I have read all of Hesse’s books over the course of my life, and this book was the last. I just never seemed to get to it until this year. The posthumous stories…the 3 lives stories at the very end of this book are my absolutely favorite writings of Hesse. So special. It took me my whole life to get to them, but to me they are a gem of a surprise I was not expecting in this last foray into his work.
I was listening to the John Batchelor podcast earlier this evening as he interviewed a Harvard astronomer that was making the point that if you can't experimentally verify a physical theory then what's the theory worth? String theory and multiple universes come to mind as theories that can't be established experimentally. I immediately remembered the book-The Glass Bead Game-I read in the late 1970s or early 1980s. Thanks for your review. You are an excellent speaker.
I think that the idea of intellectuals as being set apart from society and of knowledge being inaccessible to the public (and made more inaccessible and esoteric by the intellectuals themselves who devote their lives to such ever increasing minutae which begs the question of whether it's even necessary) is part of the satirical focus of the book. My main takeaway is that Hesse had a disdain for intellectualism that was set apart from society and done for it's own sake. I believe the other main focus of the book was very spiritual..this is why Knecht seems "perfect"..partly because of the admiring view of the biographer, but also in part because of the idea that if one is following their own path, there are no mistakes. In this sense, an outsider could have seen Knecht's whole career in the Glass Bead Game as a mistake since he left it. But he makes clear that it is part of the winding jouney of one's own life if they keep pushing forward- accepting change and shedding past skins as they are outgrown in order to gain further wisdom and light to then share and pass along to others.
Really good review, this is a complicated book with lots of intentional layers. Hesse is one of my favorite authors and the Glass Bead Game is way far on his formal intellectual side. For a more emotional but still thought provoking story you can check out his book Narcissus and Goldmund.
Truly profound novel, see Rothko's work in Houston, Texas at the Rothko Chapel for another touch of brilliance. I read this book and when I put it down, I told myself, "I do not know what this book/story is about" for years off and on I thought about it but I was never able to come to terms with it. One night I woke up, years had past and suddenly I knew what the book was about, still I can't tell you in a way that you would understand. I hope that you read the book and accept it. An attempt as is made here to rationalize it is simply what Hesse expected the reader to do, he provided the glass bead game to you, you can play it till time ends. In a way I feel that the book is about love (love inspires us to heroic deeds), but the book is not really about that. If I were to make an attempt to define what it is about and use words to do it, I would say that it is about the fact that everything is just beyond our comprehension, as if a feather floating on a breeze that is just beyond our reach. I am sorry, it is a poor attempt but here we are and life is the glass bead game. None of this is real nor is there meaning but I have loved and I have lost, it is the playing, it is the doing that matters, do your best, do not succumb to less. Christmas Eve 2022
For someone interested in Hesse, I'd recommend Siddhartha, Journey to the East, Demian, and/or Steppenwolf first. I believe these would help the reader appreciate of the Glass Bead Game. P.S. there are three stories at the end of the Glass Bead Game; another good starting point.
Castalia isn't painted by Hesse in a necessarily positive light. The idea of Castalia as an "ivory tower" is the image that Hesse presents, with its seclusion from the world being the impetus for Knecht's resignation of his post and his desire to go into the world that Castalians so abhor.
agreed. Thank you for posting that so I didn't have to. Knecht leaves Castalia twice on a "sabbatical" to Jacobus and later in the Zen garden (been a while). He realizes he must leave the ivory tower for reasons you mention above. He expands his worldview and in the end even achieves physical enlightenment.
Yes agreed. It really resonates with Hesse 's own escape from such Castalians within his own country or within his culture, surroundings that restricts liberation, freedom to experience , expose oneself to other, alien ideas, thoughts and being.
I am a deep devotee of Hesse, his autobiographical novels are absolutely transformative. However this book remains a total enigma to me although I have attempted it many times over the last forty years or so. Even with the help of my best friend and literary guru we were unable to even begin to comprehend it. It helped when someone told me it was set in the future, but still it boggles the mind. Undoubtedly an incredible book nonetheless.
Duality and non duality. The deep meaning comes together for me when, in the end, Joseph jumps into the cold water. There's the non duailty, the direct experience of life, one Joseph isn't prepared for. It's too much. It seems to me this dichotomy, was Hesse's main theme throughout all his work.
Thank you Rachel...I was on a kick to read ALL of Hesse's works so included this as a grand finale. Good job on review! I recall the experience of reading it almost like a dream: it drew me into a unique mindset as if I were IN the "monastery" and, hypnotically, I read on and on, waiting for the meaning to grab me up into revelation land...it never happened! I'm intending to read more about and/or of it
I had my Year of Hesse some years back. 5 or6 novels. "Narcissus and Goldmund" was my fav, I think "Steppenwolf" is his most popular, and "The Glass Bead Game" being his most involved and biggest and has a big twisty plot.
As a Hesse devote it was starting to me to hear that THBG was the first Hesse novel you consumed. For me I've always looked upon it as the unified principals of Hermann Hesse intellectualized into novel form. As such, the characters have always been a backdrop to me for the philosophy. It was interesting to hear a review based on character and plot by some attempting to emotionally connect with the book. I recommend that you pick up Beneath the Wheel. I think it will help open Hesse up to you. Great job KLD.
The Steppen wolf is a masterpiece and from my point of view the perfect counterpoint to this book. Hermann Hesse was a visionary and mistic. His view of the future may start to resonate with ou times now...
