Thank you for this beautiful review of Hesse’s Beneath the Wheel. I was exchange student in Germany in 1986-87 and because I was craving some kind of English, my German host mother purchased this book for me. I loved reading every inch of it but at 16 years old, I became very hurt by the tragic ending. Thank you for bringing back such lovely memories.
I've read this while I was in college, the letrecher teacher saw a resemblance between me and hero of the book, she wanted to make sure that my ending would be good not tragic as the hero ( I'm still so glad that she gave me that book)
My favorite book by Hesse good review but the book is essentially about education. The formal strict play by the rules that Hans must adhere to to conform to society's expectations namely the adults in his village that vicariously live through him crushing his joy and loss of childhood. Contrast with Hermann the poetic free spirit rebel which Hans longs to be and experience in his own personal journey but is unable to due his mental breakdown thanks to being beneath the wheel of societal expectation versus his true self. Hesse is criticizing an educational system that does this to students instead of letting them be themselves on a personal discovery. The ending is so sad but as an educator this my favorite book on education.
beneath the wheel is an alagory about helping the horse a from the side of a wagon, and if you don't watch out your leg may be trapped beneeth the wheel, you cannot let up you have to keep moving with the wagon. Loved this book, i had a young lady employee who was going home for the holiday, and i gave her this book to read on the airplane. BTW she was working on her masters degree in physics and working in my machine shop. She would have become a very good machinist. She got a very good paying job working for Sandia Labs in albuquerque with the atomic energy commission. I should have hired a liberal arts major i guess. She by the way said she could relate to the book and thanked for being thoughtful. also i have heard from her friends how much she enjoyed working with me and how much she learned in the machine shop.
Could be... but I tend to think of "thrown under the bus" to mean an action done to someone else whereas I think the story was trying to portray someone crushed beneath the wheel of circumstances for various reasons.
I'm an antiacademic (a delinquent who studies overachievers), and you beat me to the punch of reviewing this antiacademic book! I believe Hesse is second only to "Emile" by Jean-Jacques Rousseau or maybe "The Catcher in the Rye" (the most antiacademic film most people are familiar with is "Good Will Hunting"), do you agree? But you didn't detract from my chance to review it from the sociopolitical side (I was waiting to see if you would make any controversial statements, Hesse criticizes scholarship and you are a scholar). Most situations are like that, there are young people on RUclips now with their own creative writing or musical composition channels (I'm going to single out "Svitlana's smart moves", an 18-year-old chess theorist). In all of those things there are multiple mental avenues to victory, for example a chess genius could try to advance in academics or just be a professional player like someone who drops out to be a professional athlete or musician. And yet you can't even ask those prodigious students for their opinions on this question, the system prevents it.
Thank you for this beautiful review of Hesse’s Beneath the Wheel. I was exchange student in Germany in 1986-87 and because I was craving some kind of English, my German host mother purchased this book for me. I loved reading every inch of it but at 16 years old, I became very hurt by the tragic ending. Thank you for bringing back such lovely memories.
Loving your exploration of Hesse. Good stuff.
It's been an 'enlightening' journey :)
I've read this while I was in college, the letrecher teacher saw a resemblance between me and hero of the book, she wanted to make sure that my ending would be good not tragic as the hero ( I'm still so glad that she gave me that book)
"Grind" and "bullethead" are great insults I picked up from this book
i have the 1953 translation!!! i’m so in love with this book
Thanks for the review, great book and for some reason youtube doesnt show your videos in my stream
Weird... I don't completely understand the RUclips algorithm for recommendations.
My favorite book by Hesse good review but the book is essentially about education. The formal strict play by the rules that Hans must adhere to to conform to society's expectations namely the adults in his village that vicariously live through him crushing his joy and loss of childhood. Contrast with Hermann the poetic free spirit rebel which Hans longs to be and experience in his own personal journey but is unable to due his mental breakdown thanks to being beneath the wheel of societal expectation versus his true self. Hesse is criticizing an educational system that does this to students instead of letting them be themselves on a personal discovery. The ending is so sad but as an educator this my favorite book on education.
Excellent
Great book. I even made a short video about it on my channel. I'd definitely read it again.
beneath the wheel is an alagory about helping the horse a from the side of a wagon, and if you don't watch out your leg may be trapped beneeth the wheel, you cannot let up you have to keep moving with the wagon. Loved this book, i had a young lady employee who was going home for the holiday, and i gave her this book to read on the airplane. BTW she was working on her masters degree in physics and working in my machine shop. She would have become a very good machinist. She got a very good paying job working for Sandia Labs in albuquerque with the atomic energy commission. I should have hired a liberal arts major i guess. She by the way said she could relate to the book and thanked for being thoughtful. also i have heard from her friends how much she enjoyed working with me and how much she learned in the machine shop.
"thrown under the bus" would be a comparison?
Could be... but I tend to think of "thrown under the bus" to mean an action done to someone else whereas I think the story was trying to portray someone crushed beneath the wheel of circumstances for various reasons.
I'm an antiacademic (a delinquent who studies overachievers), and you beat me to the punch of reviewing this antiacademic book! I believe Hesse is second only to "Emile" by Jean-Jacques Rousseau or maybe "The Catcher in the Rye" (the most antiacademic film most people are familiar with is "Good Will Hunting"), do you agree? But you didn't detract from my chance to review it from the sociopolitical side (I was waiting to see if you would make any controversial statements, Hesse criticizes scholarship and you are a scholar). Most situations are like that, there are young people on RUclips now with their own creative writing or musical composition channels (I'm going to single out "Svitlana's smart moves", an 18-year-old chess theorist). In all of those things there are multiple mental avenues to victory, for example a chess genius could try to advance in academics or just be a professional player like someone who drops out to be a professional athlete or musician. And yet you can't even ask those prodigious students for their opinions on this question, the system prevents it.