Steppenwolf

by Hermann Hesse

Paperback, 1969

Status

Available

Call number

833.912

Genres

General Fiction

All Topics

Fiction

Collection

Your library

Publication

Bantam (1969), Mass Market Paperback, 248 pages

Description

Harry Haller is a sad and lonely figure, a reclusive intellectual for whom life holds no joy. He struggles to reconcile the wild primeval wolf and the rational man within himself without surrendering to the bourgeois values he despises. His life changes dramatically when he meets a woman who is his opposite, the carefree and elusive Hermine.

Media reviews

TZUM- literair weblog

'Wat me nu opviel bij herlezing na dertig jaar was die durf van Hesse om alle registers open te trekken. Niet alleen stilistisch en structureel, maar ook door de meerdere lagen die op literair, psychologisch, seksueel, geschiedkundig en filosofisch vlak elkaar aanvullen en soms met elkaar

contrasteren.'

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User reviews

LibraryThing member paradoxosalpha

When I mentioned to my Other Reader that I had begun reading this book, she said "re-reading, you mean?" When I said, no, reading for the first time, she said she felt shocked, betrayed even, that I had not read this book in my youth. Then, strangely enough, I read the 1961 "Author's Note," where

Hesse speculates that much readerly misunderstanding of his intentions as a writer in this novel was "by reason of the fact that this book, written when I was fifty years old and dealing, as it does, with the problems of that age, often fell into the hands of very young readers." Having now read it myself, I feel the text justifies the idea that it was written by a man roughly my age, about a man roughly my age, and for men roughly my age.

This novel has a documentary conceit, according to which it is the "records" (journal) of Harry Haller, recovered and published by Haller's landlady's nephew. The primary effect of this framing is to allow some "objective" characterization of Haller from the nephew's perspective before the story begins in earnest. Haller is himself an alienated intellectual product of the bourgeoisie in interwar Germany. He is divorced, living alone, spending his time on literature and music without any evidence of productive employment.

The "Steppenwolf" of the title is at first a sort of nickname for Haller, which is later understood as his alter-ego or psychological shadow, and perhaps ultimately as his genius or instinctual spirit. But it may be that Haller's tutelary spirit is really figured by the girl Hermine, whom he meets when he is in a suicidal funk, and who grooms him to a new appreciation of life outside the blinkered cultural sphere he had inhabited. Hermine is, after all, the feminine of Herman: Haller's author.

(Digression: Now it occurs to me that Palahniuk's Fight Club could be read as an updated rewriting of Steppenwolf, with Hermine replaced by Tyler Durden, and the dance hall transformed to the fight club. Maria becomes Marla, and the Magic Theater becomes Operation Mayhem.)

Another key character is the musician Pablo, to whom Hermine introduces Haller. Despite Haller's initial dim view of this man, he appears to be in truth a saint or higher adept of an interior circle, and he presides over the Magic Theater where Haller's story culminates in a psychedelic initiatory ordeal. This ordeal might be glossed as the Adventure of the Abyss, in which the Tragedy of Man is to be dissolved into the Comedy of Pan.

My esoteric speculations aside, this short novel amply repays reading. It was seen as a notorious defect of Hesse's oeuvre when it was first published in the first half of the twentieth century, and then rehabilitated and valorized by the counter-culture of the second. Its relationship to our current social circumstance is not evident, but its primary concern is not with society, but with the individual, and the nature of spiritual attainment and possibilities for self-redemption.

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24 more

LibraryThing member motorbike

This is a novel that can mean different things to different people. Is this a story where these events take place? Or is a spiritual journey? Or self-analysis? This is the pull of the novel. Whatever you make of it, it is a vehicle for Hesse to give us his view on a central axiom of Western man –

the spectrum of human pleasure at one end and ethics at the other. As a novel of ideas it is a little short on dialogue and action, so the writing may seem a little wooden.

The central protagonist, Harry Haller, is on the verge of suicide – an act he promised to do at the age of 50. He is now that age, is contemplating it but can’t quite carry it off. He has devoted his life to study, to appreciating the great men of civilization like Mozart, Goethe and Nietzsche, to the extent of detesting everything in life that does not live to their ideals. Harry has a distorted view of life - he has rejected all of what passes for normal life, particularly bourgeois life, and hates all who adhere to it. He is alone, unable to participate in life and very unhappy. He describes his personal torment as a battle of two identities – man, the enjoyer of life, and the wolf, the denier of that enjoyment.