I read most of Hesse's works in a seminar class my senior year over a decade ago. Glass Bead Game was a heavy text, was not necessarily my favorite in the series of all his work. I appreciate your analysis, it brought me right back to my time in college lol.
Happy Birthday Hermann Hesse!!!! (July 2) I'll never forget you brother, since you are a voice that sings of my inner life. If you reach out to Hermann Hesse, you'll find that he's reaching out to you. (Good job Kalanadi... thanks for nurturing the flame.)
It was the first book that my late wife and I shared and it stuck in my mind. I am now going back to it after writing a SciFi 2077 at 80. I became a Christian while writing the book which includes😢 The Monastery of Divine Light set on Mars, a Benedictine kind of place for spiritual development and connected to Knights of Peace where violence is defeated by non-violent combat.
8:12 Privilege in what sense? In other works of Hesse, like Demian and Steppenwolf, i did observed that Hesse have a conection with the Spinoza's thought row (spinoza, nietzsche, foucault, deleuze etc), which always tend to repeat the idea of the fatigue that the world is causing us (the mans world, burgoise association). Dont you think he meant something close to this type of thought? (Like, that is hard to someone cares to knowledge).
Ah yes, the pleasures of my youth - Glass Bead game, Siddhartha, Steppenwolf and Journey to the East. These days all I have in my book case of Hesse's are Beneath the Wheel and Demian, butt I will always love those others. A recommendation but oddly similar (in terms of the other lives) is Jack London's the Star Rover. It's about a socialist framed for murder (happened more often than you might think in those days) who escapes from torture sessions by , among other ways, living past lives. London of course was a Socialist as Hesse was heavily influenced by his Pietist upbringing but it always seemed to me the two books reached a kind of odd common ground.
Hi, I really enjoyed your video. I just finished the book myself and I pretty much agree with everything you said. I was really intrigued by the 3 short stories at the end. Especially the last one "the indian life" which I think was the best of the 3 but I find myself having a hard time interpreting them. Maybe this is a silly comment but it reminded me a lot of the lion king plot, even the scenes, the names, the character. I would love to hear you about the 3 short stories and especially the indian life. I didn't really find analysis of those, any leads? Thanks for reading and keep up the good work ! Cheers from France ;)
A really good review, thanks. I always enjoy and appreciate your work. I liked the Glass Bead Game better than you did, though I wouldn't take issue with anything you've said about it. I think it's a notable example of a great artist's late work: stark, austere, stripped back to essentials, and of course permeated with melancholy. Think late Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Turner, Dylan. It was Hesse's last book I believe, and it's my favourite of his.
Wow this is an excellent review and explanation. I have loved Herman Hesse since I first read Steppenwolf in 1969, and have read and reread most of his novels many times. But the Glass Bead Game was totally over my head, after countless attempts I have abandoned all hope of any real understanding of this book.
I remember really struggling with it and it took a long time to get through but at that time I made myself finish every book I started, later I decided that was silly and if I didn't like a book or it was too difficult (e.g. Joyce) I allowed myself to just drop it and find another that did please me; one I dropped was Heller's 'Something happened' = I hated it! At art college I took a course 'Art & technology' (good tutor) which increased my feeling/instinct that art and maths are very connected (I dropped maths half-way through A-levels in the UK in order to follow my heart (instead of what I was told was financially sensible) and for my third subject took art, they join up - but often quite invisibly - I remained an artist (graphics, hand-lettering/letraset & airbrush in those early days) throughout my working life. P.S. I could never say I really understood it but, rather like a painting (or music) it evoked lots of sensations/feelings and images/patterns & colours - as can maths!
thank u for such a great review .. i think this one of the life-changing novels of all time ... the idea of the combination among all sciences and arts that was referred to as the glass bead game "is simply the idea of god" who binds all together .. but i think u forget to mention that the whole novel was built on music . Hesse saw that music is the way and "the only way" to perfection" to god" and he drew the master of music as a prophet or an angel i'm not specialist in literature ... "but god" i adore this very book
Thanks for posting. I hadn't thought of this particular Hesse novel for years and remembered much about it as you got further into your review. This book, Magister Ludi, also known as The Glass Bead Game, is very unlike any other of Hermann Hesse's works. The other Hesse novels share a generally shorter length in pages, and with that a less complicated yet more appreciable and practical message, along with an intensified lyrical prose that astounds the reader with a beautiful flood of vivid images and feelings. I found Magister Ludi to be somewhat sterile after bathing in his earlier works. One's heart can be struck open by reading Siddhartha, Demian, Narcissus And Goldmund, Knulp, and maybe a little less knocked about by his works Peter Camenzind, Roshalde, Beneath the Wheel, Gertude, Klingsor's Last Summer and Journey To The East. Hesse was awarded the Nobel Prize after Magister Ludi but he was not a particularly ecstatic recipient. But for me, an older person who has read a lot of writers, Hesse remains a 'top fiver'. He wrote from the the being's inner psyche (even if in third person), something Dostoevsky gave us in truckloads decades before. And then there is the 'Dostoevsky Of The North' as Henry Miller proclaimed him, the Norwegian Knut Hamsun. Hamsun's 'Hunger' is considered by many as the book that fathered modern literature. I highly recommend it along with 'Pan' and 'Mysteries' by the same author. I believe Hesse was influenced by Hamsun and I'm sure Hemingway was. Hamsun won the Nobel Prize for literature as well and had a political and social drama in his life for being understood to side with Hitler at one point -- something he denied in later life. Anyway, that is my little blurb.
