The Glass Bead Game (Vintage Classics) |
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Author:
Hermann Hesse
By Vintage
Average Customer Rating:  
List Price: £8.99
Our Price: £3.54
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780099283621
ISBN: 009928362X
Label: Vintage
Manufacturer: Vintage
Number Of Pages: 544
Publication Date: 2000-07-06
Publisher: Vintage
Studio: Vintage |
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Good idea, possibly a bit too long..., 2009-01-27
This is often regarded as Hesse's masterpiece. I wouldn't necessarily disagree with that - it's a philosophical novel with a profound and relevant message. It's also more readable than one might think.
However, the problem to my mind is that the basic thesis Hesse outlines in this novel can be reduced to a few sentences. On the one hand, he gives us the players of the Glass Bead Game, who are cut off from ordinary society and entirely devoted to abstract & purely intellectual pursuits which have little to do with real life (the Game). On the other hand, he gives us the inhabitants of the towns below, who are entirely devoted to material ambitions (busines and politics) which have no basis in intellectual thought.
The thesis, therefore, is that those who conduct their lives purely on an intellectual level are out of touch with real life and tend towards unreality, while those who live their lives purely on a material level can never achieve any form of enlightenment, insight or spiritual progress. It would be desirable to fuse these two elements so that they are interdependent, but there are many difficulties in achieving this.
The novel explores these issues at great depth and length, through the life of the main protagonist (whose name I can't recall...). My problem - possibly it's a matter of temperament - was that having grasped the basic conflict over the course of the first 100 pages, the next 400 seemed rather superfluous.
Hesse's short stories are great, though - definitely recommend those in 'Strange Light from Another Star' (also the title of a Blur track).
The past is another country, 2009-08-30
Hesse's novel won the Nobel Prize and joins the ranks of strangely overrated works that are now not much read but hit the right spot at the time. In this case the creation of an imaginary world of delicate formal relations, whether it is a utopia or an anti-utopia, was a validation of culture and the life of the mind born of Hesse's discovery of Switzerland as an escape route from his native land, Germany, which was historically compromised by the the horrors of Nazi dictatorship. No one could decribe it as a good read, but its period fascination is enormous.
Not the masterpiece it wishes to be..., 2009-02-01
It was an easy read, but quite thin on the ground in terms of depth - the conclusion of the book is so painstakingly obvious it's hard to envisage a whole novel just to prove it. The only other Hesse book i've read is Narcissus and Goldmund, and whilst i think this is on par in terms of content, the latter is about one third of the size and hence a lot more immediate. On a brighter note, the book has three short stories at the end, of which i think the last, is particularly good.
Glass bead Game book, 2009-02-04
if you are into ...sci fi...gaming... or just thinking then this is the book for you....:-)
A fascinating mass of contradictions, 2009-05-11
I first read 'The Glass Bead Game' in my late teens, and it left a lasting if vague impression. I very very rarely reread books - being of the opinion that life is just too short - but twenty-odd years later I felt compelled to revisit it, if only because I remember it being a very 'grand' and mysterious book, and because I could remember so little about it.
What a strange experience it was. I'm a lot older and a little wiser than I was back then, so the impression it made on me was less of awe and more of wonder. Specifically, I kept wondering why on earth Hesse wrote it? What, exactly, was its point? I found it maddeningly discursive, didactic, amibiguous - and yet nonetheless 'a great novel'.
That said, I could only imagine what a modern day agent or editor would make of it. There is little plot to speak of, and it's almost impossible to discern whether Hesse intended it as satire or homage or just plain narrative. The sudden and untimely end of the protagonist seems to leave the story in mid air, and then, almost as an afterthought, Hesse tags on three short stories, in the guise of Joseph's posthumous writings.
I found the novel fascinating, but its meaning rather obscure - although Hesse's fascination with Eastern religion comes through as a strong theme, particularly towards the end. So ultimately I'm left wondering what on earth I do think about this book, other than it is perhaps as flawed, perplexing and bewitching as life itself.
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