Hesse's last novel is set in Castalia, a secluded intellectual order in a future Europe where scholars devote their lives to the Glass Bead Game, a discipline that weaves music, mathematics and the humanities into a single symbolic language. Joseph Knecht rises from gifted pupil to Magister Ludi, the master of the game, and begins to doubt that a life apart from ordinary people can be justified. The book includes his poems and fictional lives as a late section.
Readers who enjoy philosophical novels about the tension between contemplation and action will find a long, patient treatment here. It suits people curious about education, the value of pure scholarship, and how a person decides to leave a system that has shaped them completely.
Deep, inward-looking, contemplative, open-ended and thought-provoking; a demanding read.
Best for readers like The Literary Connoisseur. Which reader are you?
- Published
- 2002
- Publisher
- Suhrkamp
- ISBN
- 9783518413357
- Language
- DE
