Steppenwolf: A Novel

A 300 page book I read in two days. Interesting story with great self descriptions of a man torn away from society into himself and his two personas, Harry Haller and the Steppenwolf. Harry Haller is the bourgeois self, who is an intellectual, thinker and socially "normal" man and Steppenwolf is the rebel self who rebels from mediocre bourgeois living and is an angry skeptic. He then meets others, including intimacy with women, who also came to the same conclusions of life's emptiness through their personas, although they come from the superficial world of desires and pleasures, which is the majority of society. The book continues through the struggles of Harry's troubled self personas and encounters he occurs. Ultimately, it is the recognition of the self, the persona(s) that are not anymore as serious and rather humorous. This is because the acknowledgment comes from a new awareness that the self is a construction of many different personas which are all part of a game, and the idea of a game suggests the illusion we carry in the seriousness of the role we play, the persona we emulate. It's an amazing self insight that allows him to perceive his life apart from his self-made, man-made personas that are only creations of the self and societal structures, cultural conditioning and linguistic formations. This of course, includes all philosophies, all political and religious ideologies and recognizes their transient nature adapting to the current societal structure of the time. It is a revelation from the self, an escape from the ego, a release from the illusionary selves that the majority of the world are unaware and who take their personas as "real" and fail to see the multiplicity of the self and that our personas are in reality illusions we create. And this is all realized under the Magic Theater - Entrance Not For Everybody - For Madmen Only! - The Cost, Your Mind. The entry and experience into this theater happens at the end of the novel by drinking a potion and smoking some secret herb rolled up in yellow rolling paper, which can no doubt be psychedelic drugs or similar drugs that enabled Harry to obtain the ability to let go of his illusionary self and open the doors of perception to see the multiplicities of reality and their relative positions. This insight is also that of the 1960's Harvard University professor, guru, psychologist and author, Timothy Leary, who found the use of LSD and psychedelics enabled him and many others, including intellectuals, professors, theologians, divinity students, historians and eventually much of the public, to also enter higher portions of reality, recognizing their limited egos, beyond their illusionary personas to perceive that the Magic Theater is the theater that reveals the many games we and our society play, the many chess pieces we both consciously and unconsciously create in the chessboards of life and that the majority, the power and control people, reject this adamantly, entirely living for the seriousness of their illusionary personas in rationalism and language as the only true reality, resulting in the dominating others, including that of the governments who start bloody wars and pass laws that curb and even destroy creativity. Harry Haller - Steppenwolf - experienced a new found wisdom, pages 129 and 131: "I lived through much in Pablo's little (Magic) theater and not a thousandth part can be told in words. . . When I rose once more to the surface of the unending stream of allurement and vice and entanglement, I was calm and silent, I was equipped, far gone in knowledge, wide, expert - ripe for Hermaine (his last love) . . I belong to her not just as this one piece in my game of chess - I belonged to her wholly. I would now lay out the pieces in my game that all was centered in here and led to fulfillment." What must be recognized is that while life takes on personas and still, unmoving snapshots of reality and interprets them as absolutes, it still can not hide what is behind such still frames of perception; the moving flow of multifaceted reality, the relative nature of perception. But this can only be so if people stop becoming so serious in their chess games, cease being critics, experts and trash their beliefs in absolutes - "Better learn to listen first! Learn what is to be taken seriously and laugh at the rest." p. 143 The music we hear may be distorted and may not conform to our perceptions, but it can never hide the eternal music of life that exists within it. While many of us have the courage to die for our errors and crimes, we don't have the courage to fully live, anotherwards, we don't know how to to laugh and apprehend the humor of life, to see the relative nature and meanings of the distorted music, and recognize that all of life's perceptions have serious limitations and must not be taken as absolute truths. Oh, and one more thought. A thought that keeps haunting me is the laughing Haller envisions Mozart as doing, a mad, insane laughter and I sense inside this myself. Life, while beautiful, is truly a painful tragedy, a fightening, suffering existence that deteroriates into death. Without having absolutes to lean on, the human's ability of humor and comedy counter act and balance the psyche. That's the insane, mad, overwhelming laughter. That's the antedote of our awareness to the transient nature of all our relative truths. We see the contradictions, lighten up and laugh, although this laugh comes from the depths of our soul.