A series of chance and bizarre encounters leads to Harry, on a very depressed night and contemplating suicide, walking into a bar he has been lead to believe contains the answers to his life. There he meets a woman Hermine, who embodies the carnal aspects of life, the aspects Harry most despises. She and the bar specialize in dancing, jazz music and the sensual life. But Harry immediately identifies Hermine as a kindred spirit, and she him. But Hermine is not intellectual like Harry, but totally sensual, living the life of a courtesan. She hints at Harry eventually falling in love with her. She declares that she understands him and immediately offers to help Harry rehabilitate his life, but he must obey without question her every command.

Hermine teaches Harry to dance the foxtrot and the boston and to enjoy jazz music. She also introduces him to Marie and makes her his lover. Harry must learn to laugh and enjoy life, and even be prepared to die for love, if he is to gain Hermine’s love.

Hermine and the bar scene is the very animal instincts of man – pleasure seeking and living for the moment. Harry is the ethical man – living all the aspects deemed as perfection in man. Neither are happy with their lot. Hermine teaches Harry that his problem is seeing himself as two souls whereas man really has thousands of souls. It is in discovering these other souls that will be his salvation. The trick with living with multiple souls is not to take anything seriously.

Then there’s Pablo, the saxophonist who eventually becomes the arbiter for a balanced life. His magical Theatre becomes the means by which Harry is finally forced to confront the absurdity of his view of himself and life, view his heroes in a new light and find a new path.

Therein lies Hesse’s view of western civilization – a mix of two opposites. To live at either end is unsustainable. It is up to the individual to find his mix. The abhorrent bourgeois life ironically is just one mix – where nothing is exciting, but in order. Taking life too seriously leads only to madness.

Steppenwolf is the journey Harry Haller needs to take to achieve personal salvation and a reason to live.

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LibraryThing member bflatt72

Herman Hesse's novel Steppenwolf was a fanstastic read, just the sort of symbolic, metaphorical and metaphysical fiction that I love to read. However, reading it with a certain sociological imagination allowed me to gain even more insights than I would have otherwise. It allowed me to both

participate in the reading and the enjoyment of the novel, but also to be able to analyze the broader meanings of what is going on in the book as it relates to sociology. C. Wright Mills thought that people often see their lives as having explanation solely in terms of personal success and failures, failing to see the many ways in which their own personal biographies link with the course of human history. This could be said to be the root of all of Harry Haller's problems.

Steppenwolf is the story of Harry Haller, a middle aged intellectual who is unable to find any joy in life. Having taken a course in Sociology, one can see that an individual's choices are never free but are always determined to some extent by a person's environment. This is a core idea in Sociology and may have saved Harry a lot of heartache. He moves into a boarding house, where despairing, lonely, and suicidal, he laments his life and his lack of any feeling of identity with the society around him. Durkheim called the way Harry was feeling, anomie, and felt that it was caused by a lack of integration of the individual into social groups and communities. This feeling of anomie causes people to feel lost or adrift and it is this feeling that causes Harry to feel suicidal.

Harry comes to view himself as a Steppenwolf, or a wolf of the steppes, in that he views himself as a man of a dual nature. He yearns to transcend the Normative order of the bourgeoise and into the world of the spiritual, but he also feels drawn to this world of sensual pleasures. Not being able to comprehend how society is able to find happiness in their lives of drab conformity, where people seem to coast along with productive diligence towards meaninglessness, yet unable to resist the charms of their easy sense of happiness, Harry begins to loathe the Steppenwolf he sees himself as. He is unable to come to terms with the concept of Socialization, the ways in which people learn to conform to their society's norms, values, and roles. Fom an interactionist perspective, it can be seen that Harry is having a difficult time with the devolopement of his social self through the interaction with others. Unable to take the role of the generalized other, unable to shape his participation in a social life according to the roles of others, identification becomes a problem for Harry in that he does not wholly identify with any social groups. Half man, half wolf, half desiring the easy and sensual pleasures of the common man, he also desires to transcend this life that, for him, has no value. In a Social Darwinistic manner of speaking, it could be said that Harry has been unable to adapt to the social environment in which he finds himself.

