Rating: 
Summary: Great,great,great!!
Review: If I could put it 6 stars I would do it!
This book is really fascinating! Of course, is longer than any other Hesse's books. If you're looking something like Siddartha or Demian, this is not the case. This book is quite longer, but it takes you to a world totally different.
Hesse's writing is so magical and spiritual that it caught me all along the book.
If you are a Hesse's follower, you should not miss this one!
Rating: 
Summary: Good in bed?
Review: I'll just be honest: the Glass Bead Game is boring!! The only positive aspect of this book for me was that it kept putting me to sleep quickly.
The first set of problems I had with the book might not be real serious, but they did bother me on a constant basis throughout, and that is that the book is quite dated. For example, women deem no serious mention by Hesse in this book at all. I had a hard time getting past Hesse's discrimination in this regard. The fact that his "utopia" is based on monastic corollaries provides no excuse; there should at the least have been some discussion about the convent analog and what the women Glass Bead Game players were doing. That might have added some interest, anyway. There are lots of other problems with dating in Hesse's supposedly futuristic society, but it appears most readers are content with them.So back to the main problem: the book is just really boring. It espouses meditation, and the positives of Buddhist philosophy, but in such a repetitive manner as to be somewhat mind-numbing. The positive descriptions of the supposed utopian society are easy to disregard, being obviously a sterile and inert society. It therefore comes as absolutely no surprise when Hesse informs us late in the book that this is so, and that the main character agrees. (yawn) The comparisons with other philosophies and religions I found lacking. The mysticism and meditative ideas were not novel or particularly interesting. I heard about this book from a friend that enjoyed Eco's The Name of the Rose. That was a book I really enjoyed. This one never resonated for me in any way.
Rating:
Summary: Hesse's Magnum Opus
Review: This book is to Hesse as "The Brothers Karamazov" is to Dostoevsky. Throughout it are the same ideas that have been put forth in earlier works, often with similar characters, but with a fuller and more articulate expression than before. Like Dostoevsky, he finally figured out how to say *everything* he had to say in one volume. So it comes as no surprise that those only concerned with certain aspects (particularly the more spiritual ones) of Hesse's writing would find it disjointed and tedious. If you want to read more of Hesse's stories about tormented and/or confused souls looking for meaning in the world, this isn't your book - go reread Damien and Steppenwolf. This book has that esoteric search, but its main character, Joseph Knecht, pursues this search as a curiousity and not out of some desperate need. I'm sure that's why several people seem to find him lacking compared to other Hesse protagonists - they're expecting a conflict in him that isn't there. As I read these other reviews I find it fascinating that everyone seems to come away from the book with such different things that they were struck with. In my case, this was the socio-political commentary. Through this book, Hesse comments on our own time and on a fictional opposite to it, thoroughly exposing the flaws in both. I remember most distinctly Knecht's letter of resignation from Magister Ludi, where he tells his colleagues that although they understand the importance of their society's existence, they made the fatal mistake of not educating the people who support them. That they cannot take the existence of what they have for granted, for the day would eventually come when all they built would be dismantled. Perhaps this was because I read this book when I was in an institution that resembled much of what Hesse wrote about, and exactly when Congress cut the NEA. Reading this book changed my view of the world most in that it changed my expectations of it. More to the point, I abandoned my expectations. I am much more apt to let other people be themselves. To explain how or why would take far too long, suffice it to say that there is more to this book than a pursuit for spiritual meaning or a balance of intellectual and physical need, but also balance on many other levels, and Hesse explores all of them in his classic manner - first by their disparity, then by their eventual unity. A stunning conclusion to the career of one the greatest writers of all time.
Rating: 
Summary: An antidote for Ayn Rand
Review: I picked this up after meeting Charles Cameron, who invented the Hipbone Games, a variation of the Glass Bead Game as described in this novel. Charles was so wildly enthusiastic about it--and I was so intrigued and delighted with his game--that I immediately visited the university library the day after chatting with him and began reading the life story of Joseph Knect, the Master of the Glass Bead Game. As I fell deeper and deeper down Hesse's rabbit hole, I found myself asking people if they knew that this novel, which basically won Hesse the Nobel Prize in Literature, was science fiction? How come this isn't mentioned in genre studies, if not with the pulp masters, at least among those literary books that strayed into far shores like George Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm or Aldous Huxley's Brave New World? Set in the far future, where today's emphasis on entertainment is termed the Age of the Feuilleton, The Glass Bead Game describes a world that has once again settled down from the conflicts between humans in a new Golden Age, but one wherein a new caste has been created. Not a religious order, although their devotion to their ideals resembles religion, this new group is based on education, one of their duties being to train all the teachers in this country. To be accepted into the group one must be educated in their elite schools, for only the brightest and the best and--this is important-- the orphans are accepted into Castalia. Why orphans? Because family ties are the bonds that weaken the link to the Castalian society. The crowning achievement of all Castalia is not the elite schools and their pupils, but the game--a systematic method of linking math and music and history and art and, well, anything, into a perfect "whole." Everyone admires the game, and the master of it, the Magister Ludi, is the pivot point for the players, and thus, Castalian society. The book, once it gives you this background, then describes the path of Joseph Knecht from elite student all the way to the seat of the Magister, and then, surprisingly, back to student. Okay, I'm sure that had I stumbled upon this book when younger that I would not have finished it. Unlike pulp SF, the purpose of The Glass Bead Game is philosophical, not adventure. While you can read it for plot (and the "Three Lives" appendices provide plenty of that, in three different "fantasy" settings), the idea of perfection and what does it meant to be human are the real characters here, and the physical creatures described are just pawns in this literary gameplay. A few times I found myself rushing through the interminable equivocation, but for the most part my imagination was captivated. Seems to me that this might be the antidote for some of Ayn Rand's sins.
