HERMAN HESSE

Is anybody on ATS know this great german author many major XX-th century book, nobel prize of litterature in 1947.

Did you know that the sixties horror movie serie called DAMIEN : OMEN I, II, III was inspired of one af his book, called DEMIAN, A story of a german youth (Story of emile sinclair youth).

Or that his book "the steppes wolf" is know as the first psychedelic book wrote in 1926 !

And have you read SIDDARTHA, the story of the buddha GOTAMA ?

If you like good reading and great authors, check him out, you will love it !

Yes, I have read all of Herman Hesse's books. They truley are a work of art. Siddartha as well is a life changing book.

I'd just like to offer a little correction though. Siddartha, even though the names, and stories are the same, Siddartha is not about The Buddha Gotama, allthough very similar.

I can't recall a bad book by Hesse: and very much in vogue in the psychedelic period of the entire collapse of Western culture e.g. Santana's second album "Abraxas" taken from Hesse. ( in fact, he was relatively obscure before that era)
I'd very much recommend, as a commentary on Western culture, "Das Glasperlenspiel": "The Glass Bead Game" -but also Englished, I recall, as "Magister Ludi" (Master of the Game): quite excellent.
Limited in range, perhaps, and certainly not Thomas Mann, but an excellent writer for our times.

And he meet GOTAMA on his path.

Das Glasperlenspiel is the last HESSE book I read, and I understood it finally as the achievement of hesse favourite themes (Initiation path, Revolt about conventionnal order...etc) with a bit of ironic humour.

The concept of the Glasses bead game (A form of art wich include mathematic, spiritualism, music...) is a modern concept to me. Because it's about the idea of a universal writing notation...

It actually is funny at times, Nans and it is in many ways Hesse's "Brave New World" - it is worth noting that Hesse singled out the crossword puzzle as a prime example of the utter futility of fin-de-si�cle Western learning, and that he characterised our age as the age of the "feuilleton": a "sound bite" in effect -a little nonsense, eaten -not even digested -and gone..
In "The Glass Bead Game", all knowledge becomes a sort of element in a musical theme, and little more than tokens on a board game: serving no purpose at all beyond furthering itself. The spiritual death of our age behind an illusory facade of "knowledge" that somehow can replace the spiritual is a prime element in Hesse.
Now, there is little doubt that H.H's head wasn't right: to choose to be Swiss; to hobnob with Carl Gustav Jung, and to explore Buddhism, are clear, indisputable signs of this (see Estragon's definitive Manual of Correct-Headedness somewhere in the achives); but it is refreshing to see an author engage the West's intellectual smugness with some suggestion of an alternative and some aim beyond the laugh that so often characterises the would-be "satirist".

The vaudoise riviera, a very quiet place, a little "posh paradise", A place very similar to "castalie". A place outside troubles of the world and century.

But a big mystery to me about hesse book is : How movie maker arrived to adapt "DEMIAN, Story of the Emile sinclair youth" to the sequel horror movie ;DAMIAN : OMEN-666 I, II, III...

Indeed, Nans, I believe Castalia is based upon that place and reflects Hesse's own choice to escape the Kaiser's Germany and live in Switzerland -away from all the madness with the cleanliness and the cuckoo-clocks (Nitzsche did much the same).
This Demian/Damian/Omen thing is sheer nonsense.

the rivieria vaudoise (VEVEY, MONTREUX) was a "refuge" for many writers while WWII (Romain Rolland, Paul ELUARD, Herman HESSE, Thyde Monnier, and Antoine SAINT-EXUPERY and many other passed there). Even Charlie CHAPLIN lived and died in Vevey.

About DEMIAN, the movie claim to be inspired from the HH book. But I think you are right, it's a nonsense, there are no relation between the hesse book and the B-movies serie.

The name demian comes from the greek DAIMON (demon). A strange coincidence, or a far ethymological link, is that in japanese the word DAEMON means also demon.

He's an interesting guy alright....

And have you read SIDDARTHA, the story of the buddha GOTAMA ?

Actually, it was required reading for my Humanities class when I was in college....still have it on my bookshelf, hehe....