One night, while walking through the city, Harry sees a sign over a door that reads reads "MAGIC THEATER—ENTRANCE NOT FOR EVERYBODY." Looking closer he notices the words, "FOR MADMEN ONLY". Enthralled but unable to open the door, he is given a book by the sign holder entitled, "Treatise on the Steppenwolf." Upon reading it, Harry discovers that the book is describing himself, the half man, half wolf that he sees himself as, feeling drawn to more spiritual matters, but unable to altogether resist the sensual pleasures of this mundane world. At this point, Harry becomes even more convinced of his desire for suicide.

Before he is able to do so though, and after a disastrous meeting with one of his former colleagues, in which Harry insults him about a picture of Goethe, the German poet, in his house, he ultimately meets the woman that will lead him towards salvation, a young sensual woman named Hermine. She teaches Harry to dance and how to enjoy life's simple pleasures without having to analyze his every feeling. Becoming totally enthralled with her and agreeing to obey her every command, Hermine informs him of his ultimate duty, which will be, after falling in love with her, to kill her.

At this point, Harry jumps head first into a life of sensual hedonistic pleasures and he comes to appreciate such a life, based upon the pleasure principle, even though he still feels a sense of yearning for transcendence above such a life. After attending a masquerade dance and dancing with Hermine, Harry is invited by a man named Pablo into his Magic Theater and this is where the book gets even more symbolic and metaphorical. Harry is told that the goal of the theater is to lose his personality and that the only avenue for doing such is laughter. Harry laughs at himself in a mirror and travels down a corridor of doors, some of which he enters, into a sort of theater of the absurd, a kind of waking dream. Entering one room where he finds Hermine and Pablo naked and lying on the floor, he believes that this is the moment that Hermine had meant when she told him that he must ultimately kill her, so, finding a knive magically appear in this pocket he proceeds to stab and kill her. He is now greeted by the ghost of Mozart, the classical composer, who tells Harry that he is much too serious and that he has committed a grave error by misunderstanding the magic theater and that his goal was to learn laughter.

Erik Erikson said that throughout the life course, an individual must resolve a series of conflicts that shape that person's sense of self and ability to perform social roles successfully. It is this conflict that we see Harry having a difficult time with. Hermine and Pablo make an attempt at resocialization for Harry, but he ultimately takes everything too seriously and misses the point that laughter is the key to happiness. It can be seen that as society becomes more complex, it tends to become characterized more and more by secondary groups and organizations, making society more efficient but also causing confusion and unhappiness. This is the story of Harry Haller.

Using social imagination, I was able to analyze Harry Haller's feeling and actions from a sociological perspective. I was able to see how Harry was having a hard time coping with society, and how that it was this inner turmoil that he labeled the Steppenwolf. I can very much relate to Harry Haller, as I myself have found myself feeling exactly as he has over the years. I, too, have felt a sense of the Steppenwolf within me, a sense of not being able to recognize myself in others and the easy way some people seem able to proceed through life. It has always seemed to me that the vast majority of mankind seems easily able to just live life without having to think about much of anything. For people like myself and Harry Haller, there is a spiritual yearning for more, even as we reject much of what religion has to offer. The story of the Steppenwolf is to realize that there is a dual nature within all of us, even more than just two natures actually, according to Herman Hesse, and that the best remedy is to learn to be able to laugh at life and at ourselves.
It is interesting that laughter is also one of the main themes of another book I have just finished, Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes. In the Steppenwolf, laughter is what Harry was to learn in order to find some sort of happiness, while in Bradbury's book, it was laughter that was used to thwart the evil carnival freaks. It seems that Harry Haller was visited in his life by Bradbury's carnival freaks and unable to learn laughter, succumbed to their evil. Literature teaching truth? Hmm!
I would definitely recommend this book, especially to those introspective types, such as myself, who may feel a tinge of the Steppenwolf within their own soul. It is my humble opinion that if one is paying attention to the world around them, and not just floating through life Paris Hilton like, then one can't help but to feel their own personal Steppenwolf roaring within from time to time.