My friend sent me a copy a few years back I rememeber thinking it was too fragmented to get on with? I started reading an online version recently,and realised i had read the copy my friend senti quite well And understood a good deal too It was like finding i was inside the story of steppenwolf Unnerving
It recently occurred to me that perhaps what Hesse did here was write four life biographies in this book. That might account for the privileged education that both Hesse and Knecht underwent and both broke away from in the end. I love Hesse. He just keeps revealing something to me.. He keeps pulling me back by making me realize what he was talking about years later. Like I also realized recently that Emil Sinclairs original sin was lying about stealing an apple. :) And about the lack of emotional connection; I really felt a strong connection with Joseph. Especially in certain scenes. Like when he was playing with the music master for the first time, or when the music master died, or the tense scenes with Plinio, or when he decided to leave the order, and when he left and took his little flute. All these scenes are still with me very vividly. When he is in the roll as Magister Ludi his emotional connection is ciphered away, but in the moments where he is confronted with the Real world like the scenes I described, the emotional connection really springs back into place for me.
When I read up on this book while reading it, I was very surprised to discover that Hesse had written the final 3 "biographies" (the "lives" of Joseph Knecht) before writing the rest of it. I thought that was an unusual way to start writing a novel and then to structure it. It shook up the biography format in an interesting way. I can see having a strong connection to Joseph during scenes like playing with the music master, because they are personal, intimate moments where he is himself. It's been a little while since I've read this, and the parts I remember most are when Joseph is not the Magister Ludi. I would definitely love to read more by Hesse because I feel that I could peel back layers and layers of his writing. He definitely writes in a genre (or genres) that is personally challenging for me!
Hello Kalanadi. Have you been watching the new TV series Westworld ? The ideas promoted in Westworld and the Glass Bead Game are so parallel to each other. This is not a coincidence since this is described as "magick" by many rosicrucians of whom Hermann Hesse is one of them. It is all about "As above, so below".
Glass bead game is the game of life - the objective existence to which we assigned a meaning and give importance and yet it is meaningless and empty, transparent and easilly breakable. It is just for the sake of being. It manifests as things in time but it is just a formless Subject in now. Like one river compsed of many waves it flows but it is always in the same moment of time trough out its whole length - the now. Plus we humans have our own hierarchy, philosophy, religion, meanings and the way of life, giving importance to concepts that are really just like glass beads. That is at least what Hermans worldview was like, and his philosophy, those were his glass beads that he liked to play with.
Tucker Coffin I'm glad I was of some help! I imagine that by reading it in German you'll get much more of the nuance Hesse was going for. Apparently the first English translation failed to convey much of his original intent. I was glad I happened to have the second better translation!
You did a really good job on reviewing this book. It's is a complicated book, i'd say Hesses' most ambitious but i think you hit on the major key points. Still i'm curious to see what you think about the Music Master? I found his relationship and interaction with Knecht very warm and touching but besides that the book seems was very cold and philosophical. It reads of a man full of cynicism and intellectual pride. I prefer his earlier works myself, he's much more idealistic and romantic.
+GreyZone7 Oh, that's a really interesting idea! It's been a while since I've read both books, but I can see a little connection between them. And maybe also Anathem by Neal Stephenson? Though I'm not sure what his influences are, but the idea of the concents with scientists/philosophers in their own, isolated world there reminds me of Castalia.
Glad I found this lukewarm review. I’m reading it now. It feels like a book for intellectuals, so if I find it elitist or a bit dull, a voice in my head tells me it’s because I’m not clever enough to get it. So it’s reassuring to see someone who knows their stuff have similar misgivings. The glass bead game is apparently a spectator sport! Watching students pontificate on everything and nothing for days on end like you’re trapped in a never ending TED talk! Sounds like my own personal hell.
Wow, this book really is way different than anything I would ever read. Maybe if and when I want to challenge myself to read something way beyond my comfort level I'll think about it. You did a great job talking about it though. If I read that, I would be like, "uhm, what?"
Common Touch of Fantasy Yeah, it was really different, even for a modern classic. I'm glad I read other classics before I even attempted this one. It was so complicated, and I didn't even scratch the surface of some aspects of it! But yay for having my brain expanded! But you had the guts to attempt Great Expectations a little while ago, and I still don't think I'm ready to try a Dickens novel!
Wow this is really early video I started watching your review but paused it at 1:55 as I might read it I was given the book about 20 years ago as a Birthday Present but never read it As I say the nearly 2 minutes of your review has inspired me to attempt to read it
Agree to almost everything you just said. I thought it a very difficult book (because its different and a bit boring). I'm not sure if it was worth it but I intend to read another one of his books (once I get over the laziness I acquired with this book) to see what it has different because people seem to like a lot his books.
To be honest I found it poor story telling despite the intellectual content.It was a clever idea 300 pages too long. I like obscure abstract writing but not this.He is not Thomas Mann for sure or Kafka
Thanks for your review, im actually reading Hesse's book right now and have found many similarities with what you said about Kastaliens type of "religion". Just continue to make great videos like this. Greets from Germany ;)
Top review, thanks. I started listening to the audiobook and I didn't enjoy it much so I discontinued. Your review was really informative and helped me understand all I needed about the book, thanks. I wonder if you have read Slaughterhouse 5? Best wishes
As for me a Khehts death is very sudden and a kind of stupid. Exactly in the time when he wants to start new episode of his life, when he can work for the future if Castalia in a very different way, opening the shine of the new truths he dies in one mountain lake. I was very confused by that episode.
