Steppenwolf: A Novel by Hermann Hesse Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Steppenwolf: A Novel
Book Review: I can't think of a good title or a suitable rating of stars.
Summary: 3 Stars
I just wanted to wite down a few thoughts on Hesse's book.
I feel like I have taken a few trips through "hell" in my life and this book was good for me to read because it made me realize that travelling down that road is pretty silly. That said, those of you who aren't interested in reading about one man's hellish journey might want to steer clear of this book. For those of you in hell or purgatory or some sort of place like that, I suggest doing your own psychological healing instead of reading about Hesse's. Heck, you can write a story about it and maybe it will get 93 reviews on Amazon. This book does contain some amazing vocabulary, and descriptive passages, but I must admit that my favorite part of the book was coming to the end of it and putting it aside. Thanks for reading. Buen Viajes.
Book Review: Internal Angst Toward External Society
Summary: 5 Stars
Mostly gaining interest in this book because of my support of the band of the same name, this was my introduction to Hermann Hesse. The book is a fascinating and very dour and glum portrayal of one man's exploration for truth and happiness in a society filled with the inequalities and isolation of modern life. Upon making friends with his opposite gender confidant, Harry opens up to the beauty present in celebrating art, culture, group socialization, and having a more relaxed demeanor and outlook on life. At the end of the novel a rich tapestry of human conflict and evolution is presented that continues to reach a wide perenial appeal for the life discovering young adult.Book Review: Journey of a Literary Loner
Summary: 5 Stars
I can't believe I haven't read Steppenwolf before this point in my life. This is a great novel that is sure to linger in the mind of the intelligent reader longer after the last word is read. Harry Haller is my kind of guy. He abandons his past life to shack up at a bed and breakfast. There he is surrounded by countless books and spends his days thinking, reading, and writing. At night he goes out for wine and solitary brooding. If I could quit my job and do the exact same thing, I wouldn't hesitate. Harry is a complicated guy who must keep the wolf inside at bay. Hermann Hesse does a wonderful job in the way he inserts beautiful poetry in with his prose. The best part of Steppenwolf for me, and I won't reveal any of it in this review, is from page 160 onwards. I can't remember the last time I got so caught up in an ending and could do nothing else but keeping reading until I was finished. Unlike most novels out there, this story had a good conclusion that didn't cheat the reader.
Steppenwolf is definitely a psychological novel that requires more than one reading to get at all the rich details going on. There is so much in this novel, despite the fact it is only 218 pages. Hesse manages to pack into it much of his thoughts concerning two of Life's biggest subjects, love and death. I can't think of another novel that blends love and death so successfully.
This is a great novel to sit and read. Steppenwolf doesn't take long to finish but it does sit in the mind long afterwards.
Book Review: Like bad modern art in novel form
Summary: 1 Stars
Others have summarized this "novel" sufficiently so I will just go ahead and throw in my two cents as to why I genuinely abhor this book. Steppenwolf is an outdated, uninspiring, and incoherent rambling. The main character, a pompous, misanthropic intellectual wallows in self pity and does nothing, does absolutely nothing for the length of the novel. His character is supposedly "redeemed" by a young, equally self-pitying courtesan who allows Harry to enjoy non-intellectual pursuits seemingly for the first time. Okay I guess that's fine: up until that point, the novel seems like "She's All That" or "10 Things I Hate about You" written for self-important, humorless nerds. But as soon as Harry arrives at the Magic Theater, the novel becomes this drug-induced, incoherent sequence of events whose inanity becomes more and more infuriating. At this point simply reading the novel felt unpleasant.
People claim to enjoy this novel because of its philosophy; however, the ideas discussed in the novel (complexity of the self, the individual against society) seem so trite, so banal that I'm flabbergasted that people could still read this and find it relevant. I'm guessing these are the same people who feel "Catcher in the Rye" had an important message. To you, all I can say is Harry Haller is a phony.
Book Review: Lyrical, unflinching, and soul-wrenchingly life affirming
Summary: 5 Stars
First, it's simply quite beyond my understanding why this is so often considered a "minor" masterpiece or something below the top tier literary works. It's really not; Hesse's use of language is easily on a par with Proust, Joyce, and Faulkner and the content as well shares much with the best of literature of all ages.
I first read this (perhaps precociously) when I was in 6th grade. While I greatly enjoyed it then and even mostly understood its complexity, reading it again nearly forty years later was a very pleasantly powerful revalation. In many ways a fairy tale, a fable, and a parable, Hesse's heroic novel was a bit of a counterculture sensation back in the late 1960s and early 70s; much deservedly so with its existential angst and psychotropic psychological psychedelia. Still today the novel is an amazing read; as much a Bildungsroman for the new millennium as it ever was for the solipsistic previous mid-century. A great prerequisite, if you will, to Thomas Mann and Proust.