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3.88 AVERAGE
3.88 AVERAGE
zali boze ove knjige prelijepe od 600 strana koju sam zbog faksa morala da procitam za 5 dana i ne svarim je uopste
At the time that I read them, each of the Hermann Hesse novels I read, changed me profoundly as a human being. Each was a small revelation that stuck in my cerebellum. Each was its own world, written in a style the same and yet complete different to those that had come before.
The Glass Bead Game is held up as Hesse's master work and I looked forward to it a lot- so much so that I read the foreword. I never read the foreword. At least not before I have read a book. Sometimes after- sometimes. I mean it has been known to happen. Once or twice.
In this case I am glad I did. The pompous academic narrator can work- Nabokov's 'Pale Fire' is a brilliant example. But- maybe it was the translation? Maybe my irony detector needs a tune up? the first hundred pages were hard. They were really hard. The writing was dense- but I can handle dense. I was forewarned about the narrator so I was prepared for pomposity without a shred of self awareness, and still I had to drag my eyes through line after line begging for it to get better. Then miraculously- like a perfect Glass Bead Game- it did.
And now it is stuck in my cerebellum. Talking quietly to itself. Rearranging my thoughts to suit itself.
I still have qualms. One female character in 500 odd pages, who exists solely to spoil a wunderkind son and our derision on her husband- and that is just a start. But in the end there was brilliance. Maybe that was the point.
Let me ruminate on it a while.
Thirty or forty years maybe.
The Glass Bead Game is held up as Hesse's master work and I looked forward to it a lot- so much so that I read the foreword. I never read the foreword. At least not before I have read a book. Sometimes after- sometimes. I mean it has been known to happen. Once or twice.
In this case I am glad I did. The pompous academic narrator can work- Nabokov's 'Pale Fire' is a brilliant example. But- maybe it was the translation? Maybe my irony detector needs a tune up? the first hundred pages were hard. They were really hard. The writing was dense- but I can handle dense. I was forewarned about the narrator so I was prepared for pomposity without a shred of self awareness, and still I had to drag my eyes through line after line begging for it to get better. Then miraculously- like a perfect Glass Bead Game- it did.
And now it is stuck in my cerebellum. Talking quietly to itself. Rearranging my thoughts to suit itself.
I still have qualms. One female character in 500 odd pages, who exists solely to spoil a wunderkind son and our derision on her husband- and that is just a start. But in the end there was brilliance. Maybe that was the point.
Let me ruminate on it a while.
Thirty or forty years maybe.
emotional
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
This book was unbelievably boring: and I usually like classic literature. It is the fictional biography of a man in a future society where the predominant religion is "The Glass Bead Game"; which seems to be a form of board game based around finding connections between classic literature, music, and art. Christians exist in this world too, and the book spends a lot of time comparing The Glass Bead Game, Christianity, and "meditation" (Hinduism?). I would say the primary theme of the book is pedagogy; since the book spent pages and pages talking about how great teachers are, how teacher-student relationships should work, how teachers can help reluctant pupils, etc.
There are also three short stories at the end, which are fictional even within the context of the book, about the main character living in different time periods. I found this fact extremely annoying. I didn't care about the main character at all, and I was not interested in reading the author's fanfic of his own book. I did read them, for the sake of completeness, and they are all also about pedagogy and the effect religion has on people.
I found this book insufferably dull. None of the characters have any humanizing moments that reveal their personalities. The world building is extremely one-dimensional and lacking in scope (there is only one female character in the book, a bad mother who makes her son weak with her indulgence, despite the fact that this book was written in a time when many women were going to college and making great strides in the arts and sciences). The main character has no flaws; and whenever it seems like he has a flaw, the narration goes to great pains to explain how its totally not a flaw and he is so good and wise nobody can understand him. The ending is abrupt, and unsatisfying. I found it irritating that the narrator skipped over major portions of the main character's life because supposedly "documentation is missing"; but relates verbatim conversations, and even what he thought as he was dying. How? There is no documentation of that!
I couldn't help comparing this book to Anna Karenina; which is also very moralistic, and also contains long essays crammed into the story, but has genuine characters with personalities and motives, not just puppets to sing the praises of the main character. I think I like Tolstoy better after reading this.
