|
|
 |
Hermann Hesse |
|
|
|
Author:
Hermann Hesse
By
Penguin Classics
In the shade of a banyan tree, a grizzled ferryman sits listening to the river. Some say he's a sage. He was once a wandering shramana and, briefly, like thousands of others, he followed Gautama the Buddha, enraptured by his sermons. But this man, Siddhartha, was not a follower of any but his own soul. Born the son of a Brahman, Siddhartha was blessed in appearance, intelligence, and charisma. In order to find meaning in life, he discarded his promising future for the life of a wandering ascetic. Still, true happiness evaded him. Then a life of pleasure and titillation merely eroded away his spiritual gains until he was just like all the other "child people," dragged around by his desires. Like Hesse's other creations of struggling young men, Siddhartha has a good dose of European angst and stubborn individualism. His final epiphany challenges both the Buddhist and the Hindu ideals of enlightenment. Neither a practitioner nor a devotee, neither meditating nor reciting, Siddhartha comes to blend in with the world, resonating with the rhythms of nature, bending the reader's ear down to hear answers from the river. --Brian Bruya
 Hesse , 2009-03-15
There are several translations of this beautiful and powerful book but this one is the best and I recommend it thoroughly to all Hesse fans and to any new reader yet to taste the delights from this incredible writer. The story is a simple one but the message and depth of meaning are profound and lasting. Read it again and again as you grow up and grow older and maybe even as you grow wiser!
|
|
List Price: £9.99
Our Price: £3.71
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Author:
Hermann Hesse
By
Vintage
Glass bead Game book, 2009-02-04
if you are into ...sci fi...gaming... or just thinking then this is the book for you....:-)
|
|
List Price: £8.99
Our Price: £3.54
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Author:
Hermann Hesse
By
Peter Owen Ltd
wonderful, 2003-07-01
This tale is essentially a diagnosis of human existence and the way individuals respond to it. Without death, says Hesse, life is either an impossibility or an absurdity. It is death that gives value to life and life that gives value to death and the shortness and brevity of life gives it both its absurd insignificance and its amazing importance. The genius of Hesse lies in his ability to capture both the horror and the beauty of life within the same novel: to conjure with the lyricism of a magician the hope out of hopelessness, the joy out of despair and the will to live out of the seeming absurdity of beings born to die and return to dust. Life is indeed meaningless but it is this very meaninglessness that gives life a meaning, as being aware of the finite and absurd nature of life we are, instead of being constrained by a pre-ordained “meaning”, forced to find value in our lives. Life is a series of (seeming) contrasts: sadness to happiness, life to death (the absence of life), masculine to feminine…etc, etc. This is the conception of existence that Narziss attempts to shun by withdrawing into the realm of the mind and Goldmund the world of non-rationalised passion. Both are attempts to escape the essential reality of existence. In this sense Narziss lives like an ascetic – fasting and learning to overcome and negate his sensual nature – and Goldmund the hedonist – sleeping with gipies, wandering roads and plagued towns – and allowing himself to be governed by his senses, seeking no overreaching logic for sheer, unmitigated pleasure and pain. The emotional (our feminine quality) and the intellect (our masculine quality) are the two driving forces behind all that we do, and unlike Narziss and Goldmund, who attempt to adhere to one of the two extremes, Hesse seems to think it is better for us to find a balance between the two: which, in my opinion, is shown by both characters failing in their respective attempts to take mastery over life. It is a complex novel, which would require more thought than I have had time to put into it to fully understand what is being said. Where the novel fails is from a literary (as opposed to philosophical) angle. The prose is flowery – albeit way below the poetic genius of Steppenwolf – but, as there are no descriptions of character or scene, it is impossible to read it as anything but a novel of types and ideas. This is understandable and insightful. It is understandable because Hermann Hesse was not Stephen King: this book is not intended to entertain but to encourage self-reflection, to get people to examine the way they are living, not to give them a few hours cheap entertainment. It is insightful because the book works on an intellectual rather than an emotional level, it appeals to the Narziss in us rather than the Goldmund. Another amazing work of art, which I have come to expect of Hesse.
|
|
List Price: £10.95
Our Price: £5.04
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Author:
Hermann Hesse
By
Peter Owen Modern Classics
What goes around............., 2001-07-15
Hermanne Hesse's reputation flowered amongst the sixties 'love affair' with all things Zen and Eastern, but in recent years his Buddhist allegories of self discovery have passed people by. 'Stepponwolf' was to most people a rock band from Canada who were on the 'Easy Rider' soundtrack. But Hesse's fiction is getting re printed more frequently now and 'Journey to the East' is what 'Apocalypse' was for D H Lawrence, a kind of philosophical touch stone to his fiction and a must read for any fans. Following a group of characters through time,myth and the very nature of self, Hesse blends the experiences he had with people like Paul Klee, into a sprawling tale of awakening and re-discovery of the nature of being. The East like a giant philosophical focul point draws all Western strands of narrative toward it, the stories middle beginning and end are not exactly clear cut, but what is clear is Hesse's determined stride to re awaken something he thought the world had lost after the two world wars. This book floats on the river of re-prints like a lotus flower, bobbing back onto book shelves like a hopeful ray of light.
|
|
List Price: £7.99
Our Price: £3.97
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Author:
Hermann Hesse
By
Peter Owen Ltd
Adolescent torment on the eve of the Great War, 2008-12-10
Herman Hesse was one of the leading figures of twentieth century literature and this one of his most important works. Cosseted by a prosperous, pious family Emil Sinclair becomes aware of the duality of good and evil through the actions of a school bully. He is freed from persecution by an enigmatic older pupil Max Demian who, along with organ player Pistorius, becomes his master and mentor during a turbulent adolescence. Tormented by vexatious existentialist problems, Emil's sensitivity sees him vacillate between a yearning for a deep, spiritual love and the temptations of self-destruction. Poetically written in the tradition of German Romanticism and influenced, among others, by Nietzsche and Jung, Hesse projects through Emil and Max a vision of the future for a Europe which he believed had lost its soul in the aggressive rush for technical progress.
