The Glass Bead Game by Hermann Hesse is proving to be a profoundly complicated reading experience. It has a reputation as being such a breakthrough that it assured Hesse the Nobel Prize for Literature. Given the times I suspect the real reason he won was because he was a German who stood firmly against Nazism. I approve of this motive, needless to say.
It's a philosophical novel set in the far future. There are unmistakable and no doubt intentional echoes of Plato's Republic. Humanity has passed through a decadent phase. The titular Glass Bead Game is held up as a response, a way of moving beyond. Initially a memory game involving the completion of musical passages, it has expanded to encompass almost all fields of human study, while leaving the use of actual glass beads behind. Hero Joseph Knecht is a master player of the game, accounting for the alternate title Magister Ludi.
Fiction writing manuals always tell you that the story has to involve a conflict, something the protagonist needs or wants but can't get right now. Hesse, despite centering the early chapters on Knecht's days as a promising student, is not writing a proto-Harry Potter or really aspiring to any kind of popular fiction. He eschews conflict for the most part, letting the characters have philosophical exchanges but keeping these in the realm of rhetoric.
On the one hand, you can see reading this why the "gotta have conflict" rule of thumb exists, since things can get pretty dry. On the other, Hesse's ambition is tangible, so one is inclined to give him leeway.
Women barely exist in this book, by the way. I'm curious as to the extent that was a deliberate and knowing choice.
It's a philosophical novel set in the far future. There are unmistakable and no doubt intentional echoes of Plato's Republic. Humanity has passed through a decadent phase. The titular Glass Bead Game is held up as a response, a way of moving beyond. Initially a memory game involving the completion of musical passages, it has expanded to encompass almost all fields of human study, while leaving the use of actual glass beads behind. Hero Joseph Knecht is a master player of the game, accounting for the alternate title Magister Ludi.
Fiction writing manuals always tell you that the story has to involve a conflict, something the protagonist needs or wants but can't get right now. Hesse, despite centering the early chapters on Knecht's days as a promising student, is not writing a proto-Harry Potter or really aspiring to any kind of popular fiction. He eschews conflict for the most part, letting the characters have philosophical exchanges but keeping these in the realm of rhetoric.
On the one hand, you can see reading this why the "gotta have conflict" rule of thumb exists, since things can get pretty dry. On the other, Hesse's ambition is tangible, so one is inclined to give him leeway.
Women barely exist in this book, by the way. I'm curious as to the extent that was a deliberate and knowing choice.
2 comments:
The Glass Bead Game is one of those books I tried to read several times back in the days when reading it and being able to describe its essence was something of a challenge presented by those who were hipper than thou. I'm sure I made it at least a few hundred pages in but my reaction was that it was boring compared to others of his that I'd enjoyed (Siddhartha and Steppenwolfe for sure) and also very preachy. I was also offended by the assumption that the life of the mind was open only to men and that women are somehow not qualified to share the glorious world of ideas.
Of course, that was all many years ago and my views about many things have changed enough over time that it may well be worth trying again. It's possible I might find Steppenwolfe to be a callow youth if I read the book again. Your review has certainly piqued my interest and it's certainly true that actually describing the describing the Game itself was beside the point for Hesse.
I'm not too surprised that the hipper-than-thou element hyped the book on you. I know that Hesse did hit the intellectuals of the English speaking world pretty big in the sixties. Rock musicians too, I guess, since Steppenwolf got their name from one of his books. This was really the first thing of his I'd read, though, although maybe I should have started with something like Siddhartha.
Did Hesse really believe that women were barred from the life of the mind? Or did he just want to keep his story simple by not giving Joseph Knecht any romantic or sexual temptations, which would have at least been the expectation of readers and probably editors. You could guess the latter if you really wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Having finished the novel I didn't find it entirely satisfying, but did appreciate Hesse's determination to write his own kind of book. And there are discordant moments where the book becomes more interesting.
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