Steppenwolf

I read this book on a twenty four hour train journey surrounded by the bourgeois. It was a terrifying experience. The book didn't change my life and was not meant to, but it gave me hope and hope is always a good thing. The influence of Indian spirituality on this book is apparent, but Hesse choose......more

Hermann Hesse’s words are timeless. Here they represent an entire disaffected generation, a generation who is on the cusp of radical change but still partly exists in the old world. They are out of space and out of time: they are lost within themselves. However, such things can aptly be applied to a......more

A view from the outside… Steppenwolf was a man nearing fifty who one day some years ago called at my aunt’s block of flats in search of a furnished room. Having rented the attic room up under the roof and the small bedroom next to it, he came back a few days later with two suitcases and a large book......more

Many literary novels are page-turners, filled with a compelling, straightforward storyline and lots of action; think of Our Mutual Friend and Crime and Punishment, think of Heart of Darkness and No Country for Old Men, or novels like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo or The Spy Who Came in from the Co......more

“What could I say to you that would be of value, except that perhaps you seek too much, that as a result of your seeking you cannot find.” Having read several other novels by Hesse (Siddharta, Demian, Narcissus & Goldmund and Knulp), the theme of a protagonist intellectually or culturally isolated fr......more