A review by rachbreads
Demian by Hermann Hesse

2.0

I have no right to call myself one who knows. I was one who seeks, and I still am, but I no longer seek in the stars or in books; I’m beginning to hear the teachings of my blood pulsing within me.

This book was....very German. So in truth I really disliked it while reading and immediately after reading it. After talking it over with my husband, it seems like Hesse really did capture a somewhat universal experience of adolescent men. I found the protagonist insufferable and impossible to relate to, but that would make sense because he was a teenage boy...I think coming-of-age novels of young men are really not my genre at all. HOWEVER, I read this because of BTS, because one of their albums is based around the storyline and concept of this book. Once I did some more in-depth reading (shout out to fans who do PhD level analysis of pop albums) about how they drew from this book to make the album, I didn't necessarily like the book any more than I previously had but I did understand how it could really have meant a lot to young men trying to grow up in a tough world. So, all things considered, I guess I'm glad I read it, but I think I'll lay off the early 20th-century German classics for a while...