I’ve read three books by Hermann Hesse before – Narcissus and Goldmund, Siddhartha, and a collection of poetry. Hesse was one of my favourite writers at one point. But I haven’t read a Hesse book in a while, and I thought I had grown out of Hesse. But then I read the first page of ‘Demian‘ and it was wonderful and so I decided to read it. I read this for German Literature Month hosted by Caroline from Beauty is a Sleeping Cat and Lizzy from Lizzy’s Literary Life.
The narrator of the story is Emil Sinclair. As the story begins, he looks back on his past, and tells us his lifestory. He describes how when he was a kid, he discovered that the world was light and dark, how the safety and coziness of his home and family was light, while outside his house lurked many dark things. And what happened when one day, the darkness crept into the light. He goes on to describe, how this interplay between light and dark continued through his life, how different people took him under their wing and mentored and supported him and how he got caught in the middle of historical events.
The start of the story is brilliant and four-fifths of the story is wonderful, vintage Hesse. But things turn somewhere in the last part, and the story becomes a melange of spirituality and history and some prescriptive philosophy, and though one of my favourite characters makes an appearance in the last part of the story, the story sinks here and it hasn’t aged well. Maybe, the readers of that time loved it more.
The mentors of the narrator are all very fascinating, including the title character Demian, but my favourite out of them was a person called Pistorius, who plays the organ in a small church. He looks simple, doesn’t dress well, doesn’t look good, doesn’t talk much, but inside his mind lives an amazing person. The conversations between the narrator and Pistorius were some of my favourite parts of the book.
I also discovered this sentence in the book – “For it had gained the whole world, while losing its soul in the process.” It made me smile Because another version of this sentence is one of my favourite sentences ever, and it is from W. Somerset Maugham’s short story, ‘The Fall of Edward Barnard‘. Maugham was a voracious reader who read in German and French too, and he was famous for borrowing plots and characters from the German and French novels that he read. Now, I am wondering whether Maugham just borrowed this sentence from Hesse and modified it to his story’s requirement 😊 Can’t put this copycatting past old, wily Will 😊
I enjoyed reading ‘Demian‘. Not as much as ‘Narcissus and Goldmund’ or ‘Siddhartha’, but I still liked it. I wish I had read it when I was younger, at a more impressionable age. I think I would have liked it more then. Hesse’s thoughts on the greatness of eastern mysticism and how after the First World War a new world was going to come out which was going to be beautiful – these haven’t aged well. The world seems to be hurtling from one crisis to another with no end in sight. Francis Fukuyama wrote a book after the end of the Cold War era called ‘The End of History and the Last Man’, the main contention of the book being that communism is dead, the West has won, and now life is heaven. Now, after nearly thirty years, we can’t resist laughing at this contention with contempt 😊 We’ll be more kind to Hesse though – he had no way of knowing that human beings were more crazier than he thought.
I’ll leave you with two of my favourite passages from the book.
“I could do everything the others were capable of; with a little diligence and effort I could read Plato, solve problems in trigonometry, or follow a chemical analysis. There was only one thing I couldn’t do: tear out the obscurely hidden aim within me and visualize it somewhere before my eyes, as others did, those who knew precisely that they wanted to become a professor, judge, doctor, or artist, who knew how long that would take them and what benefits it would bring them. I couldn’t do that. Maybe I would become something of the sort in the future, but how was I to know? Perhaps I might even have to seek and seek for years and never become anything or reach any goal. Perhaps I might reach some goal, but it would be evil, perilous, frightening. All I really wanted was to try and live the life that was spontaneously welling up within me. Why was that so very difficult?”
“Two or three times on my walks through town, I had heard organ music coming from a smallish suburban church…I felt that the man playing there knew that a treasure was locked away in that music, and was suing, insisting, and striving for that treasure as if for his life…Everything he played was religious, devout, and pious, but not with the piety of churchgoers and pastors—rather, with the piety of medieval pilgrims and beggars; it was pious with an unconditional surrender to a universal emotion that rose above any particular faith. He diligently played composers earlier than Bach, and old Italian masters. And they all stated the same thing, they all stated what the musician had in his soul as well: longing, the most intimate grasping of the world and the most reckless separation from it again, an ardent listening to one’s own obscure soul, a frenzy of devotion and a profound curiosity for the miraculous.”
