"Contemplate the fire, contemplate the clouds, and when omens appear and voices begin to sound in your soul, abandon yourself to them without wondering beforehand whether it seems convenient or good to do so. If you hesitate, you will spoil your own being, you will become little more than the bourgeois façade which encloses you, and you will become a fossil. Our god is named Abraxas, and he is both god and the devil at the same time. You will find in him both the world of light and of shadows. Abraxas is not opposed to any of your thoughts nor to any of your dreams, but he will abandon you if you become normal and unapproachable. He will abandon you and look for another vessel in which to cook his thoughts."

C.G. Jung and Hermann Hesse by Miguel Serrano

"Hesse began writing Siddhartha in December of 1919 in Montagnola, a small Italian-speaking village in southern Switzerland. By the time it was finished, it would become a novella that reflected Hesse's disillusionment with the extremes of peace and war, or more specifically, with Buddhism and World War I. In his exploration of Eastern culture and philosophy, he draws most of his portrait of the character Siddhartha from his own journey to the East in 1911. With the Swiss painter Hans Sturzenegger, he traveled to Sumatra, Malaya, and Ceylon to find his own personal enlightenment. But after only a few months, he returned home, never having reached the continent of India. He was disheartened by the extreme poverty in which the people lived, and frustrated with the commercialization of Buddhism he witnessed on his journey. Through personal experience, he learned that both Eastern and Western spiritual philosophies were flawed, a revelation reflected in Siddhartha."

Siddhartha: The Search for Peace

A visit in India in 1911 was a disappointment but it gave start to Hesse's studies of Eastern religions and the novel SIDDHARTHA (1922). In the story, based on the early life of Gautama Buddha, a Brahman son rebels against his father's teaching and traditions. Eventually he finds the ultimate enlightenment. The culture of ancient Hindu and the ancient Chinese had a great influence on Hesse's works. For several years in the mid-1910s Hesse underwent psychoanalysis under Carl Jung's assistant J.B. Lang. In the novel ROSSHALDE (1914) Hesse explored the question of whether the artist should marry. The author's replay was negative and reflected the author's own difficulties. During these years his wife suffered from growing mental instability and his son was seriously ill.

In 1912 Hesse and his family took a permanent residence in Switzerland, settling first in Bern. Martin, his third son, who was born in 1911, became seriously ill. His recuperation was slow and eventually he was placed as a foster child in Kirchdorf. Hesse volunteered for service in the German army in 1914, but was rejected because of poor health. He spent the years of World War I in Switzerland, where he was in charge of the German Embassy's Central Office for the Distribution of Books to German Prisoners of War. In his writings, Hesse attacked the prevailing moods of militarism and nationalism. By his countrymen, Hesse was called a traitor.

Hesse's breakthrough novel was DEMIAN (1919). It was highly praised by Thomas Mann, who compared its importance to James Joyce's Ulysses and André Gide's The Counterfeiters. The novel attracted especially young veterans of the WW I, and reflected Hesse's personal crisis and interest in Jungian psychoanalysis. With Aldous Huxley he shared belief in the need for spiritual self-realization. "There is no reality except the one contained within us," Hesse once said. "That is why so many people live such an unreal life. They take the images outside them for reality and never allow the world within to assert itself."

Demian was first published under the name of its narrator, Emil Sinclair, but later Hesse admitted his authorship. In the Faustian tale the protagonist is torn between his orderly bourgeois existence and a chaotic world of sensuality. Hesse later admitted that Demian was a story of "individuation" in the Jungian manner. The author also praised unreservedly Jung's study Psychological Types, but in 1921 he suddenly canceled his analysis with Jung and started to consider him merely one of Freud's most gifted pupils.

Leaving his family in 1919, Hesse moved to Montagnola, a small town near Lugano. There he had for years an apartment in an old house. On its balcony Hesse wrote KLINGSORS LETZTER SOMMER (1920). In his latter years Hesse lived in a house especially built for him by a friend. Siddharta has been one of Hesse's most widely read work. Its English translation in the 1950s became a spiritual guide to a number of American Beat poets. Hesse's short marriage to Ruth Wenger, the daughter of the Swiss writer Lisa Wenger, was unhappy. He had met her in 1919 and wrote in 1922 the fairy tale PIKTOR'S VERWANDLUNGEN for Ruth. In the story a spirit, Piktor, who contains within him in a way all Hesse's characters, becomes an old tree and finds his youth again from the love of a young girl.

