Well, I'm back after a ridicluous hiatus, and by request here are thoughts on Beneath the Wheel. Spoilers abound.
The book is wellwritten, but it's clear that Hesse is a beginning writer. The characterizations often "tell" more than they "show," and the author is prone to interjecting first-person comments into the narrative seemingly at random. (And no, not in a "Just So Stories" type of way, in a non intentional-narrative-device type of way. So shush.) But the characterizations are Truthful, if perhaps not fully fleshed out in the case of the supporting cast. Still, Hesse's descriptions sparkle and he captures life and nature in all their beauty and ugliness, displaying the skill which I know is most clear in Siddhartha.
But what the fuck does that ending mean?
To sum up: our hero has an amazing bit of promise and potential, and goes to a university. There he excells, only to fall in with a friend who teaches him that schoolwork is not that way to gain meaning in life. As a result, our hero does poorly and eventually leaves the school (ah, the reader thinks, he'll find meaning in an unconventional way, just as Siddhartha did). Our hero goes home and convalesces after an illness, seeing the beauty of nature. He meet a girl, and becomes shyly infatuated with her (ah, the reader thinks, here Hesse is making the point that when least expected, something can change and meaning can come to life through love of others). Then the girl leaves without saying goodbye, but our hero is too busy contemplating suicide to care (ah, the reader thinks, I'm utterly lost as to where our hero will find meaning, but I have faith in Hesse to show it eventually). Ultimately, our hero finds work as an apprentice doing menial labor (ah, the reader thinks, Hesse wishes to point out that meaning is found through more primal paths like manual labor, not through intellectual pursuits).
Then our hero gets drunk one night, falls into a river and drowns. His death affects no one including his father.
Excuse me?
So one can be intelligent, seek one's own path in life, choose to not conform for conformity's sake, and still be miserable, fail, and die a meaningless death? A death that leaves even one's own father unaffected, uncaring?
If I ever want reason to kill myself, here it is.
This is not how I want life to be, and this is not how I know life should be. And perhaps that is Hesse's point, to an extent - as I said earlier, he captures both the beauty and ugliness of nature in his descriptions, and so I suppose his goal could be to depict an extension of that.
But what a way to show it...
The book is wellwritten, but it's clear that Hesse is a beginning writer. The characterizations often "tell" more than they "show," and the author is prone to interjecting first-person comments into the narrative seemingly at random. (And no, not in a "Just So Stories" type of way, in a non intentional-narrative-device type of way. So shush.) But the characterizations are Truthful, if perhaps not fully fleshed out in the case of the supporting cast. Still, Hesse's descriptions sparkle and he captures life and nature in all their beauty and ugliness, displaying the skill which I know is most clear in Siddhartha.
But what the fuck does that ending mean?
To sum up: our hero has an amazing bit of promise and potential, and goes to a university. There he excells, only to fall in with a friend who teaches him that schoolwork is not that way to gain meaning in life. As a result, our hero does poorly and eventually leaves the school (ah, the reader thinks, he'll find meaning in an unconventional way, just as Siddhartha did). Our hero goes home and convalesces after an illness, seeing the beauty of nature. He meet a girl, and becomes shyly infatuated with her (ah, the reader thinks, here Hesse is making the point that when least expected, something can change and meaning can come to life through love of others). Then the girl leaves without saying goodbye, but our hero is too busy contemplating suicide to care (ah, the reader thinks, I'm utterly lost as to where our hero will find meaning, but I have faith in Hesse to show it eventually). Ultimately, our hero finds work as an apprentice doing menial labor (ah, the reader thinks, Hesse wishes to point out that meaning is found through more primal paths like manual labor, not through intellectual pursuits).
Then our hero gets drunk one night, falls into a river and drowns. His death affects no one including his father.
Excuse me?
So one can be intelligent, seek one's own path in life, choose to not conform for conformity's sake, and still be miserable, fail, and die a meaningless death? A death that leaves even one's own father unaffected, uncaring?
If I ever want reason to kill myself, here it is.
This is not how I want life to be, and this is not how I know life should be. And perhaps that is Hesse's point, to an extent - as I said earlier, he captures both the beauty and ugliness of nature in his descriptions, and so I suppose his goal could be to depict an extension of that.
But what a way to show it...
posted by Odorless Boatman at 12:22 AM
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