I just finished it today and thought the same. But I think what Hesse is showing that knowledge is by itself going to save you. It's a waste of knowledge if u do nothing with it. That's why the death was so sudden.
Edit out that beginning, "I probably won't do justice to it"....don't talk to yourself that way! (as if (smiley) I'm your uncle)...It's a vast book and we'll do our best to cover it in 12 minutes....anyway, you didn't ask me for advice....
I think castalia is like more like academia than monastery. And the problems that academia is facing right now (lack of funding, academics becoming too much like intellectual wankers) are kinda like the problems that Knecht expounded in his attention seeking resignation letter/petition.
It DRAGGED let's be honest. I was very happy when I realised the main story wasn't going on for the duration and the final third was other stories, but it still dragged. Not a good book in my opinion. Ethereal waffle that didn't even pose much in the way of actual philosophical ideas
Thank you for a wonderful review. I have been reflecting on your dislike of the elitist attitude of the mid century scientists and academics versus the attitude today. I wonder if the elitism has been eradicated as you suggest, or if it has just become politically incorrect to state elitist positions.
I thought this was a good review. As a "Player of Games" I enjoyed it for that reason and not for characterizations or lack thereof. But I read it 40 yrs ago so there's that.
Hi, good thought-provoking review. Unfortunately this is one of Hesse's I haven't read yet! However, your review has spurred me to get my copy sooner rather than later. Have you ready any Robert S de Ropp yet? If not I think he might greatly illuminate many ideas in Hesse's books. The most directly related and straightforward for a first read is probably 'The Master Game'. Robert's autobiography 'Warrior's Way' is the easiest and most entertaining read, and contains some fascinating thoughts about science (he was a successful biochemist) and religion, as well as reports on the 1960s counterculture and its outcomes, amongst many other themes. 'Self Completion' by the same author sums up his other works but it quite condensed and I'd say best to leave for later. Anyway, try The Master Game, and see if that sheds some light on The Glass Bead Game! I've read a few of Hesse's others and they are all good but I'd especially recommend Steppenwolf, that's superb. Siddhartha has an amazing chapter on (not 'about') enlightenment, but overall I found Steppenwolf by far the best. 'Demian' and 'The Journey to the East' are both pretty interesting also BTW.
You just may, be projecting a bit. I feel, that Heese; is, documenting the world, of elite scholarship; much more, than, he is advocating for it. He was, of a progressive social mind; and, would have abhorred all that was non-egalitarian in society.
The Glass Bead Game is part of a triology Journey to the East Knulp and The Glass Bead Game. Knulp I'm still trying to get ahold of being cheap working with the library other things on the reading list. However Knulp is a character in Journey to the East. You speak of wanting to read Siddartha it is easy and short. Another easy one Narcissus and Goldmund a Middle ages story. Steppenwolf very big with you're beat generation swirls around swing music drugs and sex shows his interest in Eastern mythology and love of Goethe. The Glass Bead game lately I've been comparing reading the Tanakh to reading Heraclitus how Heraclitus is said to mash the language come up with new combination bringing new ambiguity. Heraclitus did inspire Nietchze greatly. The study of language on the level of stand alone glyphs the figures in the corner of a youthful Talmud student letters made to look like animals. Mix in some Persian feeling aout poetry going back to Hafiz you know the first member of Russian Parliament freely elected a poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko excellent saw him read once as fate would have it. In America poetry has become counter-cultural, Slam or Ginsberg. As what you say about Castellan attitude reminds me of the old beat story about the Buddha who in the end gets drunk in the marketplace. The feeling the merchant class must be kept separate to keep away the avarice to keep the money changer from the temple. Also maybe just over a generation before you have Doestoevsky who in his masterpiece one of the main settings a monastery. but overall very good.
Hi! Just to put it right: Hesse`s novel "Das Glasperlenspiel" ("The Glass Bead Game") is NOT part of a trilogy. And Knulp is NOT a character in "Die Morgenlandfahrt" ("Journey to the East"), but he`s the main character in the same-titled novella "Knulp". Greetings from Germany Michael
I have read all of Hesse’s books over the course of my life, and this book was the last. I just never seemed to get to it until this year. The posthumous stories…the 3 lives stories at the very end of this book are my absolutely favorite writings of Hesse. So special. It took me my whole life to get to them, but to me they are a gem of a surprise I was not expecting in this last foray into his work.
I was listening to the John Batchelor podcast earlier this evening as he interviewed a Harvard astronomer that was making the point that if you can't experimentally verify a physical theory then what's the theory worth? String theory and multiple universes come to mind as theories that can't be established experimentally. I immediately remembered the book-The Glass Bead Game-I read in the late 1970s or early 1980s. Thanks for your review. You are an excellent speaker.
I think that the idea of intellectuals as being set apart from society and of knowledge being inaccessible to the public (and made more inaccessible and esoteric by the intellectuals themselves who devote their lives to such ever increasing minutae which begs the question of whether it's even necessary) is part of the satirical focus of the book. My main takeaway is that Hesse had a disdain for intellectualism that was set apart from society and done for it's own sake.