Hesse is my favorite writer. I've read most of his work and return to him frequently during periods of doubt and difficulty, and sometimes simply for the lyrical melody of his prose. Steppenwolf is one of my favorite novels and, in my opinion, one of Hesse's boldest and most personal works. One can tell how Harry Haller was a projection out of Hesse's own personal sufferings that he went through during his forties arising out the turbulent circumstances of Europe and his crumbling marriage, culminating into a crisis where both his internal and his external world were on the verge of collapse. The book sought answers to his deepest spiritual questions and strivings from that period. If Demian dealt with the sufferings of a young adolescent confused by the unfathomable mysteries of his own nature, Steppenwolf deals with the sufferings of a man turned cynical and tired by the endless contradictions, injustices and decadence of the world around him. But Hesse's goal, as always, is never to seek concrete and correct answers, but rather to transcend the questions and see them in new light of understanding and wisdom. Steppenwolf is a strange and fantastic journey into the very depths of the human soul. It is also an exploration into the nature of consciousness where Hesse questions if everyday reality is really that different from the worlds of dreams, of madness and of the distorted perceptions induced by psychedelic drugs. And how are we, or rather 'I', the ego, related to all these different worlds that exist within our own being. With extraordinary grace and poetic prowess, Hesse takes us through the world of the Steppenwolf, a man who believes himself to be half man and half wolf, in a gripping story filled with strange incidents and fantastic characters. He is a master storyteller and with an almost sage-like insight into the nature of the universe and of the human being, his path illuminated by both eastern mystical traditions of Hinduism and Buddhism and western thinkers such as Nietzsche, Goethe and Novalis. This is a must read for all seekers and lovers of philosophy and wisdom!

“I am in truth the Steppenwolf that I often call myself; the beast astray who finds neither home nor joy nor nourishment in a world that is strange and incomprehensible to him.” I most likely will not do justice to this book with my review, as this is a novel that is quite complex, with so many layers and levels of meaning to unpack. But, wow, what a strange, enlightening experience and journey reading this novel is! This is definitely a novel that leaves the reader contemplating and reflecting, as it is a very ponderous, deep, and symbolic journey we embark on. We have a literal meaning, but we also have an allegorical meaning. I think that in many ways, this book in its barest and most simplistic way, is about finding oneself and meaning in one’s life, and keeping on in the game of life even in the moments of a severely depressive state. (The novel’s message goes exceptionally deeper than this, though). Of all the novels, Hesse said of his novel that it was the one that was most often misinterpreted. I read the author’s note in the introduction and Hesse states “This book, no doubt, tells of griefs and needs; still it is not a book of a man despairing, but of a man believing.” Harry Haller, a lonely, reclusive, and depressed individual, leaves behind a manuscript that tells of his existence. Dubbing himself a “Steppenwolf,” he explains that he is a man of two (and sometimes more) natures. Quite a bit of the novel explores the depths of how these two natures, himself and the “beast” within himself, are continually clashing, seemingly forever at odds with each other within Harry’s conscience. At one point, while in a state of disillusion and with impending thoughts of suicide, Harry happens to see an intriguing and mysterious sign on a door about a “Magic Theater.” He later, in his distress, meets an intriguing woman named Hermine, who opens his eyes to his current state of mind, and helps him shed some of his former self and open himself to a new existence. By parts, she introduces him to the bourgeois lifestyle, teaches him to dance, and in a way, opens up a new world to him. However, the narrative takes on a mystical, surrealistic, and existential atmosphere and ambience in the latter portions. We readers perhaps question what is real and what is illusion. The culminating section, when Harry enters the Magic Theater, takes on almost a dreamlike, fantastical, psychedelic sequence, and there is quite a bit of symbolism to take in and put together. Steppenwolf is a very complex, deeply thought-provoking read, which will give a reader plenty to contemplate about. I admit that I am still trying to put all the pieces together. If you are into books with deep psychology or getting into the makeup of a character, the inner workings of their minds, this is definitely a book I would recommend.

Herman Hesse has crafted a story of a lost soul and his journey towards a fuller life. If this intrigues you then come right in to the ‘Magical Theatre.’

Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse, was an interesting read in terms of how we view life as individuals. Harry Haller views life as unforgiving and finds no happiness which makes him feel loneliness. He meets a girl named Hermine, someone that reminds him of a childhood friend. She basically teaches him how to live life, and he meets others people such as Maria and Pablo. I thought the book overall was great and made you think how to live life, and do good things in the little time that we have on earth. But there were a few issues I had while reading this book. 1. The format seemed strange to me. The book didn’t have chapter sections like most books do. It felt like I had to keep reading or I would lose my place. 2. It took me 2 weeks to finish. I’m usually a fast reader but some of the reading was dense for me, and at times I would be confused on what was going on. 3. The book at times felt like it was dragging on even though the book is only 218 pages. Overall, the book was great! I also enjoy some of the quotes I read within the book. My favorite quote is towards the end, “Life is always frightful. We cannot help it and we are responsible all the same. One is born and at once one’s guilty.”