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LibraryThing member gbill

I had a mixed reaction to “Steppenwolf”. On the one hand, its exploration of the dual nature of man – his high, spiritual nature alongside being animalistic and like a “wolf of the steppes” – as well as questioning whether life is worth living make it a thought-provoking read.

On the

other hand, the line between reality and symbolic fantasy is often blurred, particular in the scenes toward the end in the magic theater, and while I applaud Hesse for pushing the envelope, this made the novel less satisfying for me.

It seems to have polarized readers since it was published in 1927; it’s interesting to me that even in the 60’s as a generation embraced it for its depictions of free love and drug use, Jack Kerouac criticized it in his novel Big Sur.

Quotes:
On art:
“When he worships his favorites among the immortals, Mozart, perchance, he always looks at him in the long run through bourgeois eyes. His tendency is to explain Mozart’s perfected being, just as a schoolmaster would, as a supreme and special gift rather than as the outcome of his immense powers of surrender and suffering, of his indifference to the ideals of the bourgeois, and of his patience under that last extremity of loneliness…”

On fate:
“The man of power is ruined by power, the man of money by money, the submissive man by subservience, the pleasure seeker by pleasure.”

On man’s insignificance:
“…the Steppenwolf’s look pierced our whole epoch, its whole overwrought activity, the whole surge and strife, the whole vanity, the whole superficial play of a shallow, opinionated intellectuality. And, alas! The look went still deeper, went far below the faults, defects and hopelessness of our time, our intellect, our culture alone. It went right to the heart of all humanity, it bespoke eloquently in a single second the whole despair of a thinker, of one who knew the full worth and meaning of man’s life. It said: ‘See what monkeys we are! Look, such is man!’ and all at once all renown, all intelligence, all the attainments of the spirit, all progress towards the sublime, the great and enduring in man fell away and became a monkey’s trick!”

On living life:
“How I used to love the dark, sad evenings of late autumn and winter, how eagerly I imbibed their moods of loneliness and melancholy when wrapped in my cloak I strode for half the night through rain and storm, through the leafless winter landscape, lonely enough then too, but full of deep joy, and full of poetry which later I wrote down by candlelight sitting on the edge of my bed! All that was past now. The cup was emptied and would never be filled again. Was that a matter of regret? No, I did not regret the past. My regret was for the present day, for all the countless hours and days that I lost in mere passivity and that brought me nothing, not even the shocks of awakening.”

“It is certain in any case that life is quite disarmed by the gift to live so entirely in the present, to treasure with such eager care every flower by the wayside and the light that plays on every passing moment.”

On oneness:
“Man is not capable of thought in any high degree, and even the most spiritual and highly cultivated of men habitually sees the world and himself through the lenses of delusive formulas and artless simplifications – and most of all himself. For it appears to be an inborn and imperative need of all men to regard the self as a unit. However often and however grievously this illusion is shattered, it always mends again.”

On selling out:
“Most intellectuals and most artists belong to the same type. Only the strongest of them force their way through the atmosphere of the bourgeois earth and attain to the cosmic. The others all resign themselves or make compromises. Despising the bourgeois, and yet belonging to it, they add to its strength and glory; for in the last resort they have to share their beliefs in order to live.”

On suicide:
“No, I am sure he has not taken his life. He is still alive, …. , listens to the world beneath his window and the hum of human life from which he knows that he is excluded. But he has not killed himself, for a glimmer of belief still tells him that he is to drink this frightening suffering in his heart to the dregs, and that it is of this suffering he must die.”

“’I am curious to see all the same just how much a man can endure. If the limit of what is bearable is reached, I have only to open the door to escape.’ There are a great many suicides to whom this thought imparts an uncommon strength.”

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LibraryThing member reichec

Erroneously described as a “poetic” work, Steppenwolf would sit more aptly in the genre of fantasy writing. It is a kind of Bildungsroman for the middle-aged, detailing one man’s journey from suicidal despair to existential enlightenment via a series of unbelievable relationships and

events.

First published in Germany in 1927, it is intriguing that in much later editions the author felt compelled to include an explanatory note, penned in 1961, apparently in an attempt to address the “misunderstandings” about his work. Yet Hesse’s note is little more explicit in meaning than the text of the novel. Its greatest asset is for the exhortation, “May everyone find in it what strikes a chord in him and is of some use to him!”, a suggestion that could easily be inserted below the copyright statement of any novel.