There are also three short stories at the end, which are fictional even within the context of the book, about the main character living in different time periods. I found this fact extremely annoying. I didn't care about the main character at all, and I was not interested in reading the author's fanfic of his own book. I did read them, for the sake of completeness, and they are all also about pedagogy and the effect religion has on people.
I found this book insufferably dull. None of the characters have any humanizing moments that reveal their personalities. The world building is extremely one-dimensional and lacking in scope (there is only one female character in the book, a bad mother who makes her son weak with her indulgence, despite the fact that this book was written in a time when many women were going to college and making great strides in the arts and sciences). The main character has no flaws; and whenever it seems like he has a flaw, the narration goes to great pains to explain how its totally not a flaw and he is so good and wise nobody can understand him. The ending is abrupt, and unsatisfying. I found it irritating that the narrator skipped over major portions of the main character's life because supposedly "documentation is missing"; but relates verbatim conversations, and even what he thought as he was dying. How? There is no documentation of that!
I couldn't help comparing this book to Anna Karenina; which is also very moralistic, and also contains long essays crammed into the story, but has genuine characters with personalities and motives, not just puppets to sing the praises of the main character. I think I like Tolstoy better after reading this.
One of the most beautiful and wise books I have ever read
In a sacred community of pretentious intellectuals, one man seeks to be the most pretentious intellectual. I only managed to slog through 180 pages of this beast and could not bring myself to care At All about the characters or plot. Maybe I'm not pretentious or intellectual enough
It was beautiful in parts, and had a bunch of interesting ideas about the unity of study. I'm really starting to believe that science and philosophy and art and social theory are all parts of the same great discipline and that's kind of the whole point of this book. It's really lovely, stylishly written, and also dead boring in terms of plot. I'm really not sure if I'd recommend it, but Joseph Knecht is a pretty good inspirational figure to have available for inspiration.
What the fuck is this ending though
What the fuck is this ending though
Really thought provoking. At first I was torn between (a) wow this is interesting and thought provoking and (b) but geez there's a lot of stuff that seems inconsistent or implausible about this world, and/or that seems jarring and bumps me out of my immersion in the world Hesse creates.
But now, having finished it, I think a lot of the jarring stuff was deliberate, the result of an unreliable narrator. By which I don't mean the narrator lies, but is so deeply into a particular world view that he interprets everything in line with it, and that world view is not really how humans work in my view, and what created the implausibility. But the world revealed in the actions and words of the main characters is much more real and recognizable. And yet different enough that it is really interesting to ponder. As well as just being a cool story with characters the reader comes to care about.
It has some usual Hesse features:
-organized around the life of a seeker (of meaning, of spirituality, of understanding, etc). I like this personally but you might think at moments "wait is this Siddhartha?"
-the main character is impossibly boss. I tend to like this too (Dune, Ender's Game, etc. or for that matter Siddhartha)
-people have things like amazing demeanors and gazes that cause wonderment and awe and love in those around them. feels a little like a cheap way to enhance the boss-ness of various characters.
-there are exactly zero female characters of note. even one of the segments of the book, set "in a time when women ruled the world", is all about men.
But overall I really enjoyed it, plus spent much more time thinking about it, when not reading it, than for the large majority of books I read.
But now, having finished it, I think a lot of the jarring stuff was deliberate, the result of an unreliable narrator. By which I don't mean the narrator lies, but is so deeply into a particular world view that he interprets everything in line with it, and that world view is not really how humans work in my view, and what created the implausibility. But the world revealed in the actions and words of the main characters is much more real and recognizable. And yet different enough that it is really interesting to ponder. As well as just being a cool story with characters the reader comes to care about.
It has some usual Hesse features:
-organized around the life of a seeker (of meaning, of spirituality, of understanding, etc). I like this personally but you might think at moments "wait is this Siddhartha?"
-the main character is impossibly boss. I tend to like this too (Dune, Ender's Game, etc. or for that matter Siddhartha)
-people have things like amazing demeanors and gazes that cause wonderment and awe and love in those around them. feels a little like a cheap way to enhance the boss-ness of various characters.
-there are exactly zero female characters of note. even one of the segments of the book, set "in a time when women ruled the world", is all about men.
But overall I really enjoyed it, plus spent much more time thinking about it, when not reading it, than for the large majority of books I read.
reflective
relaxing
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
mysterious
reflective