I believe the other main focus of the book was very spiritual..this is why Knecht seems "perfect"..partly because of the admiring view of the biographer, but also in part because of the idea that if one is following their own path, there are no mistakes. In this sense, an outsider could have seen Knecht's whole career in the Glass Bead Game as a mistake since he left it. But he makes clear that it is part of the winding jouney of one's own life if they keep pushing forward- accepting change and shedding past skins as they are outgrown in order to gain further wisdom and light to then share and pass along to others.
@Ken Able sure, why not
Really good review, this is a complicated book with lots of intentional layers. Hesse is one of my favorite authors and the Glass Bead Game is way far on his formal intellectual side. For a more emotional but still thought provoking story you can check out his book Narcissus and Goldmund.
My review of the modern classic The Glass Bead Game by Hermann Hesse. Intellectual, challenging, really different!
Very good review, you would like the Glass plate Game!!!
Truly profound novel, see Rothko's work in Houston, Texas at the Rothko Chapel for another touch of brilliance.
I read this book and when I put it down, I told myself, "I do not know what this book/story is about" for years off and on I thought about it but I was never able to come to terms with it.
One night I woke up, years had past and suddenly I knew what the book was about, still I can't tell you in a way that you would understand. I hope that you read the book and accept it. An attempt as is made here to rationalize it is simply what Hesse expected the reader to do, he provided the glass bead game to you, you can play it till time ends.
In a way I feel that the book is about love (love inspires us to heroic deeds), but the book is not really about that.
If I were to make an attempt to define what it is about and use words to do it, I would say that it is about the fact that everything is just beyond our comprehension, as if a feather floating on a breeze that is just beyond our reach.
I am sorry, it is a poor attempt but here we are and life is the glass bead game. None of this is real nor is there meaning but I have loved and I have lost, it is the playing, it is the doing that matters, do your best, do not succumb to less.
Christmas Eve 2022
For someone interested in Hesse, I'd recommend Siddhartha, Journey to the East, Demian, and/or Steppenwolf first. I believe these would help the reader appreciate of the Glass Bead Game. P.S. there are three stories at the end of the Glass Bead Game; another good starting point.
Castalia isn't painted by Hesse in a necessarily positive light. The idea of Castalia as an "ivory tower" is the image that Hesse presents, with its seclusion from the world being the impetus for Knecht's resignation of his post and his desire to go into the world that Castalians so abhor.
agreed. Thank you for posting that so I didn't have to. Knecht leaves Castalia twice on a "sabbatical" to Jacobus and later in the Zen garden (been a while). He realizes he must leave the ivory tower for reasons you mention above. He expands his worldview and in the end even achieves physical enlightenment.
Yes agreed. It really resonates with Hesse 's own escape from such Castalians within his own country or within his culture, surroundings that restricts liberation, freedom to experience , expose oneself to other, alien ideas, thoughts and being.
I am a deep devotee of Hesse, his autobiographical novels are absolutely transformative. However this book remains a total enigma to me although I have attempted it many times over the last forty years or so. Even with the help of my best friend and literary guru we were unable to even begin to comprehend it. It helped when someone told me it was set in the future, but still it boggles the mind. Undoubtedly an incredible book nonetheless.
Duality and non duality. The deep meaning comes together for me when, in the end, Joseph jumps into the cold water. There's the non duailty, the direct experience of life, one Joseph isn't prepared for. It's too much. It seems to me this dichotomy, was Hesse's main theme throughout all his work.
Thank you Rachel...I was on a kick to read ALL of Hesse's works so included this as a grand finale. Good job on review! I recall the experience of reading it almost like a dream: it drew me into a unique mindset as if I were IN the "monastery" and, hypnotically, I read on and on, waiting for the meaning to grab me up into revelation land...it never happened! I'm intending to read more about and/or of it
I had my Year of Hesse some years back. 5 or6 novels. "Narcissus and Goldmund" was my fav, I think "Steppenwolf" is his most popular, and "The Glass Bead Game" being his most involved and biggest and has a big twisty plot.
As a Hesse devote it was starting to me to hear that THBG was the first Hesse novel you consumed. For me I've always looked upon it as the unified principals of Hermann Hesse intellectualized into novel form. As such, the characters have always been a backdrop to me for the philosophy. It was interesting to hear a review based on character and plot by some attempting to emotionally connect with the book. I recommend that you pick up Beneath the Wheel. I think it will help open Hesse up to you. Great job KLD.
The Steppen wolf is a masterpiece and from my point of view the perfect counterpoint to this book. Hermann Hesse was a visionary and mistic. His view of the future may start to resonate with ou times now...
I read most of Hesse's works in a seminar class my senior year over a decade ago. Glass Bead Game was a heavy text, was not necessarily my favorite in the series of all his work. I appreciate your analysis, it brought me right back to my time in college lol.
Happy Birthday Hermann Hesse!!!! (July 2) I'll never forget you brother, since you are a voice that sings of my inner life. If you reach out to Hermann Hesse, you'll find that he's reaching out to you. (Good job Kalanadi... thanks for nurturing the flame.)
It was the first book that my late wife and I shared and it stuck in my mind. I am now going back to it after writing a SciFi 2077 at 80. I became a Christian while writing the book which includes😢 The Monastery of Divine Light set on Mars, a Benedictine kind of place for spiritual development and connected to Knights of Peace where violence is defeated by non-violent combat.
8:12 Privilege in what sense?