Be that as it may, there is plenty in Steppenwolf to strike a chord with the reader, particularly the early stages of the narrator (and self-styled “Steppenwolf”) Harry Haller’s own account and his discovery of a “Treatise on the Steppenwolf”. It intimately examines themes of alienation, suicide, intellectualism and the nature of the personality.

Harry sets himself, and all other intellectuals, apart from the “bourgeoisie”, even suggesting that intellectuals are “a superfluous, irresponsible lot of talented chatterboxes for whom reality had no meaning”. Moments like these and the mode of Harry’s later redemption carry the appearance of the anti-intellectualism prevalent in 21st century politics. Yet paradoxically, Steppenwolf is littered with intellectual conceit, relying heavily on an assumed familiarity with the works of Goethe and Mozart.

The latter half of the book chronicles Harry’s escape from ennui through a carnival of bars, belles and balls, and concludes with a sequence of experiences in a kind of theatre of the mind, in which he relives and improves upon his youthful fantasies. This final stage was irritating and distracting. If it was the author’s intention to offer an alternative to existential despair, he would have done better to inject it with a little more realism.

Also irritating was the method of Harry’s rescue from despair by the temptress Hermine and her associates, aided by Harry’s mindless compliance. Harry’s redemption would have been far more satisfying if he had found the means and motivation within himself.

In spite of these irritations and Hesse’s bouts of self-indulgence, this is a book rich with ideas and a fascinating vehicle for self-reflection. While the text itself is largely humorless, the author’s suggestion that humour is the key to coming to terms with the world is tantalising, although finding humour on the brink of despair is likely to be difficult. Ultimately, Steppenwolf is a parable that it is never too late to turn your life around and, through personal growth and learning, find hope and new meaning in the world.

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LibraryThing member Niecierpek

Harry Haller is fifty, an artist and an intellectual, bitterly disillusioned with his life and society. He is repulsed by people’s bourgeois attitudes and petty concerns, yet he is unable to live without them. He feels the untameable nature of a wolf inside him, lonely and free, which comes in

conflict with the life he leads. Totally frustrated by the duality of his nature he vows to commit suicide, but finds out that he is unable to do it when the time comes. Desperate, he seeks solace in a bar where he meets a courtesan. She takes him on a symbolic journey of self discovery, where he tries to get rid of all his inhibitions, and through self reflection, sex, and drugs, is able to access higher levels of his consciousness, and finally find himself.

An interesting book, likened to On the Road by Kerouac.

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LibraryThing member kuniyoshi

As Hesse might say, since we are on the other side of the riddle of suffering from the immortals, it behooves us to learn to laugh as they laugh at the piteous fumbling of our lives. To not only be willing to die, but be willing to live which might be much more terrifying a proposition. Read this

book if you find yourself at odds with your own nature, or your own mind. It starts off a little slow, but the last fifty pages alone make it worth the read.

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LibraryThing member andyjb

A strange and disturbing book detailing one man's degeneration and redemption. Fantastical scenes and allusions to philosophy that results in one of those rare things, a book that makes you question the things you believe in.

LibraryThing member deargreenplace

Der Steppenwolf was first published in Germany in 1927 and in the foreword to this edition, Hesse writes that of all his books, this one was "more often and more violently misunderstood than any other". The protagonist Harry Haller is a 48 year-old career intellectual, who flits from one boarding

room to another without ever being gainfully employed, and Hesse does indicate that the book deals with the problems of a man that age.

Harry Haller's problems are mainly depression and suicidal thoughts - or, self pity and self absorption, depending on your outlook. He has decided to kill himself on his 50th birthday. He spends his days reading, listening to classical music, writing letters to the paper about the war, and visiting local bars to drink wine. He rather smugly considers himself to be a part of the bourgeoisie and is completely wrapped up in aesthetic and intellectual pursuits at the price of any possible interpersonal relationship. He enjoys the anonymity of being the eternal boarder, rarely striking up friendships with those he rents rooms from. Suffice to say, as someone who is not a 48 year-old man, I found it quite difficult to empathise with Harry Haller.

