Demian

Rating:
Summary: Giving Hesse a second chance paid off
Review: A few years back my father recommended that I read "Magister Ludi: The Glass Bead Game" by Herman Hesse. While I did finish it, I must admit I gained little and was lost most of the time while reading as it seemed (at the time) painfully slow-moving. The other day, I decided to pick up "Demian," a book that has been sitting on my shelf for a couple of years now. It was very good and in many ways put me in mind of Dicken's "David Copperfield" and J.D. Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye."
The book is very smartly written and philosophical, yet easy to read. It gives the reader a lot of incite into the psyche of an adolescent boy suffering with pangs of love and a deep yearning to find his true self. He is caught between two worlds, one of darkness and one of light, and it is his uncanny friend, Max Demian, that first shows him the pathway to self.
This is a quick read, yet very multi-layered and it even contains a touch of the homoeroticism that Anne Rice has been famous for in the past. This book is replete with symbolism, some clear, some not so clear. It is also a build up to inevitable doom, not just for the character, but the world.In a few words, it is cryptic and enlightening at the same time. I will definitely read Hesse again in the future.

Rating:
Summary: BEST BOOK EVER
Review: This is a great book. It is so deep, and filled with multiple meanings that to get the most out of it, you should probably read it ten times. (I am on my fourth read.) Just read it. And see for yourself. It will change your thinking patterns and way of life.

Rating:
Summary: Do You Bear the Mark of Cain?
Review: This is my all-time favourite book, and the first book I ever read by Hesse. I found it in a box of my parents' old books when I was fourteen, thought it looked interesting, and was instantly drawn in. Two of my favourite Hesse quotes also come from this book--Pistorius's comment "If you hate a person, you hate something in him [or her] that is a part of yourself. What is part of ourselves doesn't disturb us" and Max Demian's comment about the Biblical Cain, "People with courage and character always seem sinister to the rest."

This is the story of two young men coming of age in pre-WWI Germany. Emil Sinclair (which was the pseudonym under which Hesse originally published this book), age ten, has been having a lot of trouble with local bully Franz Kromer. He, Kromer, and two other boys were hanging out together and Sinclair said something he shouldn't have, just to try to impress the others. It turns out that what Sinclair thought was a lie actually happened, and because he swore repeatedly, even through the grace of God and all that was holy, that he and a friend had stolen some apples from a nearby orchard, he now is beholden to Kromer to not inform on him to the miller whose apples were stolen. The miller's reward was two marks, money which Sinclair can't come up with, so he is forced to become Kromer's slave more or less until Demian comes to the rescue. Demian and Sinclair have a very deep discussion, and then Demian finds Kromer and has a similar talk with him. It must have worked, for Kromer never bothers Sinclair again.

Demian is a very mysterious boy, about two years older than Sinclair, and along with his widowed mother the subject of much local gossip. They don't go to church, for starts, which makes people wonder what religion they are; people also speculate they may be lovers. But Sinclair isn't frightened of him and his mystical powers, and the two become close friends. Demian opens his mind to new ways of looking at religion, even after Sinclair has gone away to prep school. Why, for example, isn't the duality of the Divine taught in their church school? Why should one only celebrate the positive and socially acceptable things one associates with God instead of the negative things associated with the Devil, like wine and sex? Demian says that the Greeks had a religion celebrating those things, and that evil as well as good comes from God. This ties in with the information Sinclair later learns from Demian and his friend Pistorius about Abraxas, who is half God and half Devil.

Sinclair has a rough time at prep school, but all works out in the end, and when he goes to a university, he finds his old friend Demian in town. Demian takes Sinclair to meet his mother Eva, and finally Sinclair understands what Demian told him during their first meeting, about bearing the mark of Cain. Demian, Sinclair, Frau Eva, and everyone in their circle of friends bear it. As Demian said in the beginning, perhaps it's not the cut and dried story of good and evil we're taught it is; perhaps Abel was an overly pious wimp and conformist who never questioned anything, and Cain (not to excuse him for murdering his brother) had the guts to stand up for his beliefs, the one who dared to go against the accepted grain. People stayed away from him and his descendants not because they all had a divine mark on them, but because the mark represented independent thinking, a free spirit, nonconformity, character, courage, something who's different from the crowd, someone special. People fear what they don't know or understand, and even for the bearer it sometimes takes a struggle to come to terms with having it. Demian and his mother knew Sinclair had it, but Sinclair himself had to go through everything he did in prep school to finally accept himself for who he was, someone who is not like everyone else.

