I recently read the short novel "Demian" by Herman Hesse.
I have read a number of shorter stories by Hesse in the past, staying away from his numerous novels, since they tend to evolve into a metaphysical examination of his life. In this respect i have always liked short stories by him, most notably "The end of Dr. Knelge" and a story about a hypothetical escape from life in the forest of a hominid.
I had tried to read Demian a few years ago as well, but the presentantion of the second main character of the novel (the first would be the narrator), Demian, as a kind of spiritual being, or a guardian, had prevented me from continuing reading. This time i had taken the novel with me in my vacations, and since i ddi not have much more to do where i was i continued reading it.
The novel is a narration of the life of Sinclair, a young man who is trying to make the step from adolescence to manhood. It begins with some descriptions about his pre-adolescent life, and then moves on to his years in university, ending with his explanation of why he views his life in a very pronounced metaphysical way.
What made an impression on me mostly was that Hesse, who in all probability was writing at least a semi-autobiographical novel, presented so few descriptions of the parents. The relation between the young Sinclair and his parents in given in a very simple fashion. Sinclair mentions that before some instance in his life as a child he was viewing his parents as a sort of guardian-being of light, kindness and order. This impression suffers a blow near the end of his life as a child, and then, in his adolescence, he struggles to get rid of the older views about his parents, since they seem to have created a serious problem with his ability to accept sexuality as something which would not be attacking such older notions of light and order. Sinclair is not at all vague about his emotions about the sexual act, claiming that it appears as respulsive, but he does not at all try to examine this view in relation with his older notions of his parents, but instead tries to examine it from ametaphysical viewpoint. Thus one of the main ideas in the novel is the replacement of the chistian god, which is seen as a god that stands for light and order, with a pre-christian god, "Abraxas", who stands for both light and darkness, both order and instability, both gentleness and passion.
Demian, who is described as having a kind of spiritual connection with the narrator, and with a number of other rogue characters (a theme which exists in most of Hesse's work, the community of metaphysically inclined individuals), in the end is seen in a vision as a guardian of the narrator in his life. Alongside Demian, his mother is also seen as another guardian, and here there is an interesting struggle for the narrator to examine his sexuality in relation with the metaphysical ways of thinking of those two characters. An obvious attraction to Demian's mother is presented as one which definately has a metaphysical origin, which is another point in the novel that surprised me.
In general i noted the difference between my own childhood and Sinclair's, and wondered if it is that common for people to reach to near the end of their childhood with still viewing their parents as infallible, or at leasts as symbols of "light". Although some points by Sinclair were in my view correct, as for example the point that everyone realises anyt aspect of his life and his environment in entirely individual ways, the general feel that everything is being sunk in a metaphysicality which in itself is not at all ever explained in the novel as far as its position in one's world of consciousness goes, became rather tiring for me in the end of the novel. Whereas the old, chistian god, is being seen as a failure, and religion itself as seen as a byproduct of a person's own mental struggles, what is being proposed as an improvement is the worhiping of yet another deity, albeit a different one, Abraxas, and in this way the need to organise one's world of thought with clear metaphysical elements is not being fought against.
It is, moreover, impressive that the novel was written a few decades after the evolution of psychoanalysis, after world world one, and as such it might even have been seen as a kind of move against the overall direction things were heading to. A feel of global destiny is also another idea presented in the novel, despite the individualistic remarks about personal consciousness.
In my view the novel was important if one wanted to examine Hesse's own personality, but from an analytical viewpoint it hosts a number of very problematic views of the phenomenon of one's thought. Also i was very dissapointed that the need for a metaphysical view was not examined in relation to the older views about the parents, when it might have been caused by those. In the end of the novel Sinclair still is an adolescent, and so the ending is in a way abrupt, with world war one appearing to "force the world to seek its new destiny".
-What is your own view of metaphysical explanations?
-Have you read any of Hesse's work?
I have read a number of shorter stories by Hesse in the past, staying away from his numerous novels, since they tend to evolve into a metaphysical examination of his life. In this respect i have always liked short stories by him, most notably "The end of Dr. Knelge" and a story about a hypothetical escape from life in the forest of a hominid.
I had tried to read Demian a few years ago as well, but the presentantion of the second main character of the novel (the first would be the narrator), Demian, as a kind of spiritual being, or a guardian, had prevented me from continuing reading. This time i had taken the novel with me in my vacations, and since i ddi not have much more to do where i was i continued reading it.
The novel is a narration of the life of Sinclair, a young man who is trying to make the step from adolescence to manhood. It begins with some descriptions about his pre-adolescent life, and then moves on to his years in university, ending with his explanation of why he views his life in a very pronounced metaphysical way.
What made an impression on me mostly was that Hesse, who in all probability was writing at least a semi-autobiographical novel, presented so few descriptions of the parents. The relation between the young Sinclair and his parents in given in a very simple fashion. Sinclair mentions that before some instance in his life as a child he was viewing his parents as a sort of guardian-being of light, kindness and order. This impression suffers a blow near the end of his life as a child, and then, in his adolescence, he struggles to get rid of the older views about his parents, since they seem to have created a serious problem with his ability to accept sexuality as something which would not be attacking such older notions of light and order. Sinclair is not at all vague about his emotions about the sexual act, claiming that it appears as respulsive, but he does not at all try to examine this view in relation with his older notions of his parents, but instead tries to examine it from ametaphysical viewpoint. Thus one of the main ideas in the novel is the replacement of the chistian god, which is seen as a god that stands for light and order, with a pre-christian god, "Abraxas", who stands for both light and darkness, both order and instability, both gentleness and passion.
Demian, who is described as having a kind of spiritual connection with the narrator, and with a number of other rogue characters (a theme which exists in most of Hesse's work, the community of metaphysically inclined individuals), in the end is seen in a vision as a guardian of the narrator in his life. Alongside Demian, his mother is also seen as another guardian, and here there is an interesting struggle for the narrator to examine his sexuality in relation with the metaphysical ways of thinking of those two characters. An obvious attraction to Demian's mother is presented as one which definately has a metaphysical origin, which is another point in the novel that surprised me.
In general i noted the difference between my own childhood and Sinclair's, and wondered if it is that common for people to reach to near the end of their childhood with still viewing their parents as infallible, or at leasts as symbols of "light". Although some points by Sinclair were in my view correct, as for example the point that everyone realises anyt aspect of his life and his environment in entirely individual ways, the general feel that everything is being sunk in a metaphysicality which in itself is not at all ever explained in the novel as far as its position in one's world of consciousness goes, became rather tiring for me in the end of the novel. Whereas the old, chistian god, is being seen as a failure, and religion itself as seen as a byproduct of a person's own mental struggles, what is being proposed as an improvement is the worhiping of yet another deity, albeit a different one, Abraxas, and in this way the need to organise one's world of thought with clear metaphysical elements is not being fought against.
It is, moreover, impressive that the novel was written a few decades after the evolution of psychoanalysis, after world world one, and as such it might even have been seen as a kind of move against the overall direction things were heading to. A feel of global destiny is also another idea presented in the novel, despite the individualistic remarks about personal consciousness.
In my view the novel was important if one wanted to examine Hesse's own personality, but from an analytical viewpoint it hosts a number of very problematic views of the phenomenon of one's thought. Also i was very dissapointed that the need for a metaphysical view was not examined in relation to the older views about the parents, when it might have been caused by those. In the end of the novel Sinclair still is an adolescent, and so the ending is in a way abrupt, with world war one appearing to "force the world to seek its new destiny".
-What is your own view of metaphysical explanations?
-Have you read any of Hesse's work?