Harry seizes on his internal Steppenwolf as the cause of his ennui, and identifies this as the negative and self-destructive part of his personality, and of course, the reason for his unhappiness. One night, while out at one of his favoured taverns, a stranger gives him a pamphlet called The Treatise of the Steppenwolf, which seems to him to explain everything. It discusses how the concept of the ego is a fiction, and proposes that individuals are composites of many personalities. The Treatise claims that Haller's perception of a dual personality is ludicrous and causes violence to his soul.

I found the first hundred pages or so of this book pretty hard work. There's a lot of philosophising and precious little plot movement. It brightens up though, when Harry meets an outgoing lady named Hermine, who makes it her goal in life to show Harry how to enjoy himself. This involves him letting go of his snobbery about dancing and music and falling in lust with much younger women (icky, and such a total middle-aged man fantasy).

Harry Haller is basically having a mid-life crisis. My own feeling is that he'd have had much less time to feel sorry for himself if he'd done some honest hard work every now and then. Definitely not a book for everyone.

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LibraryThing member tikitu-reviews

Disappointing on second reading. I remembered much more humour than I actually found. Haller is supposed to be learning to laugh at himself, and he hasn't really managed to by the end of the novel.

There are moments when the exaggerated wailing and moaning reaches wry comedy, but they're fewer and

farther between than I remembered. More often we're simply told that Haller has seen the funny side, without being able to share that insight.

Nevertheless, as I said, there are moments... Try this for size:

"It is remarkable, all that men can swallow. For a good ten minutes I read a newspaper. I allowed the spirit of an irresponsible man who chews and munches another's words in his mouth, and gives them out undigested, to enter into me through my eyes. I absorbed a whole column of it."

Those first two sentences make up for much.

(I don't expect, by the way, a novel like this to be a comedy. But the whole point, if I'm understanding it correctly, of Haller's experience is to learn playfulness and humour in dealing with what he at the beginning of the novel regards as insufferable. And then I would hope to find more playfulness and humour in the style.)

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LibraryThing member Achromatic

It’s no Glass Bead Game or Siddhartha, or at least it didn’t apply to me as much; though - it is a self acknowledged novel about being an ageing man. Basically, I understand why it was alt- popular, but really I think the magic theater scene at the end could have been tied into the rest of the

story better and it would have been a much better read.

Tldr: a depressed academic guy who had disconnected from the world meets a depressed hedonistic girl and they learn from each other. It’s more than that but you get the idea.

Herman Hesse anticipates the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope? Yeah, I’ll shut up

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LibraryThing member William345

The novel starts well with a preface by the young man of the house where the Steppenwolf (Harry Haller) is lodging, but then bogs down in a long disquisition on Harry's suffering called "The Treatise on the Steppenwolf." I found these pages turgid and thought they might easily be skipped. It's not

until Harry enters a dance hall around page 95 that we meet Hermine, who becomes a matriarchal-figure for him; Maria, who becomes his lover; and Pablo, the impresario who leads the band and become's Harry's drug supplier. Hermine and Harry are soul mates with a death wish. They do not see the possibility of peace in this world, but only after death, which is supposed to bring them release and fulfillment. The culmination of the book is a great ball where Harry dances until dawn and the subsequent psychedelic drug fest known as The Magic Theater--For Madmen Only. I can see why the novel was so popular during the 1960s. There is liberal guiltless consumption of street drugs, mind-blowing sex (straight), cross dressing, and passages in the so-called Magic Theater where Harry is clearly tripping. The book is a novel of ideas and it is a strange freestyle combination of Buddhism and Christianity that informs its spiritual quest. Read this roman philosophique, at least its first hundred pages, as a period piece. The material of the first half to my mind does not transcend its time of its composition, the mid-1920s, i.e. decadent Weimar Germany. In these early pages author Hesse is taken up with a number of ideas: Freudian psychoanalysis; Decartesian mind-body "dualism"; Jungian archetypes and the collective unconcious; Einstein's theory of relativity; everything Nietszche; and a lot of literature in which the double or doppleganger runs amok. (Poe, Robert Louis Stevenson are some English-language examples). But then we get to page 95. Thank God.

