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4.05 AVERAGE
4.05 AVERAGE
First, I want to say again that I feel close to Herman Hesse 19s writing in general. He 19s one of those authors I hear speak to me directly. Now, in case of Demian, I think this book was written more out of purpose than true passion, the author trying very strongly to convey and idea - an obligatory path to self-discovery - to all people. It 19s good, it had some great paragraphs, but it does not compare to my favourite of his, because if you should read something by Herman Hesse, Steppenwolf should be it.
mysterious
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This book was recommended to me by someone who was very close to me, as it was their favourite book. It's a short, complicated read, as the story is vague and written in a manor that never truly straight up tells you what is REALLY going on. However, it is incredibly well written regardless; due to it's beautiful use of words and deeper meaning of most characters. Not something I would of read without their recommendation, but happy I did.
this was really great except my dumb ass did not understand the ending onda q carajos pasó
3.5/5
well this was good. the concept is interesting and i was not familiar with Nietzsche’s work but since Hermann Hesse got a lot of inspiration from him i guess i learned a new philosophical thinker ! the writing was also nice! this was short and sweet :)
well this was good. the concept is interesting and i was not familiar with Nietzsche’s work but since Hermann Hesse got a lot of inspiration from him i guess i learned a new philosophical thinker ! the writing was also nice! this was short and sweet :)
I deeply resent the vast majority of bildungsromans for various reasons I won't articulate here, so I was surprised that I liked the first half of this book quite a bit. It was very interesting to read about coming of age portrayed as a type of corruption, how knowledge of the world also means stepping away from the light. Sinclair's fixation on Demian had an unexpected dimension of romantic love that I'm not sure was intentional, but with Hesse writing in the constant comparisons of Demian's face to that of an attractive woman... maybe he was thinking about that, after all. Later, this type of comparison seems more like a commentary on how Max Demian exists in the space between opposites, both young and old, masculine and feminine, exile and latent attraction. But yeah, after going over this theme the first half dozen times, the book unfortunately doesn't do much else with these ideas and lost my interest.
informative
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
N/A
dark
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I love putting all that Sunday school knowledge to use, made me go "huh!?!" a million times (sometimes in a good way), it's kind of giving gay, and it's a great book! Shoutout BTS for putting me on.
This was a difficult read. The melodrama drove me nuts. Maybe I'm just too old, and have forgotten my own youth. There were small passages that I vaguely remembered from the first time I read it. It helped to read the short bio and forward by Thomas Mann. It clarified the Freudian explorations and excessive self-examinations of the novel, and the Kafka-like feel. But I felt lacking in education to fully appreciate it. There were occasional passages that I understood -- the Buddhist passages in particular -- though it made me wonder about the difference in how Buddhism was practiced then and what has become American Buddhism. And it helped to come to understand that it was written just after the Great War, the War to End All Wars, WWI. Mostly, though, I found it strange and disturbing. That may have been partly influenced by recently reading "Drama of the Gifted Child", where that author used Hesse as examples of the impact a parent can have on a child.