If you enjoy Demian then read Steppenwolf, where the protagonist is likewise torn between bourgeois respectability and crude, biological instincts.
|
|
List Price: £9.95
Our Price: £4.39
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Author:
Hermann Hesse
By
Picador
In the shade of a banyan tree, a grizzled ferryman sits listening to the river. Some say he's a sage. He was once a wandering shramana and, briefly, like thousands of others, he followed Gautama the Buddha, enraptured by his sermons. But this man, Siddhartha, was not a follower of any but his own soul. Born the son of a Brahman, Siddhartha was blessed in appearance, intelligence, and charisma. In order to find meaning in life, he discarded his promising future for the life of a wandering ascetic. Still, true happiness evaded him. Then a life of pleasure and titillation merely eroded away his spiritual gains until he was just like all the other "child people," dragged around by his desires. Like Hesse's other creations of struggling young men, Siddhartha has a good dose of European angst and stubborn individualism. His final epiphany challenges both the Buddhist and the Hindu ideals of enlightenment. Neither a practitioner nor a devotee, neither meditating nor reciting, Siddhartha comes to blend in with the world, resonating with the rhythms of nature, bending the reader's ear down to hear answers from the river. --Brian Bruya
Hesse , 2009-03-15
There are several translations of this beautiful and powerful book but this one is the best and I recommend it thoroughly to all Hesse fans and to any new reader yet to taste the delights from this incredible writer. The story is a simple one but the message and depth of meaning are profound and lasting. Read it again and again as you grow up and grow older and maybe even as you grow wiser!
|
|
List Price: £7.99
Our Price: £12.99
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Author:
Hermann Hesse
By
Penguin
One of the greatest books I have ever read - Hesse's poetic writing is without parallel, 2007-11-22
This was the first of Hesse's books that I ever read, and at a very young age. Perhaps because I still had the imagination of a child the poetry of his writing completely took me over - without his special way of expressing ideas and emotions and just putting words together it would have been just a fairly strange story. I was hooked, and even though some of his other writings did not 'hit' me quite as much (how could they, after this masterpiece!), I eventually found my way through most of his writing, with gems such as Narziss and Goldmund and The Glass Bead game also making their own special mark on my 'mindset', changing me for ever. Having said that, Steppenwolf was the first and for me therefore best piece of poetic writing I have ever had the pleasure of enjoying. I have read and owned it several times, only to lose it to another 'convert' once they had 'borrowed' and read it.... I'm keeping hold of my current copy for ever!!!
|
|
List Price: £8.99
Our Price: £3.17
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Author:
Hermann Hesse
By
Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group
Excellent Short-Story Collection, 1998-06-03
After reading several of Hermann Hesse's novels, I saw this book in a local bookstore and, admittedly attracted at first by it's lovely cover, I decided to purchase it. And what a joy it was to read! It provides a nice selection of Hesse's short-stories, in very readable translation. I'm very happy that I bought it, and I think that it is a must-have for anyone who wants a good introduction to Hesse's short stories. Includes the memorable story "Iris".
|
|
List Price: £9.99
Our Price: £6.14
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Author:
Hermann Hesse
By
Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group
In the shade of a banyan tree, a grizzled ferryman sits listening to the river. Some say he's a sage. He was once a wandering shramana and, briefly, like thousands of others, he followed Gautama the Buddha, enraptured by his sermons. But this man, Siddhartha, was not a follower of any but his own soul. Born the son of a Brahman, Siddhartha was blessed in appearance, intelligence, and charisma. In order to find meaning in life, he discarded his promising future for the life of a wandering ascetic. Still, true happiness evaded him. Then a life of pleasure and titillation merely eroded away his spiritual gains until he was just like all the other "child people," dragged around by his desires. Like Hesse's other creations of struggling young men, Siddhartha has a good dose of European angst and stubborn individualism. His final epiphany challenges both the Buddhist and the Hindu ideals of enlightenment. Neither a practitioner nor a devotee, neither meditating nor reciting, Siddhartha comes to blend in with the world, resonating with the rhythms of nature, bending the reader's ear down to hear answers from the river. --Brian Bruya
Hesse , 2009-03-15
There are several translations of this beautiful and powerful book but this one is the best and I recommend it thoroughly to all Hesse fans and to any new reader yet to taste the delights from this incredible writer. The story is a simple one but the message and depth of meaning are profound and lasting. Read it again and again as you grow up and grow older and maybe even as you grow wiser!
|
|
List Price: £3.99
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Author:
Hermann Hesse
By
Penguin Classics
There are only two books., 2000-12-30
Hamsun's "Mysteries" and this one.Yes, there are great books, staggering works of literature, phenomenal story-telling and revealing pieces of art. But, for me, no matter how many other great books I read I always come back to these two. Both are an attempt to capture in ink, the impossible imbalance of emotion and blood. Every reading is different and causes you to react differently depending upon the baggage you bring to the book. You won't come across anything better than this. And there's only one other that is AS good.
|
|
List Price: £8.99
Our Price: £3.17
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
