Jayaprakash Satyamurthy
Knivesout no more
I finished reading Herman Hesse's Demian last night. It would feel pretentious (not to mention over-reminiscent of my terrible years studying Eng Lit in college) to attempt a comprehensive appraisal here, so I'll just list out a few of the things that struck me about the book.
The story basically tells us about the journey of Emil Sinclair from secure, middle-class god-fearing childhood through rebellion and self-destruction to spiritual transformation, guided in many ways by his first and last mentor, Max Demian. It's a first-person narrative that seeks to chronicle every step of Sinclair's awakening and quest in a naturalistic and comprehensive way.
Jung, Nietszche, and maybe even Darwin are certainly spiritual fathers of aspects of this book.
In a way, it's a product of its time, clearly sensing that the world order of the early 20th century was soon to die, even if it took two world wars to completely slaughter the beast, and looking forward with cautious hope to the new world that would then unfold.
What I liked was that Hesse places no higher injunction on us than to strive to know ourselves and be ourselves. We are not hectored into being poets, prophets, revolutionaries or supermen, but merely to gaze into ourselves fearlessly and become whatever our individual will or destiny dictates.
It's an inspiring book, and despite Nietzchean resonances, a far more humanly engaged one. Although it dismisses the main part of humanity as an unthinking herd, there is ultimately a sense of real compassion for people, a knowledge that each one of us is, or could have been a unique experiement. And there is no room here for the reader to look at depictions of some superior man and think 'why, of course, that's who I am! To hell with the cattle!'.
Hesse clearly knew that self-realisation is a hard path, one of destroying one's old world and self to emerge anew, a phoenix-like process to be approached humbly rather than with hubris.
This early work was Hesse's first really important novel, and a vastly influential one. It speaks directly to the heart of humanity and still has much in it we would do well to listen to.
The story basically tells us about the journey of Emil Sinclair from secure, middle-class god-fearing childhood through rebellion and self-destruction to spiritual transformation, guided in many ways by his first and last mentor, Max Demian. It's a first-person narrative that seeks to chronicle every step of Sinclair's awakening and quest in a naturalistic and comprehensive way.
Jung, Nietszche, and maybe even Darwin are certainly spiritual fathers of aspects of this book.
In a way, it's a product of its time, clearly sensing that the world order of the early 20th century was soon to die, even if it took two world wars to completely slaughter the beast, and looking forward with cautious hope to the new world that would then unfold.
What I liked was that Hesse places no higher injunction on us than to strive to know ourselves and be ourselves. We are not hectored into being poets, prophets, revolutionaries or supermen, but merely to gaze into ourselves fearlessly and become whatever our individual will or destiny dictates.
It's an inspiring book, and despite Nietzchean resonances, a far more humanly engaged one. Although it dismisses the main part of humanity as an unthinking herd, there is ultimately a sense of real compassion for people, a knowledge that each one of us is, or could have been a unique experiement. And there is no room here for the reader to look at depictions of some superior man and think 'why, of course, that's who I am! To hell with the cattle!'.
Hesse clearly knew that self-realisation is a hard path, one of destroying one's old world and self to emerge anew, a phoenix-like process to be approached humbly rather than with hubris.
This early work was Hesse's first really important novel, and a vastly influential one. It speaks directly to the heart of humanity and still has much in it we would do well to listen to.