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LibraryThing member jwhenderson

A work like Steppenwolf is iconic in its artistic significance. Being so makes it more difficult to discuss the book as I would other "good" reads. A novel of ideas, one that challenges my own conception of the world, it raises more questions than it answers. It draws upon the ideas of other

thinkers, notable Goethe and Nietzsche and Jung, and presents those ideas in new ways - challenging even those with which the author may agree. This is what Hermann Hesse set out to do in writing Der Steppenwolf in 1927.

The novel presents a complex narrative that combines three different styles within its structure; a straightforward preface introducing the protagonist, Harry Haller, a "Treatise on the Steppenwolf" in the form of a pamphlet that Harry accepts and interprets as a study of his own life, and Harry's own narrative which moves into a dream sequence when Harry enters the "Magic Theater". We meet characters, both women and men, at least one of whom may be Harry's alter ego or "anima" in Jungian terms. We see a man who would separate himself from the Nietzschean herd and values individuality. Most of all we encounter a man facing not the "two souls" that dwell within his breast, as Goethe described Faust, but one who faces innumerable souls in a personality that seems to be breaking up into different persons. Through it all Harry looks up to artistic "Immortals" as representative of an ideal in the form of idealized visions of Goethe and Mozart. Especially Mozart who plays a critical role in Harry's dreams.

What can I take away from this work? As I said it raises questions and the thoughts and process of reviewing the way I approach the world is one thing that this novel provides. With all great - read transcendent - works of art I continue to find new layers of meaning as I read and reread their pages. One fundamental question, and I think this is central to all of Hesse's writings, is what does it mean to be human? The philosophers from Plato and Aristotle have tried to define this, but Hesse's Steppenwolf continues to present the question and explore original ways to find the answer.

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LibraryThing member kirstiecat

I've read a few of Hesse's novels and I keep coming back to Steppenwolf time and time again. It's not as if books like Demian and Beneath the Wheel aren't worthwhile, either. It's just that there is something so grabbing and memorable about Steppenwolf. I was truly changed after I read this and I

can't really say that for the majority of the books I've read.

One thing I think Hesse was obsessed with a little is the duality of life-the light and the dark side. Steppenwolf takes you to some dark carnival like dreams and forces you to see that life is incredibly complex. Someone like Hesse cannot live a simple life. He sees both and so do his protagonists. They all go through similar issues, temptations, even vices. There's a theme running through them that goes beyond good and evil...this is much more at the heart of the Earth's revolving center. Though I haven't yet read everything that Hesse has written, I'm pretty sure that nowhere has he developed this theme better than in Steppenwolf. It isn't just the characters that he gains a handle on but also his ideas overall.

It affected my dreams and my waking life. It changed the way I saw life and the world. There is an undercurrent to this tide that some resist and ignore. Others fall in love with it instead.

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LibraryThing member briandarvell

Steppenwolf is a novel that takes the reader on a trip through the spiritual and carnal mind of a hermitic intellectual German in the 1920's. Written by Hermann Hesse (1877-1962: a Nobel prize winning author of many great German classics) throughout much of the mid-to-late 1920's, it would be

published in 1928 and to this day is regarded as Hesse's premier work.

Hesse made a reputation for himself by incorporating into his fiction many of the newly forming psychoanalysis theories of the early 20th century. A pure intellectual himself, Hesse was given to a wide range of emotional displays and it is agreed that much of the protagonist's mental tendencies in Steppenwolf are autobiographical.

Steppenwolf is a term given by the protagonist of the novel unto himself for the reason which he regards himself as possessor of multiple conflicting personas. The Steppenwolf within is a savage and animalistic feeling which drives the character to become a nuisance and irritable and is in constant conflict with the 'human' character within. The story is very much about personal spiritual conflict and how various thoughts of reclusiveness, annoyance, cynicism and even suicide are constantly bombarding the mind of a person who knows his faults at face value but does not know how to change and take control of them.

Another primary theme the novel takes is an argument of purpose. Steppenwolf is around 50 years of age and is starting to realize to himself that all of the pursuits of his life - the poetry, essays, histories and learning - were of almost useless value now that death's door is approaching. It is an interesting argument and leads to the character wanting to become associated more with the physical aspect of life which he has missed out on.

