BOOK REVIEW: Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse (1927)

***1/2 Stars

I really like Hermann Hesse which is why it is a shame that I read Steppenwolf directly after Goldmund and Narziss. My own predilections got in the way of fully enjoying this book. The entire time I was reading Steppenwolf I kept battling with the feeling of 'didn’t I just come from here?' That is not to say that Hesse is a hack, obviously not. It’s just the motifs are all the same. As a reader I can't read Slaughter House Five and then Cat’s Cradle consecutively. Or Post Office and then Factotum. Or Valis and then The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch. I'm fickle.

Anyway, the similarities in Steppenwolf and Goldmund and Narziss range from the themes of duality and compliment, modernity and coming of age as well as his usual concerns about sex and death. All of this is told in a style which oscillates between a conversational tone and philosophical, flowery digression.

What is different about this book is that there is also some very literate prose and a progressive plot structure (i.e. a story within a story, surrealist touches and faux-academic pontificating). Almost as though Hesse wanted to make sure people knew he could write in a sophisticated, modern style. A “for the record” comment to his peers? 

The other concern present here is existential suffering. Even though I was not inside the text as much as I would like I was still touched by the way Hesse wrestled with the classic existential motif of 'the absurdity of life.' I believed he was genuinely caught up in this dilemma and authentically brought to life the tension between introspection and the job of getting on with living your life. Hesse strongly presented this dilemma and it was made all the more moving by the biographical nature of the book.

To cap all that off the ending was also solid. Just like Siddhartha and Goldmund and Narziss there is a logical ending which looks back on where the protagonist has been. So even though I did not enjoy reading Steppenwolf my respect for Hesse is intact. The book starts out with a discussion about dealing with suicidal ideation ("All suicides have the responsibility of fighting against the temptation of suicide.") and ends with the protagonist proudly offering himself to an executioner (for atonement) which only leads to him being lampooned ("Of course! When it’s a question of anything stupid and pathetic and devoid of humour and wit, you’re the man"). This is Hesse putting his foot down and saying it is always better to go on despite yourself. And most of all, not to take it all so seriously even though all our lives we tell ourselves that being heavy is the correct way to act.

BOOK REVIEW: Narziss and Goldmund by Hermann Hesse (1930)

***** Stars

I bought this book over ten years ago. For seven of those years it was misplaced and I only just discovered it – much to my amusement – in a box in my mother’s garage. I have only read Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha previously and enjoyed the succinctness of that book and its message about the profundity of listening but was underwhelmed by the prose and the perfunctory approach to plotting. Both this book and Siddhartha are peripatetic and in the bildungsroman tradition but Narziss and Goldmund is written at least seven years later and has a sense of wonder and adventure that Siddhartha lacked.

Reading enjoyment aside the protagonist Goldmund is infallible in his chosen pursuits and this I found irksome. While there are plenty of conflicts he never seems hampered by any external forces in his quest. He wants to sleep with lots of women and immediately he is capable of sleeping with lots of women. He wants to become a master carver and from the beginning of that journey he already has the soul of an artist inscribed on his person and which his teacher acknowledges immediately.  He kills a man and while he has a moment of angst he is largely unaffected by the experience despite him being a character of feminine energy and prone to “feelings” rather than “thoughts”.

This, for all intents and purposes, can be referred to as the Harry Potter Syndrome. J.K. Rowling’s stories include scenes which make her supposedly humble character of little standing acknowledged as great without ever having to do anything (“There's no need to call me sir Professor”). I do not see the subtext to either of these stories being about the Pygmalion effect and as such find the profuse praise of the protagonist as meritless. Or put another way: contrary to the point of a coming of age story.

But Hesse is a scholarly writer and this bildungsroman is written for philosophical purposes. To focus too much on his treatment of the protagonist would be heavy handed. This story is told in episodes and each is a meditation on the oppositions in our lives. Oppositions which are simultaneously at-odds, dependent and fundamental. This story is about the struggle between the feminine and the masculine, extraversion versus introversion, dancing and feeling versus thinking and acting. The left-hand-side of the brain versus the right-hand-side.

And to articulate these sentiments you can bet uses some pretty fruity prose. For example, “Ah, the white gleam of that full-lipped smile of dying summer, around whose eyes the nameless, heavy sheen of death had played like moonbeams or autumn wind!” Can you stand it? Personally I do not usually go in for writing that is this flowery but Hesse pulls it off. For all its lyrical similes and big ideas this is a very masculine piece of writing and very entertaining. He manages this by using simple language most of the time and not staying on one idea for too long. Goldmund is constantly on the move, on a road trip, and it recalls contemporary stories like Into the Wild. Like that story this one shares a tragic and modern ending that I found both refreshing and moving. Dude, did I mention that this book is - like - 80 years old?