I
tried to read Herman Hesse's Steppenwolf once before. I didn't get too
far, only to page 69, before I gave up, flummoxed at the total lack of
sense I could derive from it. That was a few years ago, and last month I
went back to it, determined to make it through and finish this time. I
did, but I'm not sure if I understood it any more than I did the first
time. The big difference was that this time, rather than casting it
aside and moving onto something else, I loved it.
The
story is mostly an insane mess, stuffed full of ideas, and even reading
it now it seems as if it would be ahead of its time if it was published
today, so god knows what people thought when it came out in 1927. It's a
wild mix of philosophy, post-war guilt, mental disintegration, and
bourgeois-baiting brilliance. But other than those buzz words, it's
only now that I'm coming to write about it that I realise Steppenwolf
has again tricked me into remembering or understanding barely anything
about it. I can't even put my finger on what I liked about it other than
the imagination. It's the kind of book that you could give a hundred
different people to read, and when they finish they'd think it was about
a hundred different things. Or like a poem, one you have to read dozens
of times to uncover what single lines are trying to say. Hesse always
said that it was misinterpreted but never took the time to fully explain
what it was about, so it seems the book's secrets may be locked away
forever. I don't get it, but I like it.
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