I just finished this, what did I think?

Please post your collection user

Just skimmed the hall of mirrors part since I had to see what the hype was. It's definitely intensely Jungian with the anti-physicalist overtones and treatment of the subconscious as a multiplicity, which isn't surprising considering it was written at the height of his success. Have to read more Hesse, he seems extremely relevant for today's zeitgeist.

>"Then he passed his hand swiftly over the board and gently swept all the pieces into a heap;
>and, meditatively with an artist's skill, made up a new game of the same pieces with quite other
>groupings, relationships and entanglements. The second game had an affinity with the first, it
>was the same world built of the same material, but the key was different, the time changed, the
motif was differently given out and the situations differently presented."

SW thread please. Might just be imagining things but seems like Hesse basically got at chaos theory in an indirect way.

These are he ones I have on my shelf right now- I collect the german editions, and am saving up for a first edition if I can find a good one nearby. I’d like to collect all the paperbacks from Suhrkamp to begin with.

This one may be my favorite - a copy of Demian from 1922 in Fraktur. Bought for 6€ at a bookstore in Berlin!

i'm exceptionally jealous

I have a similar collection, bought nice editions from the twenties to the fifties on amazon.de for like a euro or three each.

>Probably my favorite Hesse book
I read most of his work. I ran out of steam partway through Magister Ludi because I was bored with the repetition from the other similar works. If I could relive the experience then I would start with Magister Ludi and skip the other similar works. I spoke with a native German speaker regarding Hesse's varied dialectics in each of them but I was unconvinced. They are all too similar for me. Once again, if I were to read only one, it would probably be Magister Ludi / Glass Bead Game.

Spanish edition

It is a radically different book.
Compare it to Glasbead Game or Siddhartha, not Steppenwolf.

>Aguilar
Enjoy your censored works. Must be fun to read half of what was actually written.

I read part of it with a gf of mine, as the first german-language book I've read in years.
Planning on reading it through soon, once I'm done with what I'm reading now.

Would you say it's worth it reading it in the original language?
Mein Deutsch ist nur durchschnitlich, und gar nicht so gut wie mein Englisch.

Glass Bead Game > Siddhartha > Narcissus and Goldmund

Debate me.

I would say that each has its distinct differences but in general I would put Glass Bead Game above the other too as well and then Siddhartha and Narziß und Goldmund are then subjectively palced second or third.

Proof?

Meiner Meinung nach mach es immer Sinn, ein Buch in der ursprunglichen Sprache wenn möglich zu lesen. Also ja.
For me, Glass Bead Game got me back into German. If it's too much, it's totally fine to read it in English though.
I can see why, but I found the Bildungsroman aspect of the book a bit deeper in GBG than in Siddhartha. To each their own.
Unironically correct
I have to start doing that, but I always balk at the shipping bc I'm a poorfag lol
Dunno about the anons saying that this collection is censored, nonetheless very cool user

i always hear about glass bead game as the "final boss" of hesse

as someone who has read siddhartha / narcissus, will i appreciate it? should i read anything else first

I dunno, did you appreciate siddhartha and/or NaG?
What should you read first? Siddhartha and/or NaG. Actually I'd read Demian too.

>I just finished this, what did I think?
Im onto you nigger

Hmm, ja, 's macht schon sinn.

Und geile Trips, alter!

You should read SW

youtube.com/watch?v=0Gl1AvJuNMA

What did Goldmund mean at the end by "without a mother, one cannot die"?

He presents the Eve-mother in a dualist sense inextricably linking life and death, ecstasy and pain, illness and health, and so on. Once Narcissus awakened himself to his own sensual nature she alone is what guided him throughout his life. She was the driving force of his soul which he ultimately wanted to depict as a sculpture, but he notes it was she who shaped him with her hands his whole life. He believed that truly great art is not something that was made through technical prowess alone and beautiful aesthetics, but it was an image from the soul which bubbled up to the surface.

The Eve-mother began as an image of his mother who provided him with life and then later on became distorted as a composite image of all the women and experiences he had in his life. As he was exposed to more and more of life outside the cloister the details of his mother grew blurry and he had not had a clear image of her enter his mind again until his deathbed when she began plucking his heart from his chest and he was glad to have her make death easy for him.

Keep in mind he is addressing Narcissus and asks how he will die when his time comes since he has no mother. Not in a literal sense, but since they are also presented as polar opposites Narcissus of logic, mind, and discipline, and Goldmund as a sensual, capricious, and free-spirited. How will Narcissus meet his end since he does not think or experience life in the same way Goldmund does, through images. To Goldmund it is inconceivable because he does not think as Narcissus does, in cold logic and facts.

You thought, “I’m a faggot.”

I always feel the role reversal at the end there is rather striking and stuck with me the most after finishing. Is Eva in Demian meant to convey something similar to the mother figure in Narcisuss and Goldmund?