In other works of Hesse, like Demian and Steppenwolf, i did observed that Hesse have a conection with the Spinoza's thought row (spinoza, nietzsche, foucault, deleuze etc), which always tend to repeat the idea of the fatigue that the world is causing us (the mans world, burgoise association). Dont you think he meant something close to this type of thought? (Like, that is hard to someone cares to knowledge).
A good review. Precise, Concise, relational. Connect the dots, always. Science, Arts, Religion, all inter-connected. Brava! Rachel.
Ah yes, the pleasures of my youth - Glass Bead game, Siddhartha, Steppenwolf and Journey to the East. These days all I have in my book case of Hesse's are Beneath the Wheel and Demian, butt I will always love those others.
A recommendation but oddly similar (in terms of the other lives) is Jack London's the Star Rover. It's about a socialist framed for murder (happened more often than you might think in those days) who escapes from torture sessions by , among other ways, living past lives. London of course was a Socialist as Hesse was heavily influenced by his Pietist upbringing but it always seemed to me the two books reached a kind of odd common ground.
Hi, I really enjoyed your video. I just finished the book myself and I pretty much agree with everything you said. I was really intrigued by the 3 short stories at the end. Especially the last one "the indian life" which I think was the best of the 3 but I find myself having a hard time interpreting them. Maybe this is a silly comment but it reminded me a lot of the lion king plot, even the scenes, the names, the character. I would love to hear you about the 3 short stories and especially the indian life. I didn't really find analysis of those, any leads?
Thanks for reading and keep up the good work !
Cheers from France ;)
A really good review, thanks. I always enjoy and appreciate your work. I liked the Glass Bead Game better than you did, though I wouldn't take issue with anything you've said about it. I think it's a notable example of a great artist's late work: stark, austere, stripped back to essentials, and of course permeated with melancholy. Think late Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Turner, Dylan. It was Hesse's last book I believe, and it's my favourite of his.
Wow this is an excellent review and explanation. I have loved Herman Hesse since I first read Steppenwolf in 1969, and have read and reread most of his novels many times. But the Glass Bead Game was totally over my head, after countless attempts I have abandoned all hope of any real understanding of this book.
I remember really struggling with it and it took a long time to get through but at that time I made myself finish every book I started, later I decided that was silly and if I didn't like a book or it was too difficult (e.g. Joyce) I allowed myself to just drop it and find another that did please me; one I dropped was Heller's 'Something happened' = I hated it!
At art college I took a course 'Art & technology' (good tutor) which increased my feeling/instinct that art and maths are very connected (I dropped maths half-way through A-levels in the UK in order to follow my heart (instead of what I was told was financially sensible) and for my third subject took art, they join up - but often quite invisibly - I remained an artist (graphics, hand-lettering/letraset & airbrush in those early days) throughout my working life.
P.S. I could never say I really understood it but, rather like a painting (or music) it evoked lots of sensations/feelings and images/patterns & colours - as can maths!
thank u for such a great review .. i think this one of the life-changing novels of all time ... the idea of the combination among all sciences and arts that was referred to as the glass bead game "is simply the idea of god" who binds all together ..
but i think u forget to mention that the whole novel was built on music . Hesse saw that music is the way and "the only way" to perfection" to god"
and he drew the master of music as a prophet or an angel
i'm not specialist in literature ... "but god" i adore this very book
hermann hesse - great solid novelist
Thanks for posting. I hadn't thought of this particular Hesse novel for years and remembered much about it as you got further into your review. This book, Magister Ludi, also known as The Glass Bead Game, is very unlike any other of Hermann Hesse's works. The other Hesse novels share a generally shorter length in pages, and with that a less complicated yet more appreciable and practical message, along with an intensified lyrical prose that astounds the reader with a beautiful flood of vivid images and feelings. I found Magister Ludi to be somewhat sterile after bathing in his earlier works. One's heart can be struck open by reading Siddhartha, Demian, Narcissus And Goldmund, Knulp, and maybe a little less knocked about by his works Peter Camenzind, Roshalde, Beneath the Wheel, Gertude, Klingsor's Last Summer and Journey To The East. Hesse was awarded the Nobel Prize after Magister Ludi but he was not a particularly ecstatic recipient. But for me, an older person who has read a lot of writers, Hesse remains a 'top fiver'. He wrote from the the being's inner psyche (even if in third person), something Dostoevsky gave us in truckloads decades before. And then there is the 'Dostoevsky Of The North' as Henry Miller proclaimed him, the Norwegian Knut Hamsun. Hamsun's 'Hunger' is considered by many as the book that fathered modern literature. I highly recommend it along with 'Pan' and 'Mysteries' by the same author. I believe Hesse was influenced by Hamsun and I'm sure Hemingway was. Hamsun won the Nobel Prize for literature as well and had a political and social drama in his life for being understood to side with Hitler at one point -- something he denied in later life. Anyway, that is my little blurb.
My friend sent me a copy a few years back
I rememeber thinking it was too fragmented to get on with?
I started reading an online version recently,and realised i had read the copy my friend senti quite well
And understood a good deal too
It was like finding i was inside the story of steppenwolf
Unnerving
It recently occurred to me that perhaps what Hesse did here was write four life biographies in this book. That might account for the privileged education that both Hesse and Knecht underwent and both broke away from in the end.
I love Hesse. He just keeps revealing something to me.. He keeps pulling me back by making me realize what he was talking about years later. Like I also realized recently that Emil Sinclairs original sin was lying about stealing an apple. :)
And about the lack of emotional connection; I really felt a strong connection with Joseph. Especially in certain scenes. Like when he was playing with the music master for the first time, or when the music master died, or the tense scenes with Plinio, or when he decided to leave the order, and when he left and took his little flute. All these scenes are still with me very vividly.
