Status
Available
Call number
Genres
Collection
Publication
Penguin Putnam~trade (1989), Paperback, 144 pages
Description
Peter Camenzind, a young man from a Swiss mountain village, leaves his home and eagerly takes to the road in search of new experience. Traveling through Italy and France, Camenzind is increasingly disillusioned by the suffering he discovers around him; after failed romances and a tragic friendship, his idealism fades into crushing hopelessness. He finds peace again only when he cares for Boppi, an invalid who renews Camenzind's love for humanity and inspires him once again to find joy in the smallest details of every life.
User reviews
LibraryThing member bennbell
“In the beginning was the myth. God, in his search for self expression, invested the soul of Hindus, Greeks, and Germans with poetic shapes and continues to invest each child’s soul with poetry every day.”
I found this book by complete accident at an independent bookstore in Manhattan. It was
The book is the perfect length for a novel, in my opinion, coming in at exactly 200 pages comprised of eight chapters. Peter Camenzind is written in a simple, lyrical manner that that wastes no words yet is complex and quite compelling.
I found this book by complete accident at an independent bookstore in Manhattan. It was
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a happy accident, complete serendipity. I was not familiar with this work, the first novel by the esteemed author, Herman Hesse and was not particularly impressed with the title. I picked it up anyway as I was a fan of Hesse’s having read Steppenwolf, Siddhartha, Demian and Magister Ludi, in my own wayward and misspent youth. I just recently revisited Steppenwolf and found it to be compelling as ever. About a year later, I got around to reading it. It was worth the wait. I loved it! Like all of Hesse’s work, it concerns a protagonist that struggles with the duality of his own nature; that of a carnal, hedonistic, lustful human being, and the softer nature loving spiritual side. In this novel, Hesse traces the travels and travails, both spiritual and physical, of Peter Camenzind, a young man born in a small mountain village in Switzerland. He leaves his village to go to university and aspires to be a poet. He falls in love with a beautiful woman who is love with another man, which breaks his heart. He becomes close friends with Richard who later drowns. Peter turns bitter, becomes a wanderer, and suffers from spiritual malaise. He is aware of his own wretched existence. He forms a friendship with an invalid named Boppi, who restores his humanity to him. After Boppi’s death, Peter returns to his village and care for his father. He then begins to plan his great life’s work of becoming a poet.The book is the perfect length for a novel, in my opinion, coming in at exactly 200 pages comprised of eight chapters. Peter Camenzind is written in a simple, lyrical manner that that wastes no words yet is complex and quite compelling.
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LibraryThing member gbill
This was Hermann Hesse’s first novel, published in 1904 when he was 27. His title character Peter Camenzind is troubled as he comes of age because he finds that life can be very difficult: people who are close to you can be abrasive or pass away, and love can come and go. Ultimately it’s
I find this quote summarizes it best:
“That’s the way it is when you love. It makes you suffer, and I have suffered much in the years since. But it matters little that you suffer, so long as you feel alive with a sense of the close bond that connects all living things, so long as love does not die! I would gladly exchange every happy day of my life, all my infatuations and great plans, provided I could exchange them for gazing deeply once more into this most sacred experience. It bitterly hurts your eyes and heart, and your pride and self-esteem don’t get off scot-free either, but afterwards you feel so calm and serene, so much wiser and alive.”
Other quotes:
On the individual; I found this to be a very Eastern viewpoint, with the envelope being the ego:
“I realized with astonishment that man is distinguished from the rest of nature primarily by a slippery, protective envelope of illusions and lies. In a very short time, I observed this phenomenon among all my acquaintances. It is the result of each person’s having to make believe that he is a unique individual, whereas no one really knows his own innermost nature. Somewhat bewildered, I noticed the same trait in myself and I now gave up the attempt to get to the core of people. In most cases the protective envelope was of crucial importance anyway. I found it everywhere, even among children, who, whether consciously or unconsciously, always play a role completely and instinctively instead of displaying who they are.”
On life:
“But all my life I have been as timid and obstinate as a child, always confident that real life would come like a storm and overwhelm me. It would make me wise and rich, then bear me on its huge wings toward a ripe fortune.
Wise and frugal, life remained silent, however, and let me drift. It sent me neither storms nor stars but waited so that I would become aware of my insignificance again and in patience lose my obstinacy. It let me perform my little comedy of pride and knowledge, ignoring this as it waited for the lost child to find his way back to his mother.”
On love:
“Oh, love isn’t there to make us happy. I believe it exists to show us how much we can endure.”
“And why had God placed the burning need to be loved in my heart when in fact he had destined me to live the life of a recluse whom no one loved?”
“I used to believe it would be delightful to be loved without loving back. Now I discovered how painful love can be when you cannot return it.”