Rating:
Summary: For those still growing up....
Review: Demian is a story for those who are awakening to the glory and horror or what the world can be. Like many Hesse novels, the focus is on the struggle between the spirit and the emotions. If you feel like you can relate to this struggle, I would recommend Demian for you.

Rating:
Summary: Great book, but misunderstood.
Review: Let me begin by saying that this is one of my favorite novels. Although I agree with the other reviewers about the novel's qualities, I tink most readers came out with the wrong idea.

Most reviewers have categorized this book as a coming-of-age story. That's what it seems like on the surface. I think the book is much more subtle. You will understand this when you realize that Demian is the devil, and the main character ends up in hell.

If you do not believe me, read the last couple of pages carefully. Everything from the Judas-like kiss to the subtle description about the dying man. If you think this is outlandish, take the time and read articles on this book in scholarly journals.

...and once you understand the real meaning of the book, consider if you really are on the right path yourself.

Rating:
Summary: After Forty Years
Review: This story considers the evolving, somewhat troubled psyche of a German youth, Sinclair, as he matures during the decade prior to WWI. The analysis of Sinclair's turmoil purportedly reflects the European or German moral malaise at the time.

As a prepubescent boy, Sinclair recognizes the realm of good and light, symbolized by his God fearing parents and innocent younger sisters, as separate from the realm of evil and dark, symbolized by Franz Kromer, an older, opportunist who extorts Sinclair into fibbing and petty thievery. Another older boy, Demian, rescues Sinclair from Kromer's clutches, and then sows a new perception of the light and dark realms with an inverted interpretation of the parable of Cain and Abel. Demian perceives the mark on Cain's forehead not as a curse, but as a badge of courage, character and power.

Tainted by his experience with Kromer, Sinclair cannot entirely reject Demian's heroic characterization of Cain, and Demian nurtures this upset of clarity, muddling Sinclair's once clear distinction between the realms of good and evil. Demian then plants the alternative perception that the individual must delve into the self to discover his peculiar fate and destiny, a unique purpose apart from the mundane consensus, the mores of the hoard. Hesse then projects Sinclair's turmoil into a characterization of, or perhaps a reflection of, the mass psyche of prewar Europe.

I first read "Demian" forty years ago, shortly after years of total immersion in university studies. Then younger and perhaps arrogant with intelligence, I felt armed and charged for the uncertain challenges ahead.

For some reason I saved "Demian," packed it away along with my complete set of Ayn Rand's novels, trig tables and "100 Master Games of Modern Chess." "Demian" moved with me around the States, to Asia, and then to Latin America, getting old, wrinkled and as shelf-worn as I. Whenever I packed or unpacked my stuff "Demian" was there, although Ayn Rand and my trig tables had wandered away.

I forgot, long ago, why I saved "Demian," why I did not shuck it off along with my other old skins. I remember only that I intended to read it again. Now older and perhaps humbled by ignorance, I finally did, but I didn't discover precisely why I kept "Demian." The half-dozen marginal marks I made forty years ago do not score insightful premonitions of my life as I remember it. Still, I cannot argue with Hesse's pretended muddle of good and evil, or with the notion of Cain in light rather than dark. Looking back, whatever I saw in "Demian" forty years ago is not too far from how it played out.

Rating:
Summary: life changing!!!
Review: I read this when I was 14 years old (which was quite some time ago) and it changed my life. I continue to re-read this book every few years as it reminds me how to put my life back into focus. Those who have read this book know what I am talking about.
Hesse's spritual concepts are a path for all of us to reflect upon and follow.