Just finished reading Herman Hesse’s Narcissus and Goldmund this morning at 3 a.m. Reading this book made me realise that I enjoy his writings as much as when I first discovered Siddhartha, my first favourite novel, almost ten years ago. His writings appeal to me because they articulate the inner world of the seeker, a world of spiritual loneliness, struggle, turmoil, wandering, serenity, a world of mystical and mysterious depths and contradictions that includes depravity, intoxication, and inner compulsions that both estrange and redeem. Self-realisation and awakening are the themes that draw me back to Hesse’s books time and time again.
Hesse was awarded the Nobel prize for Literature in 1946.
For the records, here’s an excerpt from the book:
“...But I’m thinking of Rebekka, of the burned Jews, the mass burials, the Great Death, of the alleys and rooms full of stinking corpses, of all the gruesome looting, the haggard, abandoned children, of dogs starved to death on their chains-and when I think of all that and see these images before me, then my heart aches and it seems to me that our mothers have borne us into a hopeless, cruel, devilish world, and that it would be better if they had never conceived, if God had not created this horrible world, if the Saviour had not let himself be nailed to the cross in vain.”Narcissus gave Goldmund a friendly nod.
“Your are quite right,”...”...But in one thing you are quite wrong: you think that the things you have said are thoughts. But actually they are feelings. They are the feelings of a man preoccupied with the horror of life, and you must not forget that these sad, desperate emotions are balanced by completely different ones! When you feel happy on a horse, riding through a pretty landscape, or when you sneak somewhat recklessly into a castle at night to court a count’s mistress, then the world looks altogether different to you, and no plague-stricken house or burned Jew can prevent you from fulfilling your desire. Is that not so?” “Certainly, that is so. Because the world is so full of death and horror, I try again and again to console my heart and to pick the flowers that grow in the midst of hell. I find bliss, and for an hour I forget the horror. But that does not mean that it does not exist.” “You expressed that very well. So you find yourself surrounded by death and horror in the world, and you escape it into lust. But lust has no duration; it leaves you again in the desert.” “Yes, that’s true.” “Most people feel that way, but only a few feel it with such sharpness and violence as you do; few feel the need to become aware of these feelings. But tell me: besides this desperate coming and going between lust and horror, besides this seesaw between lust for life and sadness of death-have you tried no other road?” “Oh yes, of course I have. I’ve tried art…” “...But what has art meant to you, what has art brought to you?” “It was the overcoming of the transitory. I saw that something remained of the fools’ play, the death dance of human life, something lasting: works of art. They too will probably perish some day; they’ll burn or crumble or be destroyed. Still, they outlast many human lives; they form a silent empire of images and relics beyond the fleeting moment. To work at that seems good and comforting to me, because it almost succeeds in making the transitory eternal.”
I am a huge Hesse fan. My first exposure was Steppenwolf, and then The Glass Bead Game. I’ve since read pretty much everything he’s written, and the only thing that I didn’t love was Demian, which was good but inconsistent. But Narcissus and Goldmund is far and away my favorite of his books. The ending alone, which is the best ending of any book I’ve ever read, is amazing. I was literally blown away. It took me days to recover. What a book.
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Well, I was a bit disappointed by the ending, which I found slightly perverse. Goldmund’s peaceful acceptance of not being able to complete a sculpture of the Universal Mother reminded me of the ending of 1984, where Winston finally learned how to love Big Brother. I was hoping for something more fulfilling, where Goldmund didn’t just die like that, without completing his great work.
I read The Glass Bead Game almost ten years ago. I remember being fascinated, though like Narcissus and Goldmund, I have forgotten much of it now. I’m surprised that Hesse’s books still appealed to me after so long.
Another German author who made an impression on me was Gunther Grass. His book “The Tin Drum” was just plain weird. The opening paragraphs of the book arrested me:
“Granted: I am an inmate of a mental hospital; my keeper is watching me, he never lets me out of his sight; there’s a peephole in the door, and my keeper’s eye is the shade of brown that can never see through a blue-eyed type like me.
So you see, my keeper can’t be an enemy. I’ve come to be very fond of him; when he stops looking at me from behind the door and comes into the room, I tell him incidents from my life, so he can get to know me in spite of the peephole between us. He seems to treasure my stories, because every time I tell him some fairy tale, he shows his gratitude by bringing out his latest knot construction. I wouldn’t swear that he’s an artist. But I am certain that an exhibition of his creations would be well received by the press and attract a few purchasers. He picks up common pieces of string in the patients’ rooms after visiting hours, disentangles them, and works them up into elaborate contorted spooks; then he dips them in plaster, lets them harden, and mounts them on knitting needles that he fastens to little wooden pedestals.”