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optimistic and a story of transcendence: Peter finds a joy in life and humanity after travelling throughout Europe and befriending an invalid.I find this quote summarizes it best:
“That’s the way it is when you love. It makes you suffer, and I have suffered much in the years since. But it matters little that you suffer, so long as you feel alive with a sense of the close bond that connects all living things, so long as love does not die! I would gladly exchange every happy day of my life, all my infatuations and great plans, provided I could exchange them for gazing deeply once more into this most sacred experience. It bitterly hurts your eyes and heart, and your pride and self-esteem don’t get off scot-free either, but afterwards you feel so calm and serene, so much wiser and alive.”
Other quotes:
On the individual; I found this to be a very Eastern viewpoint, with the envelope being the ego:
“I realized with astonishment that man is distinguished from the rest of nature primarily by a slippery, protective envelope of illusions and lies. In a very short time, I observed this phenomenon among all my acquaintances. It is the result of each person’s having to make believe that he is a unique individual, whereas no one really knows his own innermost nature. Somewhat bewildered, I noticed the same trait in myself and I now gave up the attempt to get to the core of people. In most cases the protective envelope was of crucial importance anyway. I found it everywhere, even among children, who, whether consciously or unconsciously, always play a role completely and instinctively instead of displaying who they are.”
On life:
“But all my life I have been as timid and obstinate as a child, always confident that real life would come like a storm and overwhelm me. It would make me wise and rich, then bear me on its huge wings toward a ripe fortune.
Wise and frugal, life remained silent, however, and let me drift. It sent me neither storms nor stars but waited so that I would become aware of my insignificance again and in patience lose my obstinacy. It let me perform my little comedy of pride and knowledge, ignoring this as it waited for the lost child to find his way back to his mother.”
On love:
“Oh, love isn’t there to make us happy. I believe it exists to show us how much we can endure.”
“And why had God placed the burning need to be loved in my heart when in fact he had destined me to live the life of a recluse whom no one loved?”
“I used to believe it would be delightful to be loved without loving back. Now I discovered how painful love can be when you cannot return it.”
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LibraryThing member soylentgreen23
I love books where the main character has literary pretensions, either realised or not, and with episodes of unrequited love and its aftermaths. I fancy myself a writer - though I spend so little time writing that, like Peter Camenzind, I am destined never to be successful. In my youth I fell in
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love with women who were oblivious of my feelings, and felt the dreadful, deadening sensations that Hesse describes so clearly here. There are aspects of Camenzind's life and character that are alien to me; but I can understand and sympathise with his life thanks to Hesse's expert writing. Show Less
LibraryThing member BooksForDinner
Doesn't everyone go through a Hesse phase? Books like this make you happy you did. Best read when you are late teens/early twenties I'd say, for maximum effect!
LibraryThing member lisathomson
Interesting, difficult to define. Another perspective on life and rather a depressing one. What are we looking/striving for? Maybe its there in front of you. It was only when he 'gave' did he get back many times over and learn so much about himself and the world.
LibraryThing member HadriantheBlind
Hesse's first novel. A story about traveling and youth and romance and loss. Rather simple, but some budding fragments of what would make Hesse great can be seen here.
LibraryThing member MathMaverick
An excellent book! Peter Camenzind was raised in a small, solitary villiage with little friendship. Not a great student, he was lazy, willful and athletic. He witnesses his mothers death and is astanged from his father, a heavy drinker. Peter soon discovers drink and follows his fathers lead in
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this area. He travels and finds friendship (which he loses through death) and love, mostly unrequited. He realizes that "intellectual fervor" focuses on the state and society but gives little regard to the development of the self. He discovers St Francis of Assissi and follows his doctrine. Ultimately he cares for the near helpless Boppi from whom he learns and achieves peace of mind. A story of self growth and realization, sometimes destructive, sometimes painful but in the end a better understanding is acheived. Show Less
LibraryThing member jwhenderson
Peter Camenzind is usually classified as a novel of education or bildungsroman. However I see two different fictional strands woven into this narrative: the story of a spiritual journey and a picaresque nature. Thus a simple and even mythic poetical story is filled with complexity that welcomes the
The novel opens with the phrase, "In the beginning was the myth. God, in his search for self-expression, invested the souls of Hindus, Greeks, and Germans with poetic shapes and continues to invest each child's soul with poetry every day."(p 1) The novel is purely poetical, and its protagonist in time aspires to become a poet who invests the lives of men with reality in its most beautiful of forms. I found the story reminiscent of those of Siddhartha, Goldmund, and Harry Haller. Like them, Peter suffers deeply and undergoes many intellectual, physical, and spiritual journeys. Through these journeys he experiences the diverse landscapes of Germany, Italy, France, and Switzerland, as well as the breadth of emotions that humans experience during their lives. In a later stage of his life, he even embodies the ideal of St. Francis as he cares for a cripple.