My class read and discussed this book,

Ageing intellectual Harry Haller checks out of his attic rooms in a post-WWI German city leaving behind his "records" which constitute the bulk of this novel. They begin as the musings of a divided man: Harry struggles to reconcile the wild primeval "wolf" inside him and the rational, well-mannered, civilized self he presents to the world. He despises the banality of bourgeois life and yet nonetheless longs for its numbing comforts. Each side of his divided nature loathes the other, leaving him hovering between them in spiritual and social paralysis. He can do little more than wander the streets at night, too afraid to go home because he might take the razor to his throat. But everything changes when he meets the mysterious Hermine who wants to teach him to dance... As Hesse points out in a note to this Picador edition, his best loved work is also his most commonly misunderstood one. It isn't so much the book of a man despairing, as of a man believing. Through his relationships with Hermine, Maria and the handsome musician Pablo - and a climactic visitation to the Magic Theatre which has all the depraved beauty, nightmare logic and existential resonance of a David Lynch film - Harry comes to understand and accept the multiplicity of the personality as being ultimately inconsequential. There is a second, higher, indestructible world beyond the Steppenwolf and his problematic life. Ultimately, this novel is a call to connect with the positive, serene, super-personal and timeless reality behind the ridiculous play of life's daily round. It's there all the time, just as we can still hear the genius of Mozart though his music be channelled through a phonograph. Genius survives the transmission, and so it is with the human spirit.

I rarely encounter a text that challenges my reading skills as much as this one did—but that does not mean that I didn’t appreciate Hesse’s examination of modern life and its irresolvable absurdities. I suspect that much of this brief but dense novel eluded me, so I will share here assorted musings rather than a focused review… • Existence in the modern era is problematized by multifaceted identities, which are sometimes misconstrued as binary or twin identities. Harry, the protagonist, first considers his own identity as split between bourgeois man and savage wolf, yet he comes to perceive an endless number of selves that constitute his identity. • Nothing—whether physical/concrete or abstract/theoretical— can exist without its opposite. • Harry’s story is heavily impacted by perspective. The novel is a nested narrative without closure or resolution. The first narrator, who is the nephew of Harry’s landlord, introduces us to Harry and inevitably influences our opinion of him before we meet him or experience his own narrative, which is then interrupted by a “Treatise on the Steppenwolf,” a manuscript penned by an absolute stranger who purports to “know” Harry. Once Harry resumes control of the narrative, he has become preoccupied with the relative accuracy of the stranger’s perceptions to the extent that he questions his own knowledge of himself. Perhaps this self-doubt characterizes the dilemma of modern existence. • Much of Harry’s story reminded me of Sartre’s “The Myth of Sisyphus”; both texts consider the absurdity of modern life and the futility of suicide. Ultimately, Steppenwolf is not a conventional novel with a carefully constructed plot and sharply drawn characters. Every element of this text teems with ambiguity and philosophical reflection. It is a struggle, yes, but definitely one worth engaging—like life itself.

I purchased the Picador Modern Classic edition; and am very pleased with it. These editions are compact hardback books - smaller than the average paperback. The print may be too small for some, but I haven't struggled with reading it; and due to the size of these editions, they are easy to carry and read anywhere.

smol

A edição é de bolso em capa dura, contem boas páginas e datilografia. Infelizmente não encontrei o mesmo tipo de edição para outras obras do autor. A obra em si é genial, mas provavelmente não é para todos os públicos.

Este es un libro asombroso de un autor asombroso. Lo leí por primera vez cuando era una adolescente y tuvo un gran efecto en mí en ese momento. Ahora estoy releyendo el libro a los setenta años y es como si lo estuviera leyendo por primera vez. El libro sigue siendo asombroso. Adoro leer las palabras de un autor verdaderamente grandioso, a diferencia de la mayoría de los autores conocidos de los best sellers actuales. ¡Había olvidado lo grandioso que puede ser un libro cuando está escrito por un gigante como Hesse! Mi única queja es que el tamaño de la fuente es un poco pequeño. Necesito leer el libro con mis lentes. Sin embargo, ¡esta es una muy buena edición!

Nice binding and Handy size