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A review by marchbug
Demian by Hermann Hesse
3.0
A story about man's struggle toward self-awareness. Deals with many abstract concepts. Do not be discouraged if you cannot understand everything. It was hard for me to pin down the ideology presented in the book. I was often reminded of existentialism and humanism, although I can't be sure it's any one of those. Perhaps it was meant to be a mix of many things. Psychology, religion, and discussions about the human will are prevalent throughout.
I've included some key quotations below.
"Everyone had one true vocation: to find himself. Let him wind up as a poet or a madman, as a prophet or a criminal - that wasn't his business; in the long run, it was irrelevant. His business was to discover his own destiny, not just any destiny, and to live it totally and undividedly" (Hesse 83).
"I was a gamble of Nature, a throw of the dice into an uncertain realm, leading perhaps to something new, perhaps to nothing; and to let this throw from the primordial depths take effect, to feel its will inside myself and adopt it completely as my own will: that alone was my vocation. That alone!" (Hesse 83-84)
"We who bore the mark might well be considered by the rest of the world as strange, even as insane and dangerous. We had awoken, or were awaking, and we were striving for an ever more perfect state of wakefulness . . . " (Hesse 95).
"And there was only one thing we conceived as our duty and destiny: for each of us to become so completely himself, so completely in harmony with the creative germ of Nature within himself, living in accordance with its commands, that the uncertain future would find us ready for any eventuality, whatever it might bring" (Hesse 96).
I've included some key quotations below.
"Everyone had one true vocation: to find himself. Let him wind up as a poet or a madman, as a prophet or a criminal - that wasn't his business; in the long run, it was irrelevant. His business was to discover his own destiny, not just any destiny, and to live it totally and undividedly" (Hesse 83).
"I was a gamble of Nature, a throw of the dice into an uncertain realm, leading perhaps to something new, perhaps to nothing; and to let this throw from the primordial depths take effect, to feel its will inside myself and adopt it completely as my own will: that alone was my vocation. That alone!" (Hesse 83-84)
"We who bore the mark might well be considered by the rest of the world as strange, even as insane and dangerous. We had awoken, or were awaking, and we were striving for an ever more perfect state of wakefulness . . . " (Hesse 95).
"And there was only one thing we conceived as our duty and destiny: for each of us to become so completely himself, so completely in harmony with the creative germ of Nature within himself, living in accordance with its commands, that the uncertain future would find us ready for any eventuality, whatever it might bring" (Hesse 96).