Peter Camenzind, as a youth, leaves his mountain village with a great ambition to experience the world. I was reminded of Stephen Dedalus setting out for life at the end of The Portrait on an Artist as a Young Man. He heads to the university to escape his earlier life and eventually meets and falls in love with the painter, Erminia Aglietti and becomes a close friend to a young pianist named Richard. Greatly saddened because of the latter's death, he takes up wandering to soak up the diverse experiences of life.
Ever faced with the vicissitudes of life, Peer continually takes up alcohol as a means to confront the harshness and inexplicable strangeness that he encounters. He also meets and falls in love with another woman, Elizabeth, even though she will later marry someone else. Nevertheless his continuing journey through Italy changes him in many respects and changes his ability to love life and see beauty within all things. It is a new friendship with Boppi, an invalid, that helps him truly experience what it means to love other human beings. It seems that he comes to see a wonderful reflection of humanity in its best and noblest forms in Boppi, and the two forge an unbreakable friendship.
This is a novel that begins to explore some of the great themes of Hermann Hesse's later work. It is interesting to see these early stirrings and look forward to reading and rereading his later work with a deeper perspective.
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reader willing and interested in exploring the meaning of Camenzind's education. Beginning with the myths of his childhood and continuing for about two hundred pages over eight chapters Peter narrates his experiences. It is a narrative style that is familiar to any who have read Demian or Steppenwolf. The novel opens with the phrase, "In the beginning was the myth. God, in his search for self-expression, invested the souls of Hindus, Greeks, and Germans with poetic shapes and continues to invest each child's soul with poetry every day."(p 1) The novel is purely poetical, and its protagonist in time aspires to become a poet who invests the lives of men with reality in its most beautiful of forms. I found the story reminiscent of those of Siddhartha, Goldmund, and Harry Haller. Like them, Peter suffers deeply and undergoes many intellectual, physical, and spiritual journeys. Through these journeys he experiences the diverse landscapes of Germany, Italy, France, and Switzerland, as well as the breadth of emotions that humans experience during their lives. In a later stage of his life, he even embodies the ideal of St. Francis as he cares for a cripple.
Peter Camenzind, as a youth, leaves his mountain village with a great ambition to experience the world. I was reminded of Stephen Dedalus setting out for life at the end of The Portrait on an Artist as a Young Man. He heads to the university to escape his earlier life and eventually meets and falls in love with the painter, Erminia Aglietti and becomes a close friend to a young pianist named Richard. Greatly saddened because of the latter's death, he takes up wandering to soak up the diverse experiences of life.
Ever faced with the vicissitudes of life, Peer continually takes up alcohol as a means to confront the harshness and inexplicable strangeness that he encounters. He also meets and falls in love with another woman, Elizabeth, even though she will later marry someone else. Nevertheless his continuing journey through Italy changes him in many respects and changes his ability to love life and see beauty within all things. It is a new friendship with Boppi, an invalid, that helps him truly experience what it means to love other human beings. It seems that he comes to see a wonderful reflection of humanity in its best and noblest forms in Boppi, and the two forge an unbreakable friendship.
This is a novel that begins to explore some of the great themes of Hermann Hesse's later work. It is interesting to see these early stirrings and look forward to reading and rereading his later work with a deeper perspective.
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LibraryThing member mbmackay
This was Hesse's first big success. I was a fan of Hesse's some time ago, but this is the first time with this book. It is wonderful to find the same beautiful simplicity of style after 30 years.
Read in Samoa Mar 2003
Read in Samoa Mar 2003
LibraryThing member bodachliath
There is something rather hypnotically repetitive about Hesse, which is more noticeable the more you read. Many of his books follow a similar pattern, following a hero through a search for some kind of spiritual fulfilment, often via picaresque episodic journeys. This is another of these, perhaps
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not as interesting as some of his later works (I read the Glass Bead Game first, and none of the others match that depth of vision), but it is still a pleasant read. Show Less
LibraryThing member flahertylandscape
Peter Camenzind's life cycle in Switzerland matches what I have experienced myself in discussions with Swiss men on the Berner Oberland.
I reguarly see Hesse's description of daily life activities in the landscape. In a sense I can relish a century of landscape use on every walk. Landscape life
I reguarly see Hesse's description of daily life activities in the landscape. In a sense I can relish a century of landscape use on every walk. Landscape life
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history courtesy of Hermann Hesse. Show Less
Subjects
Language
Original language
German
Original publication date
1904 (lst publication - in German)
1953 (1st publication in United States)
Physical description
144 p.; 7.8 inches
ISBN
0140181008 / 9780140181005