Have you read ‘Demian‘? What do you think about it? Which is your favourite Hesse book?
Love the passage on the organ music . . .
Glad you liked it 😊 It is one of my favourite passages!
I first read Demian in my 20s and then re-read it in 2017 for Shiny New Books in a new translation. I thought it was wonderful!
Glad you liked it too, Kaggsy! Must have been wonderful reading it at two different times, and loving it both times in different ways 😊
Like Karen, I’ve read this in my twenties. I seem to remember that Siddharta, Demian and The Steppenwolf (English title?) form a triptych. Of the three I liked Siddharta best but other than that Narcissus and Goldmund is also my favorite. Too bad it didn’t age well. He’d be so appalled if he saw the craziness now but maybe he’d be a voice of reason. Or not. These days many people seem to be losing their cool. I’m not sure I would reread this or the Steppenwolf but maybe Siddharta. Even so, I like his writing.
Nice to know that you read his books in your twenties, Caroline. I think that is the best time to read his books. I wish I had read more of his books in my twenties. My favourite is Narcissus and Goldmund too 😊 Such a beautiful book! Very interesting to know that three of his books form a triptych. I haven’t read Steppenwolf yet. Out of the unread books, I want to read Steppenwolf, Peter Camenzind and The Glass Bead Game sometime. Yes, Hesse will be surprised at all the craziness around these days. He lived through two world wars, but still…
At school we were forbidden to choose him for A-Levels as so many had already done and our teacher couldn’t bear to read him again. Even people I know who don’t read much have read Siddharta. I’ve always meant to read The Glass Bead Game, even organize a readalong but it’s very chunky. Some day . . . Steppenwolf is set in Basel 😊
Very interesting to know that 😊 Your teacher must have read a lot of student essays on Hesse 😊 Wish you could organize a readalong of The Glass Bead Game. I’m so tempted to read it this month, but it is too big. I keep telling this every GLM – that I want to read it but am intimidated by the size. Wish one of these days, I could just pick it up and read it. Very interesting to know that Steppenwolf is set in Basel 😊 I can’t wait to read it now!
From everything I’ve heard about the Glass Bead Game it sounds like it would be an amazing readalong title but I’m afraid to end up reading most of it on my own if I did organize it. I’m thinking about. Maybe in small portions over the course of two or three months.
Yes, our teacher read far too many essays on Siddharta.
I’ve never read Hesse, which I realize is quite a gap.
Your comment here reminds me of your comment about the bookish essay collection recently, how quickly a first page can captivate us, as readers.
Hope you get to read Hesse’s books and like them. I think Narcissus and Goldmund is my favourite. It is such a beautiful story.
I read five of his books way back in my college and post college days. Demain was one of them. In those days I didn’t have anyone to share my thoughts with for the most part, unless I read the book for a class.
Demian just didn’t click for me. It’s been so many years that I can’t specifically remember why, but your comments brought back some memories. I just kept waiting for it to be as wonderful as his other books that I’d read, and it wasn’t.
Only one out of five that I perceived as a lemon isn’t bad!
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and experiences of reading Demian, Heidi. I loved most of the book, but somewhere in the last part it lost steam. Glad to know that you loved all the other books of Hesse that you’ve read. I need to read more of his work. I want to read Steppenwolf, Peter Camenzind and The Glass Bead Game. I wish I had read them when I was younger. The impact of the books would have been more.
Thanks for this review, Vishy. I read Steppenwolf for German Literature Month last year, but I’d never heard of Demian. I enjoyed the quotes you shared, and I agree with you that we should go easy on Hesse. It seems quite reasonable to predict that people would create a better world after the horror of World War One, instead of creating even more unimaginable horrors…
For the quote about gaining the world and losing his soul, I think both Hesse and Maugham may have been drawing from this Bible quote (which is one of my favourites): “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” So I think Maugham is off the hook for copycatting 🙂
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Just re-read Demian after reading your insightful and provokative blog post.
There were so many things I missed the first time I read it in my 20’s
Thanks !
Glad you enjoyed re-reading Demian 😊 Thanks for stopping by!