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A review by solinachhoy
Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse
4.0
"Most men will not swim before they are able to.” Is that not witty? Naturally, they won't swim! They are born for the solid earth, not for the water. And naturally they wont think. They are made for life, not for thought. Yes, and he who thinks, what’s more, he who makes thought his business, he may go far in it, but he has bartered the solid earth for the water all the same, and one day he will drown.”
This extract also tickles my brain
“There is no reality except the one contained within us. That is why so many people live such an unreal life. They take the images outside of them for reality and never allow the world within to assert itself.”
Harry Haller is a man who feels drawn to mundane bourgeoisie life by all its simple pleasures and orderliness, yet chooses to drift around the outskirts of society as an observer because of the sense of not being 'one of them.' He condemns bourgeoise society for its ephemeral pleasures and exalted intellectual endeavours, despite him indulging in the same activities. It was interesting to see his sanity unravel at this tension between social conformity and misanthropy.
Many of the passages are weighted with pathos - they touch the most inner depths of your soul and confront the unspeakable questions of the human psyche. It challenges the notion of 'the duality of man', instead, twisting that idea into 'the myriad personalities of man'. The wolf and the man in Harry are not mutually exclusive categories, nor are they binaries; rather, there is a spectrum of identities between them that permeate his persona. Many of these intersect. As a result, it becomes hard to entirely demarcate Harry Haller 'the man' from his bestial, wolfish side. This brings to mind the notion of being 'one, no one and one hundred thousand' that Luigi Pirandello pioneered (such a good book).
This departs from the conventional nihilistic story in that it offers a proverbial light out of the tunnel, with the mc inevitably reconciling all of his multiple, fragmented identities rather than taking life the easy way out aka offing himself (at least I hope...). I thought it was also interesting to note how Harry Haller shares his initials with the author. Perhaps the fictional mc is one facet of Herman Hesse's personality ?
The message I personally extracted from this novel is: what remains latent within us are a multitude of conflicting qualities, emotions, impulses, and desires. Thus, it would be a disservice to the complexity of our species to diminish ourselves to one singular set of traits. Just like how none of us are wholly good or evil..
PS I'm deducting a star because at times throughout the story I didn't know wtf was going on, but that's just on my ignorant behalf.
This extract also tickles my brain
“There is no reality except the one contained within us. That is why so many people live such an unreal life. They take the images outside of them for reality and never allow the world within to assert itself.”
Harry Haller is a man who feels drawn to mundane bourgeoisie life by all its simple pleasures and orderliness, yet chooses to drift around the outskirts of society as an observer because of the sense of not being 'one of them.' He condemns bourgeoise society for its ephemeral pleasures and exalted intellectual endeavours, despite him indulging in the same activities. It was interesting to see his sanity unravel at this tension between social conformity and misanthropy.
Many of the passages are weighted with pathos - they touch the most inner depths of your soul and confront the unspeakable questions of the human psyche. It challenges the notion of 'the duality of man', instead, twisting that idea into 'the myriad personalities of man'. The wolf and the man in Harry are not mutually exclusive categories, nor are they binaries; rather, there is a spectrum of identities between them that permeate his persona. Many of these intersect. As a result, it becomes hard to entirely demarcate Harry Haller 'the man' from his bestial, wolfish side. This brings to mind the notion of being 'one, no one and one hundred thousand' that Luigi Pirandello pioneered (such a good book).
This departs from the conventional nihilistic story in that it offers a proverbial light out of the tunnel, with the mc inevitably reconciling all of his multiple, fragmented identities rather than taking life the easy way out aka offing himself (at least I hope...). I thought it was also interesting to note how Harry Haller shares his initials with the author. Perhaps the fictional mc is one facet of Herman Hesse's personality ?
The message I personally extracted from this novel is: what remains latent within us are a multitude of conflicting qualities, emotions, impulses, and desires. Thus, it would be a disservice to the complexity of our species to diminish ourselves to one singular set of traits. Just like how none of us are wholly good or evil..
PS I'm deducting a star because at times throughout the story I didn't know wtf was going on, but that's just on my ignorant behalf.