Butterflies: Reflections, Tales, and Verse

by Hermann Hesse, Jakob Hübner (Illustrator), Elisabeth Lauffer (Translator)

This volume gathers the most alluring stories, recollections, contemplations and poems on butterflies by Herman Hesse.  "I have always had a connection with butterflies and other fleeting and ephemeral beauties, while I have never succeeded in maintaining permanent, committed and so-called solid relationships," writes Hermann Hesse in a letter from 1926. This preference, occasionally resembling an elective affinity, for "flowers and butterflies, that are of everlasting things, a fleeting allegory" – as he says in one of his poems, has left its mark on Hesse’s entire oeuvre.  110 full-color engraved-copper illustrations by Jakob Hübner

Genres: Poetry, Nature

136 pages, Hardcover

Published May 30, 2023

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

[Anu · Rating 2 out of 5]

I made a rookie mistake by buying the book simply because the subject was tantalising, the cover was pretty and the author was someone I like. 😳

A collection of poems and essays about butterflies, some fictional and some autobiographical. Hesse’s childhood story of how he destroyed a rare moth pinned in his rival’s collection by mistake and had to repent for it was striking. I could relate to it obliquely. I have a vivid memory of desperate longing to hold one of the golden butterflies that would float into my childhood home’s backyard in summer. And my clumsy efforts as a six year old to get close to the butterfly by catching it resulted in the scales rubbing off on my thumb and forefinger and the poor little critter desperately trying to fly off with broken wings, away from my clutches. I was so mortified that I might have killed the butterfly that I never ever tried catching one afterward. 😱

The poems (sans one) did not speak to me and I am afraid I was unmoved by Hesse’s arguments of why a thirty year old man’s killing hundreds of butterflies and sticking them in glass boxes was an extreme form of reverence. The hunter-as-conservationist spiel is an anachronism that I can rationally understand how it came about, but find it hard to empathise with.

[Rossdavidh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hermann Hesse writes about butterflies: sometimes in prose, sometimes in poetry. There are also illustrations, by Jakob Huebner. The prose often involves stories from Hesse's own life. He gives the impression that his interest in, occasionally verging into fascination with, butterflies was not all that unusual in his time. If you like the narrator's voice in Hesse's works of fiction, here you get to hear it more or less exclusively, in a slender little volume filled with excellent illustrations of the subject matter. Nice.

I should also admit that, if you find Hesse's narrative voice overly precious and self-indulgent, then you will think that about his nonfiction prose as well. So, you have been warned.

[Nolan Hawkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

A cute and lovely collection of prose on butterflies. The poetry - I’ve read some of Hesse’s poetry before, and I can’t really tell if he is a bad poet or it doesn’t come across in translation? For a writer I love so much I am a bit inclined to believe the latter, but I mostly find his poetry lacking. But the prose is cute and lovely. And I learned that apparently Schmetterling is not the only German word for butterfly, which is heartening.

[Leah Masson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I did love certain parts of this book. I feel like I learned some cool facts about butterflies and moths, which is what I was hoping for. I enjoyed some of the poems. I just wish they had made each passage clear on who it was written by. It was a bit confusing due to the organization.

[Katy]

I highly recommend this book between the short stories and poetry. It was throughly amazing to see how butterflies represent life and death. Even in a way, it becomes a political statement to spirituality. Plus, the illustrations throughout the book are absolutely beautiful.

[A.Leto · Rating 5 out of 5]

I only read this for an excuse to buy more flowers

[Robbin Vokes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful book. I wanted to like it, but just can't deal with poetry in translation. The German version isn't as beautiful. If it were, I would buy it