Hesse divorced from Maria Bernoulli, and married in 1924 Ruth Wenger, but the marriage ended after a few months. These years produced DER STEPPENWOLF (1927). Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who was elected Pope Benedict XVI, once said that Steppenwolf is among his favorite books because it "exposes the problem of modernity's isolated and self-isolating man". The protagonist, Harry Haller, goes through his mid-life crisis and must chose between life of action and contemplation. His initials perhaps are not accidentally like the author's. "The few capacities and pursuits in which I happened to be strong had occupied all my attention, and I had painted a picture of myself as a person who was in fact nothing more tan a most refined and educated specialist in poetry, music and philosophy; and as such I had lived, leaving all the rest of me to be a chaos of potentialities, instincts and impulses which I found an encumbrance and gave the label of Steppenwolf." Haller feels that he has two beings inside him, and faces his shadow self, named Hermine. This Doppelgänger figure introduces Harry to drinking, dancing, music, sex, and drugs. Finally his personality is disassembled and reassembled in the 'Magic Theatre' - For Madmen Only.

During the Weimar Republic (1919-1933) Hesse stayed aloof from politics. BETRACHTUNGEN (1928) and KRIEG UND FRIEDEN (1946) were collections of essays, which reflected his individualism and opposition to mass movements of the day. NARZISS UND GOLDMUND (1930, Narcissus and Goldmund) was a pseudomedieval tale about an abbot and his worldly pupil. The characters represent two contrary tendencies of the soul, both in search of the Great Mother.

In 1931 Hesse married Ninon Dolbin (1895-1966). Ninon was Jewish. She had sent Hesse a letter in 1909 when she was 14, and the correspondence had continued. In 1926 they met accientally. At that time Ninon was separated - she had married the painter B.F. Doldin and planned a career as an art historian. Hesse moved with her to Casa Bodmer, and his restless life became more calm. Hesse's books continued to be published in Germany during theNazi regime, and were defended in a secret circular in 1937 by Joseph Goebbels. When he wrote for the Frankfurter Zeitung Jewish refugees in France accused him of supporting the Nazis, whom Hesse did not openly oppose. However, he helped political refugees and when Narcissus and Goldmund was reprinted in 1941, he refused to leave out parts which dealt with pogroms and anti-Semitism. In 1943 he was placed on the Nazi blacklist.

In 1931 Hesse began to work on his masterpiece DAS GLASPERLENSPIEL, which was published in 1943. The setting is in the future in the imaginary province of Castilia, an intellectual, elitist community, dedicated to mathematics and music. Knecht ('servant') is chosen by the Old Music Master as a suitable aspirant to the Order. He goes to the city of Waldzellto study, and there he catches the attention of the Magister Ludi, Thomas von der Trave (an allusion to Hesse's rival Thomas Mann). He is the Master of the Games, a system by which wisdom is communicated. Knecht dedicates himself to the Game, and on the death of Thomas, he is elected Magister Ludi. After a decade in his office Knecht tries to leave to start a life devoted to realizing human rights, but accidentally drowns in a mountain lake. In 1942 Hesse sent the manuscript to Berlin for publication. It was not accepted by the Nazis and the work appeared in Zürich, Switzerland. However, during the postwar years, Hesse's last major novel, The Glass Bead Game, was compulsory reading in German schools.

After receiving the Nobel Prize Hesse published no major works. Between the years 1945 and 1962 he wrote some 50 poems and about 32 reviews mostly for Swiss newspapers. Hesse died of cerebral hemorrhage in his sleep on August 9, 1962 at the age of eighty-five. He had suffered from leukemia for six years, but did not know that the had it.

Colin Wilson placed Heller in his bestseller, The Outsider (1956), beside Sartre and Dostoevsky. In the 1960s and 1970s Hesse became a cult figure for young readers. The interest declined in the 1980s. The Californian rockgroup Sparrow changed its name to Steppenwolf after Hesse's classic, and released 'Born to be Wild' (1968), which was featured in the film Easy Rider. The name was suggested by the ABC-Dunhill producer Gabriel Mekler who had read the novel. Hesse's books have gained readers from the New Age movements and he is still one of the bestselling German-speaking writers throughout world.