The novel is extremely strong from the psychological aspect of the story. I constantly got the impression that the 1920's were a very depressing time for Hesse because with the words and anecdotes used within the story itself it is rather obvious that Hesse is writing about personal experiences. I have often noted how those with creative natures are often extremely prone to wide fluxations of personality and rationality and this novel would serve as an excellent start to people curious about this theme. Besides for a meandering section around a quarter-way through the novel, I found the story to be very enjoyable and it definitely leaves you with the impression that there is a very fine balance needed between that of intellectual pursuits and pleasurable ones.

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LibraryThing member BooksForDinner

Beautiful Herman Hesse. One of my all-timers. I think I'll go blow my brains out now.

LibraryThing member TakeItOrLeaveIt

the second Hesse book I read, and my second favorite. very dark shows the two sides of man Hesse always dealt with and what made him famous. epic tale.

LibraryThing member earthlistener

Sometimes the book was a bit confusing to read; not knowing fully what is happening or what was fantasy or illusion and what was real, but that was what made the book great. The book really plays with your mind and perspective on things through-out the book on many levels. The book's look into

Harry’s inner wolf and human nature was really fascinating and intriguing. Highly recommended.

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LibraryThing member MiaCulpa

Well, that was an unexpected read. I read this because it was one of those classic novels that you can tell people that you've read and make you sound intelligent and well-read (that's the theory anyway). "Steppenwolf" starts very, very slowly and more than once I was tempted to cast it aside and

read a cricket book instead. However I persevered and (spoiler alert) found the ending strange and incomprehensible.

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LibraryThing member pm11

Fascinating, weird, psychological tale. Great illustrations in this edition.

LibraryThing member GaryPatella

I was able to really associate with the protagonist. Since Hesse claimed that the novel was somewhat autobiographical, I suspect that Hesse may have had Asperger's syndrome (like me). It is a great book for those of us that always feel a bit out of place, uncomfortable, awkward, withdrawn, etc.

So

if I relate to it so much, why not 5 stars?

1. The extreme lack of chapters, pauses, and things of that nature, make it very difficult to find a place to stop when you can't read the entire novel in one sitting (which most of us can't).

2. Although I can relate to it a lot, Hesse always makes it difficult for me to FULLY relate to his characters. The reason he makes it so difficult to fully relate: I am heterosexual. Hesse almost always feels the need to make his protaganists at least a little bit gay. This is not a flaw, and there is nothing wrong with that. But as a straight man, I can never relate to the protagonist 100%.

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LibraryThing member K_Fox

Many a contemporary book has used a similar premise of the mysteriously signed doorway. A hugely intriging novel, entering into mind, matter & finally a masquerade.

LibraryThing member rboyechko

A very strange book and one that I don't really know how I feel. I remember trying to read this book at least three times, always putting it aside before finishing even a third. It was interesting, yet the complicated language and paragraphs that went on for a page or more were simply daunting.

Perhaps the English translation isn't like that, but reading it in Russian was a challenge. The fourth time, however, I did get past the pamphlet that Harry picked up and read the rest quite eagerly. The ending was definitely odd and unexpected, which is probably to be expected from Hesse. For a long time it seemed as though in the character of Harry Haller I could see myself. I also remember trying to emulate him in his disdain of the modern "culture" and instead striving to the true beauty in classical music, art, and so on. Interestingly, just as with Harry, a woman (my beloved wife) came into my life and turned all that upside-down, exposing me to things that I have learned to look down on in contempt. As a result, I feel I am now much more open to new ideas and experiences than I would have been had I not met her.

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LibraryThing member worldsedge

Harry Haller, Hermine/Herman, Pablo and Maria. All the characters there are,and what an odd book this is. I was not blown away by it as I was as an adolescent, in fact with this reading a list demerits of the work that are glaringly obvious would take some time. Overall, a work that makes you

think. The Magic Theater, "For Madmen Only," the Treatise on the Steppenwolf. A bit put off by the drug use and homosexuality, rather enjoyed the business of the fracturing of Haller's personality.

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LibraryThing member allgenresbookworm

When I first tried to read this in my early twenties, I had a dreadful time with it and abandoned it early on as I did not have the life experience to fully understand what Hermann Hesse was writing about. Now, almost twenty years later, I am transfixed and can identify with Harry Haller. Not an

easy read and parts still went over my head but a must read none the less! We are all in some aspect The Steppenwolf. Hermann Hesse has created another brilliant novel.

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