Reading 1001 discussion

I didn't see a subject for this one in the index so I am starting my own thread.


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I will give this one 3.5 stars. The protagonist felt himself to be half wolf and half man. The book is very philosophical with lots of exploration of sexuality etc. The protagonist does lots of ranting, pontificating and what not about what he dislikes in culture, his connections with people...his run ins with past lovers.

Not really a book that spoke to me at this moment in my life.

I am interested to note that I wrote that I was reading this book back in 2013, but I have no recollection of starting it then. Hesse wrote an introduction to my edition in which he noted that he intended that the book to have a positive message of believing and healing, but that message had been overlooked, particularly by younger readers. He wrote the book at age 50, and his protagonist, the Steppenwolf (wolf of the steppes) was a disillusioned man of about the same age who decides to commit suicide when he is 50. He feels that he is divided into two opposing personalities, that of the man, the intellectual rationalist who loves Goethe and Mozart, and the Steppenwolf, that part of him which is wild and instinctive. It is a poetic and reflective treatise on personality. In a definitely unrealistic scene at the end, the Steppenwolf is shown that rather than two opposed personalities, a person has multiple possibilities and it is how one reacts to life's experiences that determines the individual.