For further reading:

Mein Onkel Hermann: Erinnerungen an Alt-Estland by Monika Hunnius (1921);
Herman Hesse by Hugo Ball (1947);
The Novels of Hermann Hesse by T. Ziolkowski (1965);
Hermann Hesse by F. Baumer (1969);
Hermann Hesse, His Mind and Art by M. Boulby (1967);
C.G. Jung and Hermann Hesse by M. Serrano (1971);
An Outline of the Works of Hermann Hesse by R. Farquharson (1973);
Hesse by T.J. Ziolkowski (1973);
Hermann Hesse: A Collection of Criticism, ed. by J. Liebmann (1977);
Hermann Hesse: Biography and Bibliography by J. Mileck (1977);
Hermann Hesse: Life and Art by Joseph Milek (1981);
Hermann Hesse's Das Glasperlenspiel: A Concealed Defense of the Mother World by Edmund Remys (1983);
The Hero's Quest for the Self by D.G. Richards (1987);
Hermann Hesse's Fictions of the Self by E.L. Satelzig (1988),
Reflection and Action by James N. Hardin (1991)

- See: Romain Rolland, who was interested in Indian philosophy. Hesse's novel Demian was based on Carl Jung's theories of individuation. James Joyce's daughter Lucia was among Jung's patients in the 1930s. Suom.: Hesseltä suomennettu myös valikoima Riikinkukkokehrääjä ja muita kertomuksia (1989). - See also Zelda Fitzgerald.

Selected works:

