Steppenwolf, by Herrman Hesse: ***1/2

Unlike Camus' The Stranger, which I read just previous to Steppenwolf, this book lives up to its 'classic' billing. Our lead, Harry Haller, is the Steppenwolf - a troubled, but fascinating man. The book examines, in bizarre and stunning fashion, what it means to be alive, and from what we derive happiness. In this way, I can find relation to Auster's Leviathan, but this is much more striking and fantastical, as it freely crosses the boundaries of believability into something amazingly intriguing. Equally amazing is Hesse's prose, which shimmers on every page. This book includes a great scene at a party that reminded me of the amazing chapter from Wallace's Infinite Jest (possibly my favorite chapter of any book I've ever read), as it builds the energy to a tremendous, fevered pitch while virtually nothing of note takes place. This book includes both brilliant storytelling and brilliant ideas.

I loved the form of the book, in that it progresses in unexpected and exciting directions at every turn, without following some fixed and obvious pattern. Things never "make sense", and yet we are constantly getting more knowledge; it becomes clearer as it becomes cloudier. The experience is the journey. I also love reading books that ask such interesting questions and make me think. Steppenwolf doesn't provide all the answers (I wouldn't want it to), and I know there are concepts and ideas that I didn't completely grasp. But it made me think, and I enjoyed that effort.

Quotes:
pg. 11 - "Self hate is really the same thing as sheer egoism and in the long run breeds the same cruel isolation and despair."

pg. 97 - "Seriousness... is an accident of time. It consists... in putting too high a value on time. For that reason I wished to be a hundred years old. In eternity, however, there is no time.... Eternity is a mere moment, just long enough for a joke." [from a dream]

pg. 188 - "It is not a good thing when man overstrains his reason and tries to reduce to rational order matters that are not susceptible of rational treatment. Then there are ideals such as those of the Americans or of the Bolsheviks. Both are extraordinarily rational, and both lead to a frightful oppression and impoverishment of life, because they simplify it so crudely."

pg. 192 - "The mistaken and unhappy notion that a man is an enduring unity is known to you. It is also known to you that man consists of a multitude of souls, of numerous selves. The separation of the unity of the personality into these numerous pieces passes for madness. Science has invented the name schizomania for it. Science is in this so far right as no multiplicity may be dealt with unless there be a series, a certain order and grouping. It is wrong insofar as it holds that one only and binding and lifelong order is possible for the multiplicity of subordinate selves. This error of science has many unpleasant consequences, and the single advantage of simplifying the work of the state-appointed pastors and masters and saving them the labors of original thought. In consequence of this error many persons pass for normal, and indeed for highly valuable members of society, who are incurably mad; and many, on the other hand, are looked upon as mad who are geniuses. Hence it is that we supplement the imperfect psychology of science by the conception that we call the art of building up the soul. We demonstrate to anyone whose soul has fallen to pieces that he can rearrange these pieces of a previous self in what order he pleases, and so attain to an endless multiplicity of moves in the game of life. As the playwright shapes a drama from a handful of characters, so do we from the pieces of the disintegrated self build up ever new groups, with ever new interplay and suspense, and new situations that are eternally inexhaustible."

pg. 216 - "When's it's a question of anything stupid and pathetic and devoid of humor or wit, you're the man, you tragedian. .... You wanted to be executed and to have your head chopped off, you lunatic! For this imbecile ideal you would suffer death ten times over. You are willing to die, you coward, but not to live."
(winter 2001)

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