I believe that this site offers a valuable opportunity to have an informative discussion on Hesse's works.

Any thoughts on this work?

(Please don't be afraid to speak up!)

*Copyrights be damned*

From Steppenwolf --(*Preface* page:15)

[...Although I know very little of the Steppenwolf's life, nevertheless, I have good reason to suppose that he was brought up by devoted but severe and very pious parents and teachers in accordance with that doctrine that makes the breaking of the will the corner-stone of education and up-bringing. But in this case the attempt to destroy the personality and to break the will did not succeed. He was much too strong and hardy, too proud and spirited. Instead of destroying his personality they succeeded only in teaching him to hate himself. It was against himself that, innocent and noble as he was, he directed during his entire life the whole wealth of his fancy, the whole of his thought; and in so far as he let loose upon himself every barbed criticism, every anger and hate he could command, he was, in spite of all, a real Christian and a real martyr. As for others and the world around him he never ceased in his heroic and earnest endeavor to love them, to be just to them, to do them no harm, for the love of his neighbor was as strongly forced upon him as the hatred of himself, and so his whole life was an example that love of one's neighbor is not possible without love of oneself, and that self-hate is really the same thing as sheer egoism, and in the long run breeds the same cruel isolation and despair...]

Hi, Duke. Have ever tried to analyse Steppenwolf in psichoanalitic point of view?

While most readers, especially those with some life experience in our turbulent centuries, can sympathize with Harry Haller as he struggled with the bouts of depression in the early parts of the book, it is of course most interesting and productive to concentrate on his efforts to shake his negative outlook on life. Step one was to learn to stop feeling sorry for himself and rediscover hope and regain the motivation and come to grips with the perceived problems in the world around him and within himself. He needed to do a scrupulous inventory of his life, facing up to his past and to his mistakes, relive all the moments that had caused him pain and discomfort and that - being highly unpleasant - had been buried within himself. Some of these negative feelings were also projected onto others giving cause to feelings of hatred for others and his society. Harry Haller lived through this in the "Magic Theater" where he opened one figurative "door" after the other to the many compartments of his life and mind. Although mystifying to the reader (or viewer of the film), the experience in the "theater" required considerable courage and stamina of Haller, but it brought him a reward far better than the miserable death he had originally chosen for himself. He came to accept most of the horrifying impulses from within (the "wolf") but render them harmless by analyzing them with a clear mind and balancing them out with all the goodness that was within him. It is after all that which we do not know and understand that scares us the most. Harry Haller learned to be brave and face himself and the world and above all not to take himself too seriously because such conflicts as he experienced do exist in all living beings, as a matter of fact are the gist of life and keep it moving along.