• ROMANTISCHE LIEDER, 1899
• EINE STUNDE HINTER MITTERNACHT, 1899
• HINTERLASSENE SCHRIFTEN UND GEDICHTE VON HERMANN LAUSCHER, 1901 - Hermann Lauscher (suom. Kai Kaila)
• GEDICHTE, 1902
• BOCCACCIO, 1904 - Boccaccio (suom. Maija Lehtonen)
• PETER CAMENZIND, 1904 - Peter Camenzind (translators: W. J. Strachan; Michael Roloff) - Peter Camenzind / Alppien poika (suom. Eino Railo)
• FRANZ VON ASSISI - Assisin Franciscus (suom. Teppo Kulmala)
• UNTERM RAD, 1906 - The Prodigy (trans. by W. J. Strachan) / Beneath the Wheel (trans. by Michael Roloff) - Muuan nuoruus (suom. Kai Kaila)
• DIESSEITS, 1907
• NACHBARN, 1908
• GERTRUD, 1910 - Gertrude (trans. by Hilda Rosner) / Gertrude and I (trans. by Adèle Lewisohn) - Taiteilijan tarina (suom. Kaarlo Nieminen) /Gertrud (suom. Aarno Peromies)
• UNTERWEGS, 1911
• UMWEGE, 1912
• AUS INDIEN, 1913
• ROSSHALDE, 1914 - Rosshalde (trans. by R. Manheim) - Rosshalde (suom. Aarno Peromies)
• IN DER ALTEN SONNE, 1914
• KNULP, 1915 - Knulp: Three Tales from the Life of Knulp (trans. by Ralph Manheim) - Knulp (suom. Teppo Kulmala)
• MUSIK DES EINSAMEN, 1915
• AM WEG, 1915
• BRIEF INS FELD, 1916
• SCHÖN IST DIE JUGEND, 1916
• DEMIAN, 1919 (published under pseudonym Emil Sinclair) - Demian (translators: N.H. Priday; Michael Roloff and Michael Lebeck; Stanley Appelbaum) - Demian (suom. Toini Havu)
• KLEINER GARTEN, 1919
• MÄRCHEN, 1919 - Fairy Tales of Hermann Hesse (trans. by Jack Zipes) / Strange News from Another Star (trans. by D. Lindley) - Ihmeellinen viesti toiselta tähdeltä ja muita tarinoita (suom. Aarno Peromies)
• ZARATHUSTRAS WIEDERKEHR, 1919
• GEDICHTE DES MALERS, 1920
• KLINGSORS LETZTER SOMMER, 1920 - Klingsor's Last Summer (trans. by Richard and Clara Winston) - Pelko (suom. Eeva-Liisa Manner) / Katoava kesä (suom. Kai Kaila ja Eeva-Liisa Manner)
• WANDERUNG, 1920 - Wandering (trans. by James Wright)
• BLICK INS CHAOS, 1921 - In Sight of Chaos (trans. by S. Hudson)
• AUSGEWÄHLTE GEDICHTE, 1921
• SIDDHARTHA, 1922 - Siddhartha (translators: H. Rosner; Joachim Neugroschel; Stanley Appelbaum; Sherab Chödzin Kohn) - Siddhartha (suom. Aarno Peromies) - film 1972, dir. by Conrad Rooks, starring Shashi Kapoor, Simi Garewal, Romesh Shama, Pinchoo Kapoor
• ITALIEN, 1923
• SINCLAIRS NOTIZBUCH, 1923
• KURGAST, 1925 - Kylpylävieraana Badenissa (suom. Aarno Peromies)
• PIKTOR'S VERWANDLUNGEN, 1925 - Pictor’s Metamorphoses, and Other Fantasies (trans. by Rika Lesser)
• BILDERBUCH, 1926
• DIE NÜRMBERGER REISE, 1927
• GESAMMELTE ERZÄHLUNGEN, 1927
• DER STEPPENWOLF, 1927 - Steppenwolf (trans. by Basil Creighton) - Arosusi (suom. Eeva-Liisa Manner) - film 1974, dir. by Fred Haines, starring Max von Sydow, Dominique Sanda, Pierre Clementi, Carla Romanelli
• BETRACHTUNGEN, 1928
• KRISIS, 1928 - Crisis: Pages from a Diary (trans. by Ralph Manheim)
• EINE BIBLIOTHEK DER WELTLITERATUR, 1929 - Maailmankirjallisuuden kirjasto (suom. Teppo Kulmala)
• TROST DER NACHT, 1929
• DIESSEITS, 1930
• NARZISS UND GOLDMUND, 1930 - Death and the Lover (trans. by Geoffrey Dunlop) / Narcissus and Goldmund (trans. by Ursule Molinaro) - Narkissos ja Kultasuu (suom. Kai Kaila)
• WEG NACH INNEN, 1931
• DIE MORGENLANDFAHRT, 1932 - The Journey to the East (trans. by H. Rossner) - Matka aamun maahan (suom. Kai Kaila)
• KLEINE WELT, 1933
• FABULIERBUCH, 1935
• DAS HAUS DER TRÄUME, 1936
• STUNDEN IM GARTEN, 1936
• ORGELSPIEL, 1937
• DIE GEDICHTE, 1942
• DAS GLASPERLENSPIEL, 1943 - Magister Ludi (trans. by M. Savill)
  / The Glass Bead Game (trans. by Richard and Clara Winston) - Lasihelmipeli (suom. Kai Kaila, Elvi Sinervo)
• BERTHOLD, 1945
• TRAUMFÄHRTE, 1945
• KRIEG UND FRIENDEN, 1946 - If the War Goes On (trans. by Ralph Manheim)
• FRÜHE PROSA, 1948
• BRIEFE, 1951
• SPÄTE PROSA, 1951
• DICHTUNGEN, 1952 (6 vols.)
• ZWEI IDYLLEN, 1952
• DIE GEDICHTE, 1953 - Poems (trans. of 31 poems)
• GESAMMELTE SCHRIFTEN, 1957
• PROSA AUS DEM NACHLASS, 1965
• NEUE DEUTSCHE BÜCHER, 1966
• KINDHEIT UND JUGEND VOR 1900, 1966
• BRIEFWECHSEL. HERMANN HESSE - THOMAS MANN, 1968 - The Hesse/Mann Letters (ed. by Anni Carlsson and Volker Michels)
• POLITISCHE BETRACHTUNGEN, 1970
• Poems, 1970 (trans. by J. Wright)
• GESAMMELTE WERKE, 1970 (12 vols.)
• Stories of Five Decades, 1974 (trans. by Ralph Manheim, Denver Lindley)
• GESAMMELTE BRIEFE, 1973
• My Belief, 1974 (trans. by Denver Lindley)
• Hours in the Garden and Other Poems, 1974 (trans. by R. Lesser)
• Tales of Student Life, 1975 (trans. by R. Manheim)
• Hermann Hesse and Romain Rolland: Correspondence, 1976
• DIE ROMANE UND GROSSEN ERZÄHLUNGEN, 1977 (8 vols.)
• Six Novels with Other Stories and Essays, 1980 (introduced by Bernard Levin)
• Pictor's Metamorphosis and Other Tales, 1982 (trans. by T. Zialkowski)
• Stories of Five Decades, 1984 (trans. by T. Zialkowski and J. Palencar)
• Soul of the Age, 1991 (trans. by T. Zialkowski)

Article copyright Petri Liukkonen (author) & Ari Pesonen. Kuusankosken kaupunginkirjasto 2008 - reprinted under Creative Commons license.