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Summary: Hesse Capitivates
Review: The Glass Bead Game is another excellent novel by Hesse. I have read and very much enjoyed both Siddhartha and Demian years ago, and found The Glass Bead Game to be a equally enjoyable, though clearly more sophisticated book. Told from the perspective of an anonymous biography, the story revolves around a rather likable character named Joseph Knecht and his ascent throughout the rather esoteric hierarchy of the Order.The tale is presented in a rather fragmented style, highlighting various part's of Joseph's life and the relationships he develops with various figures throughout. Although the book begins slowly, I found it does gradually pick up, and becomes completely engrossing in the later chapters. Like Hesse's other works, The Glass Bead Game offers plenty of insight into society, culture and the human spirit. If you enjoyed Demian or Siddhartha, with a bit of effort, you should enjoy the Glass Bead Game.
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Summary: I didn't and I don't get it
Review: This book was in my college days treated by some as if it held the secret of the universe in it. It was spoken about with a kind of hushed reverence, and ohwow awe. My reading of it was not I am afraid very successful and I found it impossible to really understand either what was going on, or why I should care. Rumination is literature perhaps, but usually when given in shorter doses. In any case I realize that what I am saying is probably going to defend diehard Hesse fans who know the secrets of the beadgame even though as I understand it it is not fully described in the book. I also was taken aback a bit by the kind of monastic intellectual and spiritual discipline which it seems Hesse is recommending as summum bonum. Isn't there life outside the kind of elite discipline that seems to be recommended here.
I have I must admit always been fascinated by the idea of an intellectual synthesis , a kind of ' theory of everything' or a ' unified field theory of all human disciplines' In some sense this is what is hinted at here. But I did not get how it works.
So my review is more about my own failure to understand what to some is a major classic of world literature. I may be wrong but I simply did not like this book very much and did not get it at all.
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Summary: Born, Learn, Educate, Love, Detach
Review: An amazing novel encapsulating much of eastern philosophy and thought as it tries to reconcile it with western hubris, expectation, and dissatisfaction. I highly recommend "The Glass Bead Game" because it delves into the theory behind educating, vanquishing ignorance, and the inherent suffering involved with being alive, and how we might overcome that suffering through love.
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Summary: Another masterpiece from Hermann Hesse
Review: Hermann Hesse was a great writer, and many of his works, such as "Siddhartha," "Steppenwolf," and "Narcissus and Goldmund" are masterpieces. But no book of Hesse's is as important to me personally, and to mankind in general, as "The Glass Bead Game." "The Glass Bead Game" is a criticism of both the intellectuals of Hesse's era and the institutions of the world in general. The book is especially important to us in 2004, as intellectuals face a life in which they are more and more separated from the daily realities of the world. I will not go into a lot of detail, as many other reviewers have voiced my opinions. Simply put, "The Glass Bead Game" is a challenging yet rewarding novel that all young college students and other intellectuals should read before departing on their life's path.
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Summary: The ideal teacher in a decayed system
Review: I had trouble getting into this book. It does move slowly at first, and I was disappointed, (I love "Demian" and "Steppenwolf" so much.) If you stick with it, though, and read all the way to the last page, you will be rewarded. This is one of the finest works of satirical fiction that I have read. Seriously.
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Summary: Serenely Beautiful
Review: This book is unlike any other; the slow, songlike development and lucid style, which lend the book its awesome beauty, are quite unparalleled.
It is not a 'good read', nor is it a book to read when you are still at school, as 'Siddartha' might be. Neither do you need to agree with, appreciate or even necessarily understand Hesse's philosophy. While his earlier novels are full of force, angst, and dramatic desire, this is as simply serene, peaceful, and beautiful as its main character. It must not be missed.
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Summary: The Glass Bead Game
Review: The Glass Bead Game is the pinnacle of intelligence, wisdom and learning that the 23rd century Castalia has to offer. Students are plucked from their families and lives at a young age to become 'elite' pupils, gradually inducted into the Order and the Game to carry on the traditions and ceremonies of Castalia. The Order's purpose is two-fold: One, to protect the sanctity and accuracy of knowledge from the current time down to antiquity, and two, to showcase the talents and minds of the elite with dazzling, lengthy Glass Bead Games. But there is a problem, and only Joseph Knecht, the Magister Ludi - Master of the Game and hero of the story - can see it. The Glass Bead Game, while being the pinnacle of intellectual achievement, has no creativity side, no ability to move beyond what it currently is. Philosophy, music, art, mathematics, sciences: All these are condensed into symbols representing, say, a piece by Bach or a mathematical equation. However, no new symbols are allowed, or if they are, the process is so mired in bureaucracy that it may as well be impossible. We follow Joseph from childhood to Magister Ludi, and we learn through him what Castalia is and is capable of. A supreme intellect, his life culminates not in the appointment of Magister Ludi - as so many other great player's would consider it to be - but rather with his famous 'circular letter', addressed to the other members of the Board, highlighting his concerns with the Glass Bead Game. The plot of the book is minimal, and we are all but told it at the very beginning. Rather, we are invited to take a look at this could be-world of Hesse's. Castalia, however, is not the entirety of the world, as much as the inhabitants would like to think. No, they are 'merely' an enclosed, fully-supported (but not self-supported) university like establishment, churning out works that may or may not have any real use outside of their walls. At first, the book mercilessly attacks our time, with its commercialism, its way of turning men intelligent in one field into minor celebrities in another, its way of asking movie stars or musicians to comment on the state of the world even though there talents lie elsewhere, its way of putting wealth above all. It seems at times as though Hesse was caricaturing his own time, but the frightening thing is, in 2004, we have become this caricature. After this attack, the beauty of Castalia is revealed, as explained above. But then, as Joseph Knecht learns and discovers and becomes Magister Ludi, we learn that Castalia is not so important, not so wonderful, not so essential as first presented. It is difficult for him to accept this, but easier for us. In the end, no solution is given. Hesse emphatically states that our present time is too shallow to be the answer, but so is the staid environment of Castalia. It is worth noticing that no character beyond Knecht has a personality; even his is poor. Females do not play a part, and there is no conflict. Is Hesse saying that a world without creativity becomes a lifeless, boring world capable of beauty but incapable of appreciation of this beauty?
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Summary: Anti-Utopia!
Review: The world of this book is boring for a reason, folks, and so are most of the characters (especially the flimsy hero J Knecht). The Glass Bead Game is a satire; while it's much gentler and more subtle than 1984 or Brave New World, the thrust is the same. The reader is left *not* wanting to embody the values Hesse identifies with Castalia. These values have a goofy relationship to bodies anyway. There are literally no women in there at all. European scholars play at being Chinese. And everybody follows the rules at all costs. Spiritual and intellectual life are all tools to keep the order... and a boring order it is. The Game they play doesn't seem to involve much play; the players participate in a way, but the Master is responsible for establishing the structure of everything with a golden stylus. Ho-hum. Not even pretending to be Chinese or Indian or prehistoric is interesting to these people, but the orientalism of their gestures is interesting to us (see Edward Said's book Orientalism if you're unsure of what I mean). As an aside: Nietzsche would hate Castalia. Notice how Knecht dies once he enters the mountains and takes a plunge? He's no Zarathustra. If you're approaching this book in an attempt to Gain Wisdom, take it as a cautionary tale rather than a model to emulate. Some of the play you may be seeking could be snatched from the experience of reading, say, Tarthang Tulku's Time, Space, Knowledge series of books, or the writings of E.J. Gold.
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