Luís's Reviews > Demian

Thank you for this review. I only once tried to read Hesse, it was Siddharta, but did not finish it and never got back to his books. Maybe one day I will try again, but the reasons for me to abandon the book seem to be similar to those which dampened your enthusiasm.

Yves wrote: "Thank you for this review. I only once tried to read Hesse, it was Siddharta, but did not finish it and never got back to his books. Maybe one day I will try again, but the reasons for me to abando..."

Thank you, Yves. I liked Siddartha more than this work. I feel a sentiment of incommodity about this one.

I wonder if your edition of Demien gave all of this work's full bizarre background - the character of Max Demien was based on the author's friend/guru Gusto Graser (one of the many proponents of alternate lifestyles in Germany in the early 20th century and Wiemar era who would now be described as 'New Age' - indeed it is amazing how much hippy/new age ideas and practices seem ton have been copied, wholesale and unacknowledged from men like Grasser) and when first published the novel came out under the name of Emil Sinclair and it attracted huge praise and won the prestigious Fontane Prize for best German debut novel. A year later the author had to return it when it was discovered that it was not a novice work but that of the 411 year old Hesse. Part of the joy of the story is that the novel came out in the midst of the Munich revolution of 1919 when Bavaria was declared a Republic, several times under various forms by a collection of writers and litterateurs and all sorts of odd balls, including Grasser, who tried to get their plans for changing society made official policy!

I read some of Hesse including Narcissus and Goldmund back in my late teenage years and thought him terribly deep and important but that phase didn't last and I wasn't surprised to read not long after Gore Vidal in an assessment of 'giants' of literature that Hesse was a writer whose stock had started to decline with the passing of the alternate lifestyles of the 1960's and whose reputation was currently (I believe the article was written in the early 1980's) in free fall and unlikely to recover. Certainly I remember Hesse as being one of those books like those of Carlos Castaneda and 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance' that were everywhere in the 1970's and then they seemed to be nowhere.

Is Hesse having revival? Is his eastern pseudo religious balderdash being taken seriously again? I honestly don't think he was a good novelist - but maybe he was a better philosopher then I give him credit for?!

Liam wrote: "I wonder if your edition of Demien gave all of this work's full bizarre background - the character of Max Demien was based on the author's friend/guru Gusto Graser (one of the many proponents of al..."

I think you're right on most of your last statements. This book is part of what was to come: the outbreak of a vast military movement and a terrible slaughter, including the two world wars.

Luís wrote: "Liam wrote: "I wonder if your edition of Demien gave all of this work's full bizarre background - the character of Max Demien was based on the author's friend/guru Gusto Graser (one of the many pro..."

Most of the information Graser comes from a wonderful book by Volker Weidermann 'Dreamers' about the Munich revolution of 1919 during which Demien came out. My unkind words about Hesse reflects nothing but my prejudices and lack of charity!

Liam wrote: "Luís wrote: "Liam wrote: "I wonder if your edition of Demien gave all of this work's full bizarre background - the character of Max Demien was based on the author's friend/guru Gusto Graser (one of..."

Thank you for your advice!