and foremost, who successfully converted such talent and insight into fiction, Hesse clearly strove to understand how to live in spite of all the problems that life inevitably throws up. Highly intelligent, remarkably educated, and profoundly wise, Hesse tried his very best to figure out the point of human existence using his own life stages as a vehicle for his fiction: he did admit that he was an autobiographical author.
In the wonderful introduction to Hesse’s third novel Gertrude, Thomas Fasano assesses that Hesse was a man who “asked little of life [yet] expect[ed] much” shown in his protagonists such as poet Peter Camenzind in his first novel and composer Kuhn in Gertrude. I agree, given that both are passive characters, showing timidity in the face of going after their respective love interests. Plus, the novels themselves are more memoirs than genuine stories that allow for Hesse’s philosophical musings on art, relationships, and age to be explored. The books read more as journals than novels.
But Hesse matured as a fiction writer by the time that Demian and Siddhartha were released. In all honesty, the novels would’ve been perfect for me during sixth form because ideas surrounding desire, experience, and wisdom are investigated in the novels. For instance, Demian is Hesse’s attempt to consider one’s self acceptance with who they are and what they want in life: understanding that everyone has their own path should they hear the call to adventure within themselves and not shy away from the truth of what resides in their heart. Siddhartha explores (and, I dare say, criticises) the notion that one can know anything about life through study alone. Hesse demonstrates how you can’t know anything about life without experience: wisdom acquired without experience is simply information.
Although Siddhartha is many readers introduction to Hesse, I believe the trifecta of his final novels, Steppenwolf, Narcissus and Goldmund, and Glass Bead Game are vintage Hesse. In his final novels, Hesse finally figures out what life is about: his philosophy is much sharper and his presentation of human psychology is much more poignant.
As aforementioned, I’ve written articles on Steppenwolf and Glass Bead Game, but I do want to reiterate that Hesse succeeds in discussing what it means to be human, the limits of the life of the mind, and the tragedy and disillusionment that the world inevitably inflicts upon us. Narcissus and Goldmund is an especially brilliant display of the split in one’s psyche: the desire to live an aesetic, disciplined life versus a profligate, self-indulgent life represented in the titular characters. In the novel, Hesse explores the devastation that unfettered love and sex can cause in one’s own life and the lives of those involved, as well as the cruel, uncaring nature of the world.
Glass Bead Game exceptionally presents the compromises necessary to live in the world: how living comes with its sacrifices and despite the fact that one cannot be wholly satisfied in life, it doesn’t make one’s effort to live in the world futile. If anything, it makes it profoundly courageous. There’s no retreat into the mind for serenity because everyone’s part of life’s happening (an observation shared by great thinkers such as Marcus Aurelius who I’ve grown to really appreciate now), and one can only think for so long before they slowly drown in the sea of rumination.
By his final novel, Hesse realised that life is about becoming a true human being. A person who lives with an acute understanding of what’s called of them to do, and in doing so inspiring others to do the same. Although Hesse appeared to have failed to live as he wished, his work has proven to be really impactful for me. His work showed me that I can’t think my way through life, I can’t rely on the wisdom of others, and I simply cannot shortcut the learning process that life provides. There’s no substitute for being human.
Adam Kirsch from the New York Times wrote an article a few years ago about Hesse’s reputation among literary critics. He said that Hesse’s work is popular among adolescents and it generally displays his “arrested development” given the sentimental nature of his philosophy at times: real critics of literature don’t think much of his work. However, I disagree with Kirsch’s observation: Hesse’s work is far more sophisticated than that.
Hesse’s work represents a brilliant, wise mind trying to make sense of the chaos of the world around him and in his psyche. A mind that sincerely attempted to understand the purpose of human existence, that happened to be highly emotive and sensitive. Hesse won the Nobel Prize for Literature for Glass Bead Game in 1946. I highly recommend Hesse’s work because it’s full of depth, insight, and honesty that few authors could dream of putting down on paper. With prose that’s highly poetic and philosophical, Hesse’s recognition for his great work before he died was richly and unequivocally deserved.