The Hermann Hesse Collection: Narcissus and Goldmund; Demian; Journey to the East

by Hermann Hesse

NARCISSUS AND GOLDMUND Narcissus is a teacher at Mariabronn, a monastery in medieval Germany, and Goldmund his favourite pupil. While Narcissus remains detached from the world in prayer and meditation, Goldmund runs away from the monstery in pursuit of love. Thereafter he lives a picaresque wanderer s life, his amatory adventures resulting in pain as well as ecstasy. His eventual reunion with Narcissus brings into focus the diversity between artist and thinker, Dionysian and Apollonian. DEMIAN Published shortly after the First World War, Demian is considered to be one of Hermann Hesse s finest novels. Emil Sinclair boasts of a theft that he has not committed and subsequently finds himself blackmailed by a bully. He turns to Max Demian, in whom he finds a friend and spiritual mentor. This strangely self-possessed figure is able to lure him out of his ordinary home-life and convince him of an existing alternative world of corruption and evil. He progressing from an orthodox education through to philosophical mysticism, Emil s search for self-awareness culminates in a meeting with Demian s mother symbol and personification of motherhood. JOURNEY TO THE EAST It was Henry Miller who suggested to this publisher that he should acquire the rights to a translation of a novel by Hermann Hesse who, despite having recently won the Nobel Prize, was little known outside Germany. The success of that first book (Siddhartha) ensured the publication of six further books by Hesse of which this one, first appearing in 1956, is regarded today as one of his best. The narrator of this allegorical tale travels through time and space in a search of ultimate truth. This pilgrimage to the East covers both real and imagined lands and takes place not only in our own time but also in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Again, fellow travellers are both real and fictitious Plato, Pythagoras, Don Quixote, Tristram Shandy and Baudelaire

650 pages, Paperback

Published February 21, 2011

About the author

Many works, including Siddhartha (1922) and Steppenwolf (1927), of German-born Swiss writer Hermann Hesse concern the struggle of the individual to find wholeness and meaning in life; he won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1946.

Other best-known works of this poet, novelist, and painter include The Glass Bead Game , which, also known as Magister Ludi, explore a search of an individual for spirituality outside society.

In his time, Hesse was a popular and influential author in the German-speaking world; worldwide fame only came later. Young Germans desiring a different and more "natural" way of life at the time of great economic and technological progress in the country, received enthusiastically Peter Camenzind , first great novel of Hesse.

Throughout Germany, people named many schools. In 1964, people founded the Calwer Hermann-Hesse-Preis, awarded biennially, alternately to a German-language literary journal or to the translator of work of Hesse to a foreign language. The city of Karlsruhe, Germany, also associates a Hermann Hesse prize.

Reviews

[Realini Ionescu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Narcissus and Goldmund by Herman Hesse, who received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1946, he is the author of Siddhartha, Steppenwolf and The Glass Bead Game aka Glasperlenspiel, the latter is one of my absolute favorites, these books are ranked 256th, 163rd, and 426th respectively on The Greatest Books of All Time site…and now for the plug, hundreds of magnum opera from this list are reviewed on my blog, which you can visit at https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20...



9 out of 10

Herman Hesse is the Nobel Prize Winner, awarded to him in 1946, who wrote Glasperlenspiel https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20... aka The Glass Bead Game, a favorite of mine

- ‘We are what we regularly do, excellence is not an act, it is a habit’

Aristotle said that, and then we have the Talmud: be careful with your thoughts, for they become words, and pay attention to your words, because they become acts, and mind your acts, for they become habits:

- Habits form character and character is you!’

Ergo, almost every day I think and then that becomes the word Glasperlenspiel, as in the sublime activity which is at the center of The Glass Bead Game, with the intention of being concentrated on what matters…
Now for Narcissus and Goldmund, I must say that the new encounter was not as ebullient as I remember it to be when I was reading the book for the first time, some thirty-five years ago or so, and it was so elating…

- I took it in the sauna

It was in my luggage, when we met in Austria for some alleged team building with AT&T – about them, there are a couple of lines in the standard ending, which is…at the end of this, where else? – and I was so enchanted with it
The adventures of Goldmund in particular were so captivating – what with the plague, the killing of that fellow who tried to murder our hero, oops, spoiler alert, only who is still reading here, Rebecca, the Jewish beauty…

Nevertheless, now I place Glasperlenspiel at the top of my list, then there would be Siddhartha https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20... albeit, the second coming of this fellow (there have been parallels made between him and Christ, right?) was not thrilling either

- I wonder what changed?

Not the book, obviously, notwithstanding the fact that there has been a trend to modify some texts, which are ‘inappropriate today’, and edit, aka delete the offending lines, or passages, and then you have MAGA
They ban books outright
It must be the age of the reader, if I was trilled by what happens to Goldmund in his peregrinations decades ago, now I find them less compelling, it is the proof that what Proust said, that we are a completely different person, once time passes, is true https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20...

Now for my standard closing of the note with a question, and invitation – maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20... – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the befits from it, other than the exercise per se

There is also the small matter of working for AT&T – this huge company asked me to be its Representative for Romania and Bulgaria, on the Calling Card side, which meant sailing into the Black Sea wo meet the US Navy ships, travelling to Sofia, a lot of activity, using my mother’s two bedrooms flat as office and warehouse, all for the grand total of $250, raised after a lot of persuasion to the staggering $400…with retirement ahead, there are no benefits, nothing…it is a longer story, but if you can help get the mastodont to pay some dues, or have an idea how it can happen, let me know

As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/r...

Some favorite quotes from To The Hermitage and other works

‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’