Rating:
Summary: 30 Years Later I can create my own Glass Bead Games
Review: It is a must to read if you are looking inward for ways of consciousness elevation, enlightenment, and are western (culture) born.
I was carried on aesthetic clouds of pleasure throughout the reading of this book when I was about 20. Nearly 60 I've become aware of the deeper truth of the methods which once I thought were mostly fictive.... Maybe a few decades of study of Tibetan Buddhism, Mahayana Zen, English Literature, and psychoanalytic methods, PLUS 37 years of working with creative people, teaching meditation, and leading workshops has influenced me...whatever, it seems last week I stumbled upon the creation of a true Glass Bead Game of my own invention. Now, I have reordered a copy of the book and will have to begin again. Enjoy. Boring someone said? Persevere, I say.
Rating:
Summary: Many great starts, but never much progress
Review: I have had this book for years and it is the only Hesse book in my collection that I have not read all the way through at least once. It seems like a really good book, but the length keeps me from being able to finish it before I HAVE to read another book for school or just get to busy. By the time I come back to it I need to start over and that's a little frustrating. I think if you can find the time and get through a little rocky translation and to read it all without getting pulled too far away from it, it will be a very good read. Be prepared to be in for the long haul though, as with all Hesse books you do not want to rush through it and miss things. keep the faith, dEx
Rating: 
Summary: some good stuff, but too long
Review: past 100 pages of the book, i was happy. it was an ok story line but i was still amused and taken by the beauty of such a game. then, i was drained after every chapter i finished. i got to something like page 270, and it seems like despite a few cool points here and there, that make you see things from anoter perspective, it's all long, drawn out, predictable, and unmoving. after all, what kind of real character would you expect to have such a perfect, easy, and fair life?
Rating:
Summary: admirable and thought-provoking
Review: It took me awhile to adjust to Hesse's slow-paced exploration of the life of the mind. But once accustomed, I enjoyed following Joseph Knecht's progression from loyal follower of the Castalian community of the mind through to his "awakening" to reality and the intellectual's social responsibilities. I was disappointed to find that just as Knecht's story was becoming most interesting, it abruptly ended. But Knecht's "writings" which followed the story of his life were an unexpected pleasure. I particularly enjoyed "The Three Lives" which seemed to re-examine from different perspectives some of the novel's themes: reality, the life of the senses vs. intellectual, analytical life; spiritual transcendence; the relationship between the social elite and the common man; the necessity that the elite uphold the truth and act in service to life.
Rating:
Summary: an absolutely wonderful story
Review: i'm almost speechless. this book was so warm and fresh and peaceful and subtle that, after reading it every night, i'd just sit there half spell bound for about a half hour. hesse had a wonderful vision of 'natural theology' and the absolute beauty of learning and knowing, and this book is a prime example of that vision. i recommend this book with my whole heart, enjoy.
Rating:
Summary: Challenging, but beautifully visionary
Review: First: From a prose point of view, I found the first 50 to 100 pages of this translation to be very difficult going. More astute readers would probably pick up on the subtle humor (Ziolkowski mentions it in his introduction) but I found it dry and tough going. I mention this because I've run into a number of people who say, "I really wanted to like it, but I couldn't even make it past the first 50 pages!" If you find this to be the case, just grin and bear it: Know that after the first 100 pages the book picks up considerably in pace. I won't comment on the book's philosophical corollaries or references, since others better versed in such things have already done so, better than I could. Rather, one of the aspects of the book that I found particularly compelling is the Game itself and the ideas behind it. The Glass Bead Game, as Hesse describes it, is a meditation, seemingly both competitive and collaborative, on different fields of knowledge, where the point is to take concepts from otherwise disparate disciplines and associate them in creative, profound ways -- finding a pattern shared rhythmically by a piece of Baroque music and spatially by ancient Chinese architecture, say. An observation I've made over time is that of all the people I know, those that I would say are possessed by genius all share a common trait, the ability, to use the cliche, to "Think Outside the Box." To realize new, previously unseen associations between things is a quality of a great mind, and here Hesse acknowledges the value of this talent, elevating it even to an artform (though I suppose the Castalian players in the novel would firmly call it "post-art".) The analogy I make is to 2D math: Consider a point in space, represented in either Cartesian or polar coordinates. Each representation is as valid as the other, but each representation, makes different analyses easier and others harder. Another good analogy is the Windows 98/2000/XP explorer window: the window displays a list of files, with a number of columns of various information. You can click a column header to sort the list by that information. A given sort makes certain things easier, and others harder. If I sort by file size, I can easily find the largest file. If I sort by name, I can easily find a file beginning with the letter 'C'. The idea of the Game is, essentially, to find different "sort columns" -- to find different ways to slice knowledge to compare it and examine it and learn from it. The fascination of *Glass Bead Game* was that, for me, it began to formalize the idea of meta-knowledge -- that is, how we think about what we know. There's probably tons of psychology literature about this phenomenon, learning theory, or whatnot, but Hesse manages to incorporate it not into a dissertation on the Game, but on a decidedly artistic book that revolves around the Game. What talent, to so eloquently present such a profound idea as merely one aspect of a larger work of art! It took me about a month to read this entire book, consistently reading twenty or thirty pages a night. When I finished, I found that some nights I'd get so caught up thinking about the book and its implications and possibilities that I'd be unable to fall asleep. Rarely do I have the opportunity to read something so compelling!
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