When he is in the roll as Magister Ludi his emotional connection is ciphered away, but in the moments where he is confronted with the Real world like the scenes I described, the emotional connection really springs back into place for me.
When I read up on this book while reading it, I was very surprised to discover that Hesse had written the final 3 "biographies" (the "lives" of Joseph Knecht) before writing the rest of it. I thought that was an unusual way to start writing a novel and then to structure it. It shook up the biography format in an interesting way.
I can see having a strong connection to Joseph during scenes like playing with the music master, because they are personal, intimate moments where he is himself. It's been a little while since I've read this, and the parts I remember most are when Joseph is not the Magister Ludi.
I would definitely love to read more by Hesse because I feel that I could peel back layers and layers of his writing. He definitely writes in a genre (or genres) that is personally challenging for me!
Hello Kalanadi. Have you been watching the new TV series Westworld ? The ideas promoted in Westworld and the Glass Bead Game are so parallel to each other. This is not a coincidence since this is described as "magick" by many rosicrucians of whom Hermann Hesse is one of them. It is all about "As above, so below".
Glass bead game is the game of life - the objective existence to which we assigned a meaning and give importance and yet it is meaningless and empty, transparent and easilly breakable. It is just for the sake of being. It manifests as things in time but it is just a formless Subject in now. Like one river compsed of many waves it flows but it is always in the same moment of time trough out its whole length - the now. Plus we humans have our own hierarchy, philosophy, religion, meanings and the way of life, giving importance to concepts that are really just like glass beads. That is at least what Hermans worldview was like, and his philosophy, those were his glass beads that he liked to play with.
I'm also reading it in German and I swear it is so hard and so great at the same time. Your video has cleared up some stuff.
Tucker Coffin I'm glad I was of some help! I imagine that by reading it in German you'll get much more of the nuance Hesse was going for. Apparently the first English translation failed to convey much of his original intent. I was glad I happened to have the second better translation!
You did a really good job on reviewing this book. It's is a complicated book, i'd say Hesses' most ambitious but i think you hit on the major key points. Still i'm curious to see what you think about the Music Master? I found his relationship and interaction with Knecht very warm and touching but besides that the book seems was very cold and philosophical. It reads of a man full of cynicism and intellectual pride. I prefer his earlier works myself, he's much more idealistic and romantic.
Amazing. You made me just wonder if Walter M. Miller, Jr took inspiration from this book when he wrote A Canticle for Leibowitz.
+GreyZone7 Oh, that's a really interesting idea! It's been a while since I've read both books, but I can see a little connection between them. And maybe also Anathem by Neal Stephenson? Though I'm not sure what his influences are, but the idea of the concents with scientists/philosophers in their own, isolated world there reminds me of Castalia.
+Kalanadi I thought the same thing when I read Anathem, many similarities between Hesse and Stephenson's books.
Let us know if you ever do a comparison of Siddharta and Glass Bead Game. Thanks!
Hesse is dreaming the dream forward
Great review, my dad passed this book down to me and I am trying to get a grip on it.
Please review Hesse's Demian if u've read it)
Glad I found this lukewarm review. I’m reading it now. It feels like a book for intellectuals, so if I find it elitist or a bit dull, a voice in my head tells me it’s because I’m not clever enough to get it. So it’s reassuring to see someone who knows their stuff have similar misgivings.
The glass bead game is apparently a spectator sport! Watching students pontificate on everything and nothing for days on end like you’re trapped in a never ending TED talk! Sounds like my own personal hell.
I am clever and you are right in my estimation...
Wow, this book really is way different than anything I would ever read. Maybe if and when I want to challenge myself to read something way beyond my comfort level I'll think about it. You did a great job talking about it though. If I read that, I would be like, "uhm, what?"
Common Touch of Fantasy Yeah, it was really different, even for a modern classic. I'm glad I read other classics before I even attempted this one. It was so complicated, and I didn't even scratch the surface of some aspects of it! But yay for having my brain expanded! But you had the guts to attempt Great Expectations a little while ago, and I still don't think I'm ready to try a Dickens novel!
Your review made me want to read it even more. Thanks for your efforts.
Wow this is really early video I started watching your review but paused it at 1:55 as I might read it I was given the book about 20 years ago as a Birthday Present but never read it As I say the nearly 2 minutes of your review has inspired me to attempt to read it
Agree to almost everything you just said. I thought it a very difficult book (because its different and a bit boring). I'm not sure if it was worth it but I intend to read another one of his books (once I get over the laziness I acquired with this book) to see what it has different because people seem to like a lot his books.
The GBG is one of my fave books, despite its flaws...possibly due largely to the musical content...
To be honest I found it poor story telling despite the intellectual content.It was a clever idea 300 pages too long. I like obscure abstract writing but not this.He is not Thomas Mann for sure or Kafka
Thank you so much for this review, it was really interesting and informative, and helped me a lot for a school presentation I have to prepare!
I'm so glad you found it helpful! ^_^
Thanks a lot, I improve my Enlgish watching your videos. I've read some pages of this book. I think Hesse's thought must be known to all people.
Good review. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Thanks for your review, im actually reading Hesse's book right now and have found many similarities with what you said about Kastaliens type of "religion".
Just continue to make great videos like this.
Greets from Germany ;)
amazing review, thank you - and I loved your ideas of not separating art and sciences. it is all one big yin yang!
x
Top review, thanks. I started listening to the audiobook and I didn't enjoy it much so I discontinued. Your review was really informative and helped me understand all I needed about the book, thanks.
I wonder if you have read Slaughterhouse 5?
Best wishes
Sounds a lot like Freemasonry to me.
As for me a Khehts death is very sudden and a kind of stupid. Exactly in the time when he wants to start new episode of his life, when he can work for the future if Castalia in a very different way, opening the shine of the new truths he dies in one mountain lake. I was very confused by that episode.
I just finished it today and thought the same. But I think what Hesse is showing that knowledge is by itself going to save you. It's a waste of knowledge if u do nothing with it. That's why the death was so sudden.
@@mohammadzakariya2379 Death is the road to awe.
Edit out that beginning, "I probably won't do justice to it"....don't talk to yourself that way! (as if (smiley) I'm your uncle)...It's a vast book and we'll do our best to cover it in 12 minutes....anyway, you didn't ask me for advice....
Has a striking similarity to Stephenson's Anathem.
Reading it now. Dense but interesting
I think castalia is like more like academia than monastery. And the problems that academia is facing right now (lack of funding, academics becoming too much like intellectual wankers) are kinda like the problems that Knecht expounded in his attention seeking resignation letter/petition.
Thank you Rachel:)
It DRAGGED let's be honest. I was very happy when I realised the main story wasn't going on for the duration and the final third was other stories, but it still dragged. Not a good book in my opinion. Ethereal waffle that didn't even pose much in the way of actual philosophical ideas
Great video. Thank you
This is a good review! Well done!
Really Helpful, Thankyou!
Thank you for a wonderful review.
I have been reflecting on your dislike of the elitist attitude of the mid century scientists and academics versus the attitude today. I wonder if the elitism has been eradicated as you suggest, or if it has just become politically incorrect to state elitist positions.
The world needs to know Edgar Morin! great video
I'm puzzled by the book , writing itself was a profound piece of work I just felt a lot of the messages was no concrete.
I thought this was a good review. As a "Player of Games" I enjoyed it for that reason and not for characterizations or lack thereof. But I read it 40 yrs ago so there's that.
One of the great (SciFi, yes) novels.
Hi, good thought-provoking review. Unfortunately this is one of Hesse's I haven't read yet! However, your review has spurred me to get my copy sooner rather than later.
Have you ready any Robert S de Ropp yet? If not I think he might greatly illuminate many ideas in Hesse's books. The most directly related and straightforward for a first read is probably 'The Master Game'.
Robert's autobiography 'Warrior's Way' is the easiest and most entertaining read, and contains some fascinating thoughts about science (he was a successful biochemist) and religion, as well as reports on the 1960s counterculture and its outcomes, amongst many other themes.
'Self Completion' by the same author sums up his other works but it quite condensed and I'd say best to leave for later. Anyway, try The Master Game, and see if that sheds some light on The Glass Bead Game!
I've read a few of Hesse's others and they are all good but I'd especially
recommend Steppenwolf, that's superb. Siddhartha has an amazing chapter
on (not 'about') enlightenment, but overall I found Steppenwolf by far
the best. 'Demian' and 'The Journey to the East' are both pretty
interesting also BTW.
Nice job. TY
good review
tq for the review..
Interesting really Herman Hesse I gind him amazing.
You just may, be projecting a bit. I feel, that Heese; is, documenting the world, of elite scholarship; much more, than, he is advocating for it. He was, of a progressive social mind; and, would have abhorred all that was non-egalitarian in society.
i came here from plini
Hi Rachel :)
The Glass Bead Game is part of a triology Journey to the East Knulp and The Glass Bead Game. Knulp I'm still trying to get ahold of being cheap working with the library other things on the reading list. However Knulp is a character in Journey to the East. You speak of wanting to read Siddartha it is easy and short. Another easy one Narcissus and Goldmund a Middle ages story. Steppenwolf very big with you're beat generation swirls around swing music drugs and sex shows his interest in Eastern mythology and love of Goethe.
The Glass Bead game lately I've been comparing reading the Tanakh to reading Heraclitus how Heraclitus is said to mash the language come up with new combination bringing new ambiguity. Heraclitus did inspire Nietchze greatly. The study of language on the level of stand alone glyphs the figures in the corner of a youthful Talmud student letters made to look like animals. Mix in some Persian feeling aout poetry going back to Hafiz you know the first member of Russian Parliament freely elected a poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko excellent saw him read once as fate would have it. In America poetry has become counter-cultural, Slam or Ginsberg.
As what you say about Castellan attitude reminds me of the old beat story about the Buddha who in the end gets drunk in the marketplace. The feeling the merchant class must be kept separate to keep away the avarice to keep the money changer from the temple. Also maybe just over a generation before you have Doestoevsky who in his masterpiece one of the main settings a monastery. but overall very good.
Knulp isn't related it's an earlier work.
Hi!
Just to put it right:
Hesse`s novel "Das Glasperlenspiel" ("The Glass Bead Game") is NOT part of a trilogy.
And Knulp is NOT a character in "Die Morgenlandfahrt" ("Journey to the East"), but he`s the main character in the same-titled novella "Knulp".
Greetings from Germany
Michael
facebook.com/notes/mathew-whitney/the-last-religion/915466645310368/
Interesting thoughts, however , i deem this review 2/10