A review by david_rhee
Gertrude by Hermann Hesse

4.0

Hesse tells the story of the composer Kuhn which is both (unintentionally) humorous and (intentionally) beautiful. We are taken through Kuhn's childhood during which he suffered an injury which left him physically handicapped for life and into his music school years and his life as a composer. The book has its quirky parts good for a few laughs, such as Kuhn's run-in with a Rudolf Steiner-esque theosophist...or his **mild spoiler** pitiful friend-zoning which the reader sees coming a mile away but totally catches Kuhn by surprise. These are, however, bumps along a much more pleasant road. The flow and language are graceful as Hesse makes the courageous attempt to capture the inner life of a musical talent. He takes the reader along the creative process where works of art become "beings with a life of their own" and are therefore "familiar and yet strange at the same time." I found myself getting lost in this one quite deeply...so lost that I finished it by reading the last 110 pages in a single evening. My favorite Hesse book out of the five that I've read.