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3.88 AVERAGE
3.88 AVERAGE
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
The book was somewhat lost on me. I liked the Steppenwolf very much though.
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This is a wonderful piece of science fiction: a fictional biography of a great man in the future, filled with humorous asides and subtle jabs at the pretensions of academic biographies. The majority of the story deals with the a character who rises to be the master of the glass bead game, a highly intellectual art where the connections between all academic disciplines are made in an abstract symbolic language. Yet, this game which so fills the life of the monastic intellectual caste is found to be lacking, it is both disconnected from the world and without room for personal spiritual experiences. Hesse explores both of these themes throughout the book.
For me, the most powerful question Hesse was exploring in this book was the role of academia in the world. The intellectual elite in his fictional universe had decided that the "real" world was imprecise and chose instead to study arcane pieces of intellectual, musical or mathematical history. The glass bead game represented the height of intellectual abstraction, people demonstrating elegant interconnections between obscure branches of knowledge. But this was not enough for the main character. Theory had to be engaged, the role of intellectuals is not to stand passively by obsessed with obscure games but to be active agents in shaping and teaching the world. Written during the rise of the Third Reich, the book has a moral urgency and contains a strong critique of those academics who use their knowledge for their own pleasure, or worse, use it to uphold power structures. The duty of the true intellectual is to be a teacher who, through their pedagogical tasks, shapes the world and brings truth into it. He also strongly rejects hierarchies and people's complicity in them, urging them to follow their conscious and only participate in them out of their own desire.
The book also has a spiritual message which I am still trying to decipher. It is one about the relationship between teacher and student, the individuals search for truth and the role of the mentor. The beauty of Hesse's spiritual ideas, which are strongly influenced by hinduism, Confucianism, Taoism as well as western mysticism, is that it is entirely personal and very skeptical. There are not stories of deities beyond this world and when gods are invoked, they almost serve as a metaphor. The lives in the book are about a spiritual search for meaning in the human world we know so well.
Overall, it was a very good and imaginative book. I highly recommend it although I felt the (first) ending was slightly disappointing/not adequately developed and I thought it was hard to decipher practical steps to take from the spiritual message.
I will end this review with the quote I read from this book that made me interested in it in the first place:
"It is treason to sacrifice love of truth, intellectual honesty,
loyalty to the laws and methods of the mind, to any other interests
including those of one's country. Whenever propaganda and conflict of
interests threatens to devalue, distort and do violence to truth as it
has already done toindividuals, to language, to the arts, and to
everything else that isorganic and highly cultivated, then it is our
duty to resist and save thetruth, or rather striving for the truth,
since that is the supreme articlein our creed.
The scholar who knowingly speaks, writes, and teaches falsehood,
whoknowingly supports lies and deceptions, not only violates
organicprincipals. He also, no matter how things may seem at the given
moment, doeshis people a grave disservice. He corrupts the air and
soil, its food anddrink, he poisons its thinking and its laws and
gives comfort and aid to allthe hostile and evil forces that threatens
the nation with annihilation."
For me, the most powerful question Hesse was exploring in this book was the role of academia in the world. The intellectual elite in his fictional universe had decided that the "real" world was imprecise and chose instead to study arcane pieces of intellectual, musical or mathematical history. The glass bead game represented the height of intellectual abstraction, people demonstrating elegant interconnections between obscure branches of knowledge. But this was not enough for the main character. Theory had to be engaged, the role of intellectuals is not to stand passively by obsessed with obscure games but to be active agents in shaping and teaching the world. Written during the rise of the Third Reich, the book has a moral urgency and contains a strong critique of those academics who use their knowledge for their own pleasure, or worse, use it to uphold power structures. The duty of the true intellectual is to be a teacher who, through their pedagogical tasks, shapes the world and brings truth into it. He also strongly rejects hierarchies and people's complicity in them, urging them to follow their conscious and only participate in them out of their own desire.
The book also has a spiritual message which I am still trying to decipher. It is one about the relationship between teacher and student, the individuals search for truth and the role of the mentor. The beauty of Hesse's spiritual ideas, which are strongly influenced by hinduism, Confucianism, Taoism as well as western mysticism, is that it is entirely personal and very skeptical. There are not stories of deities beyond this world and when gods are invoked, they almost serve as a metaphor. The lives in the book are about a spiritual search for meaning in the human world we know so well.
Overall, it was a very good and imaginative book. I highly recommend it although I felt the (first) ending was slightly disappointing/not adequately developed and I thought it was hard to decipher practical steps to take from the spiritual message.
I will end this review with the quote I read from this book that made me interested in it in the first place:
"It is treason to sacrifice love of truth, intellectual honesty,
loyalty to the laws and methods of the mind, to any other interests
including those of one's country. Whenever propaganda and conflict of
interests threatens to devalue, distort and do violence to truth as it
has already done toindividuals, to language, to the arts, and to
everything else that isorganic and highly cultivated, then it is our
duty to resist and save thetruth, or rather striving for the truth,
since that is the supreme articlein our creed.
The scholar who knowingly speaks, writes, and teaches falsehood,
whoknowingly supports lies and deceptions, not only violates
organicprincipals. He also, no matter how things may seem at the given
moment, doeshis people a grave disservice. He corrupts the air and
soil, its food anddrink, he poisons its thinking and its laws and
gives comfort and aid to allthe hostile and evil forces that threatens
the nation with annihilation."
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
challenging
hopeful
informative
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
challenging
emotional
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
relaxing
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes