One of the significant literary works that influenced society was the novel by Hermann Hesse "Demian". In it, the writer touched actual problems search for oneself, the struggle between the light and dark beginnings in a person. There is also a lot of religion, philosophy, psychology. The book has a small volume, but it will be difficult to read it quickly, because every thought of the author will make you think about something. When reading fast, there is a risk of missing a lot of deep thoughts.
Two of the most bright characters books - main character Sinclair and his friend Demian. And although the focus here is on Sinclair's experiences, his friend has a great influence on him, his personality plays important role in the narrative, it is not for nothing that the novel is named after him. The book describes the growing up of Sinclair, who from a ten-year-old boy turns into a mature man.
Sinclair is a member of a decent family, parents are religious and teach the boy goodness. His family appears to him as something bright, and everything that is around is dark. IN dark world there is a place for something ugly, cruel, this is the street, criminals, scandals. Sinclair realizes that this world seems more interesting to him, and he cannot find answers to his questions within himself. The boy is ready to deceive in order to find himself in a dark world in order to be accepted into it.
Gradually, Sinclair grows and changes, but still cannot find himself. Society and relatives talk about decency and following certain rules. But what if something else is happening in the soul? Demian, who studies at their school, looks confident, he knows what to do. This guy has some mystical traits. But who is he for Sinclair - the devil or the god? After all, in the end, it is Sinclair who will have to make decisions and find a balance between light and dark.
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Hermann Hesse
A story of youth written by Emil Sinclair
After all, I just wanted to try to live by what was torn out of me by itself.
Why was it so difficult?
To tell my story, I need to start from afar. I should, if it were possible, go back much further back, to the very first years of my childhood, and even further back, to the distance of my origin.
Writers, when they write novels, pretend that they are the Lord God and can fully embrace and understand some human history, can portray it as if the Lord God himself told it to himself, without any fog, only the essential. I can't do that, and writers can't either. But my story is more important to me than to any writer his story; because this is mine own history, which means that the story of a person is not a fictional, possible, ideal, or otherwise non-existent, but a real, one-of-a-kind, living person. What it is, a real living person, is, however, less known today than ever, and people, each of whom is a precious, one-of-a-kind attempt of nature, are being killed today en masse. If we weren't something more than the only people of our kind, if we really could be completely destroyed by a bullet, then there would be no point in telling stories. But each person is not only himself, it is also that one of a kind, completely special, in each case an important and wonderful point where the phenomena of the world intersect so - only once and never again. Therefore, the history of each person is important, eternal, divine, therefore, each person, while he is alive and fulfills the will of nature, is wonderful and worthy of all attention. In each, a spirit has acquired an image, in each a living creature suffers, in each they crucify the Savior.
Few people today know what a person is. Many feel this, and therefore it is easier for them to die, just as it will be easier for me to die when I finish this story.
I dare not call myself knowledgeable. I was a seeker and still remain one, but I no longer seek in the stars and in books, I begin to hear what the blood roaring in me teaches me. My story is devoid of pleasantness, there is no sweet harmony of fictional stories in it, it smacks of nonsense and spiritual confusion, madness and delirium, like the life of everyone who no longer wants to be deceived.
The life of each person is a path to oneself, an attempt at a path, a hint at a path. No man has ever been himself wholly and completely; each, however, strives for it, one is muffled, the other is more distinct, each as best he can. Everyone carries with him to the end the remains of his birth, mucus and eggshell some primordial. The Other never becomes a man, remains a frog, remains a lizard, remains an ant. A different man at the top, and a fish at the bottom. But each is a throw of nature towards man. And everyone has the same origin - mothers, we are all from the same vent; but each, being an attempt, being a throw from the abyss, rushes to his own purpose. We can understand each other; but everyone can explain only himself.
Chapter first
TWO WORLDS
I will begin my story with an incident from the time when I was ten years old and went to the gymnasium of our city.
Much flows over me from there, piercing me with pain and bringing me to a sweet thrill, dark streets, bright houses, and towers, and the chime of the clock, and human faces, and rooms full of comfort and sweet warmth, full of secrets and a deep fear of ghosts. It smells of warm crowding, rabbits and maids, home remedies and dried fruits. Two worlds mingled with each other there, from the two poles came every day and every night.
My father's house was one world, but this world was even narrower, in fact, it embraced only my parents. This world was me for the most part well known, it meant mother and father, it meant love and strictness, exemplary behavior and school. This world was characterized by a slight brilliance, clarity and neatness. There were washed hands, soft friendly speech, clean clothes, good manners. Morning hymns were sung here, Christmas was celebrated here. In this world, there were straight lines and paths that led to the future, there was duty and guilt, bad conscience and confession, forgiveness and good intentions, love and respect, biblical word and wisdom. This world had to be kept in order for life to be clear and pure, beautiful and orderly.
Meanwhile, another world began already in our very house and was completely different, it smelled differently, spoke differently, promised something else, demanded something else. In this second world, there were maids and apprentices, stories involving evil spirits and scandalous rumors, there was a motley array of monstrous, alluring, terrible, mysterious things, such as slaughterhouse and prison, drunken and foul-mouthed women, calving cows, dead horses, tales of robbery, murder and suicide. All these beautiful and terrible, wild and cruel things existed around, on nearest street, in the nearest house, policemen and vagrants were stalking everywhere. Drunk people beat their wives, crowds of girls flowed in the evenings from factories, old women could spoil you, robbers lived in the forest, detectives caught arsonists - everywhere this second, fierce world was fragrant and fragrant, everywhere, but not in our rooms where they were mother and father. And it was very good. It was wonderful that everything else existed, everything loud and bright, gloomy and cruel, from which one could, however, one day hide from one's mother.
And the strangest thing is how both these worlds touched each other, how close they were to each other! For example, our maid Lina, when in the evening, at prayer, she sat in the living room at the door and her ringing voice she sang along with others, putting her washed hands on an ironed apron, then she was completely with her father and mother, with us, with light and correct. And right after that, in the kitchen or in the woodshed, when she told me the tale of the headless man, or when she argued with the neighbors in the little butcher shop, she was completely different, belonged to another world, surrounded by mystery. And so it happened with everything in the world, most often with myself. Of course, I belonged to a bright and correct world, I was the son of my parents, but wherever I directed my eyes and ears, this other was present everywhere, and I also lived in it, although it was often alien and eerie to me, although there a bad conscience and fear usually appeared. Sometimes it was even dearer to me to live in this forbidden world, and returning home to the bright - for all its necessity and beneficence - often felt almost like a return to something less beautiful, more boring and dull. Sometimes I knew: my goal in life is to become like my father and my mother, just as bright and pure, just as confident and decent; but before that long haul, before that, you have to sit out your lessons at school, be a student, pass all sorts of exams, and this path goes all the time past another, dark world, and even through it, and it is quite possible that you will just stay in it and drown. There were so many stories about prodigal sons who did just that, I read them with passion. Return to Father's house and there was always a wonderful deliverance to the path of good, I fully understood that only this was right, good and worthy of desire, and yet that part of the story that flowed among the evil and the erring attracted me much more, and if it could be said and admit it, sometimes I actually felt sorry that prodigal son repented and found. But this was neither said nor thought. It was felt only implicitly, as some premonition, some possibility. When I imagined the devil, I could easily imagine him walking down the street, openly or in disguise, or somewhere at a fair or in a tavern, but not at home.
Review of the book "Demian" - Hermann Hesse, written as part of the competition " Bookshelf#1".
"Demian" is a novel whose plot makes you wonder until its very end.
“The life of every person is a path to oneself, an attempt at a path, a hint at a path. No man has ever been himself wholly and completely; everyone, however, strives for this, one is deaf, the other is more distinct, each as best he can ... ”- an excerpt from the preface of the novel says that it will be about finding oneself, which everyone is interested in.
We find ourselves witnessing the life of the protagonist - Emile Sinclair. Each chapter has a title that defines the events taking place in it. At the beginning of history, we observe how a little boy begins to understand that there is not only his world - bright and safe. At that moment, when he tries to become his own in that other world - dark and full of dangers, he falls into a trap in the face of Franz Kromer.
It would seem that his invented story for Franz is quite harmless, until he begins to blackmail the poor fellow. Emil from stress begins to get sick and tries to solve the problem. And at the moment when, it would seem, the hero is in hopeless situation, he meets him - Demian. Thanks to his acquaintance with Demian, Sinclair miraculously gets rid of the oppression of Franz, which cannot but please him.
Demina is full of mysteries, he fascinates. In class, the teacher was talking about the "seal of Cain," and that's what Demian decided to talk about. He turns Emil's mind around with his view of the story of the "seal of Cain", that it can be interpreted differently. From that moment on, Emil begins to understand that things can be looked at from a different angle, and not the way society dictates.
Then several years pass, where it is described that Emil had almost no contact with Max Demian. The hero did not show much desire in communication, since Demina was full of secrets and mysteries, and he also felt indebted to him because of a long history with Franz. But Emil also believes that they have a connection with Max. It was this connection that served as a thread for their further communication. They got back together in religious classes. Remembering the story of the "seal of Cain", Emil realized that this was not the case, and from that moment on, biblical education became interesting for him. He carefully listened to the words of the priest and thought that criticism was possible in these stories. The formation of the hero as a person begins, the formation of his values and goals.
Moving on, we can see that the hero makes mistakes and learns from them, and Demian becomes an even more mystical figure in his life. Emil begins to have mysterious dreams. He also reaches the age when boys begin to be interested in girls. The hero creates a cult of Beatrice - he mentions that he did not read Dante, but he recognized this name thanks to one reproduction. He tries to draw a portrait of Beatrice, but after many attempts he fails. A portrait is obtained only when he gives free rein to his imagination, but either Max Demian appears in the drawing, or Beatrice, born of his imagination. Emil begins to search for himself again, and in the portrait it seems to him that he is depicted.
Hero meets different people that influence his life, but Demian remains the dominant figure in his life.
In the final chapters, Emil meets Beatrice. She turns out to be Demian's mother, Eva. When he sees her, he says: "I think I've been on the road all my life - and now I've come home." The author surrounds the relationship of these three - Eva, Max and Emil with an aura of mystery. The reader is drawn into the whirlpool of events, as they have a circle of seekers. They reckon themselves among those who are marked with a "seal".
The war breaks the idyll of the life of the heroes. When the hero gets to the front, he receives many wounds. As if delirious, he is being taken to a help center, and he feels that some unknown force is pulling him. Waking up, he sees Demian, who tells him last words and gives a kiss to Eve. In the morning, Emil sees that on a nearby mattress lies stranger, and the image of Demian became his.
Throughout the novel, I thought a lot. Yes, Demian was a special book for me. Together with the hero, I was able to remember what it was like to be a child and try to solve some “adult” problem. Max also became my "special" friend, who appeared, as if by magic, to set him on the right path. He was wise, mature, mysterious - doesn't everyone dream of such a friend who gives signs of attention only to him, distinguishing him from the crowd and making him feel special?
I lived part of Emil's life, I became Emil.
But I could not find the answer to the question that tormented me: is Max Demian a figment of the imagination of Emile Sinclair or real character, which appeared every time the main character found himself at a fork in two roads, which are called two worlds?
After all, I just wanted to try to live by what was torn out of me by itself.
Why was it so difficult?
To tell my story, I need to start from afar. I should, if it were possible, go back much further back, to the very first years of my childhood, and even further back, to the distance of my origin.
Writers, when they write novels, pretend that they are the Lord God and can fully embrace and understand some kind of human story, they can portray it as if the Lord God himself told it to himself, without any fog, only the essential. I can't do that, and writers can't either. But my story is more important to me than to any writer his story; for this is my own story, which means that the story of a man is not a fictional, possible, ideal or otherwise non-existent, but a real, one of a kind, living person. What it is, a real living person, is, however, less known today than ever, and people, each of whom is a precious, one-of-a-kind attempt of nature, are being killed today en masse. If we weren't something more than the only people of our kind, if we really could be completely destroyed by a bullet, then there would be no point in telling stories. But each person is not only himself, it is also that one of a kind, completely special, in each case an important and wonderful point where the phenomena of the world intersect so - only once and never again. Therefore, the history of each person is important, eternal, divine, therefore, each person, while he is alive and fulfills the will of nature, is wonderful and worthy of all attention. In each, a spirit has acquired an image, in each a living creature suffers, in each they crucify the Savior.
Few people today know what a person is. Many feel this, and therefore it is easier for them to die, just as it will be easier for me to die when I finish this story.
I dare not call myself knowledgeable. I was a seeker and still remain one, but I no longer seek in the stars and in books, I begin to hear what the blood roaring in me teaches me. My story is devoid of pleasantness, there is no sweet harmony of fictional stories in it, it smacks of nonsense and spiritual confusion, madness and delirium, like the life of everyone who no longer wants to be deceived.
The life of each person is a path to oneself, an attempt at a path, a hint at a path. No man has ever been himself wholly and completely; each, however, strives for it, one is muffled, the other is more distinct, each as best he can. Everyone carries with him to the end the remains of his birth, the mucus and eggshells of some primitiveness. The Other never becomes a man, remains a frog, remains a lizard, remains an ant. A different man at the top, and a fish at the bottom. But each is a throw of nature towards man. And everyone has the same origin - mothers, we are all from the same vent; but each, being an attempt, being a throw from the abyss, rushes towards its own goal. We can understand each other; but everyone can explain only himself.
Chapter first
I will begin my story with an incident from the time when I was ten years old and went to the gymnasium of our city.
Much comes over me from there, piercing me with pain and bringing me to a sweet thrill, dark streets, bright houses, and towers, and the striking of the clock, and human faces, and rooms full of comfort and sweet warmth, full of mystery and deep fear of ghosts. It smells of warm crowding, rabbits and maids, home remedies and dried fruit. Two worlds mingled with each other there, from the two poles came every day and every night.
My father's house was one world, but this world was even narrower, in fact, it embraced only my parents. This world was for the most part well known to me, it meant mother and father, it meant love and strictness, exemplary behavior and school. This world was characterized by a slight brilliance, clarity and neatness. There were washed hands, soft friendly speech, clean clothes, good manners. Morning hymns were sung here, Christmas was celebrated here. In this world, there were straight lines and paths that led to the future, there was duty and guilt, bad conscience and confession, forgiveness and good intentions, love and respect, biblical word and wisdom. This world had to be kept in order for life to be clear and pure, beautiful and orderly.
Meanwhile, another world began already in our very house and was completely different, it smelled differently, spoke differently, promised something else, demanded something else. In this second world, there were servants and apprentices, stories involving evil spirits and scandalous rumors, there was a motley variety of monstrous, alluring, terrible, mysterious things, such as slaughterhouse and prison, drunken and foul-mouthed women, calving cows, dead horses, stories about robberies, murders and suicides. All these beautiful and terrible, wild and cruel things existed around, in the nearest street, in the nearest house, policemen and vagabonds walked everywhere. Drunk people beat their wives, crowds of girls flowed in the evenings from factories, old women could spoil you, robbers lived in the forest, detectives caught arsonists - everywhere this second, fierce world was fragrant and fragrant, everywhere, but not in our rooms where they were mother and father. And it was very good. It was wonderful that everything else existed, everything loud and bright, gloomy and cruel, from which one could, however, one day hide from one's mother.
And the strangest thing is how both these worlds touched each other, how close they were to each other! For example, our maid Lina, when in the evening, at prayer, she sat in the living room at the door and sang along with others with her sonorous voice, putting her washed hands on an ironed apron, then she was completely with her father and mother, with us, with a bright and correct . And right after that, in the kitchen or in the woodshed, when she told me the tale of the headless man, or when she argued with her neighbors in the little butcher's shop, she was completely different, belonged to another world, surrounded by mystery. And so it happened with everything in the world, most often with myself. Of course, I belonged to a bright and correct world, I was the son of my parents, but wherever I directed my eyes and ears, this other was present everywhere, and I also lived in it, although it was often alien and eerie to me, although there a bad conscience and fear usually appeared. Sometimes it was even dearer to me to live in this forbidden world, and returning home to the light - for all its necessity and beneficence - often felt almost like a return to something less beautiful, more boring and dull. Sometimes I knew: my goal in life is to become like my father and my mother, just as bright and pure, just as confident and decent; but before that there is still a long way to go, before that you have to sit out your lessons at school, be a student, pass all sorts of exams, and this path goes all the time past another, dark world, and even through it, and it is quite possible that in it something like once you stay and drown. There were so many stories about prodigal sons who did just that, I read them with passion. Returning to my father's house and on the path of goodness was always a wonderful deliverance there, I fully understood that only this was right, good and worthy of desire, and yet that part of the story that flowed among the evil and erring ones attracted me much more, and if If I could say this and admit it, then sometimes I actually felt sorry that the prodigal son repented and was found. But this was neither said nor thought. It was felt only implicitly, as some premonition, some possibility. When I imagined the devil, I could easily imagine him walking down the street, openly or in disguise, or somewhere at a fair or in a tavern, but not at home.
Reading the works of Hermann Hesse is very difficult. In his work, the author offers a personal vision of modern spiritual culture. He invites the reader to go with him hard way comprehension of the creative experience already accumulated over the millennia and to derive, in a sense, subjective, but in general objective criteria for its interpretation and attitude towards it. Hesse in his novels consistently builds a system of judgments about the role of man in the elemental world and reveals the dualism of the creative and material existence of the individual.
At first glance, all of Hesse's novels seem to follow a common pattern that deal with the same ideas. It seems as if the author keeps returning to the same already resolved problem of man's attitude to creativity and his self-identification in the world. But it's not. Hesse's work is dialectical; it is constantly evolving and changing. Every time a problem already solved, new pitfalls arise, and again, anew, it is necessary to rethink everything that has already been thought out, but constantly dive into ever new depths.
The story of Max Demian and Emile Sinclair is simple as a biblical parable and at the same time extremely complex philosophically. Hesse's attitude to Christian religion and culture is very ambiguous. Being the son of a missionary priest, he either mindlessly, on faith, accepts the divinity and logic of the world around him, or fiercely atheistically defends individuality in the free manifestation of the will of man. Hesse's attitude towards religion cannot be understood by reading one or two of his novels. It is necessary to trace the development of the author's views throughout the entire creative period.
Demian consistently analyzes the biblical parable of Cain and Abel. The Old Testament story, told in a few sentences thousands of years ago, seems to us extremely simple and solvable, but if we subject it to a deeper analysis, then we will no longer be able to get out of the web of intricacies of meanings.
One gets the impression that in the novel Hermann Hesse almost praises Cain's deed and makes him a hero who opened the difficult path for a person to know himself. This is far from true. The author only considers the result of the murder of Abel by Cain, and even then only the so-called Cain's seal.
Hesse marks his heroes with the seal of Cain, which is a symbol of endless search, wandering and loneliness. It is typical for him to create images of noncoformist characters in the soul and obedient slaves of chance in the world around him. Emile Sinclair is by nature lonely and can only receive support on his difficult path of knowing himself and the world.
The small novel "Demian", which tells about the search for a young boy, adds up a pleasant feeling of the unimaginable depth of unknowability as a spiritual inner world, as well as material.
Score: 10
The closest domestic "analogues" (very conditionally, of course) are Dostoevsky's "Teenager" and Tolstoy's "Childhood Adolescence Youth". "Demian" has a relation to science fiction, on the one hand, it is somewhat superficial, since it is not the main thing here and "not plot-forming", and on the other hand, it is completely specific due to the unambiguity of fantastic details (for example, there is a certain community of people marked with the "Cain seal ").
The story of Hesse is dedicated to the description (in the first person) of the childhood and youth of Emile Sinclair and covers the period of his growing up from eight to twenty years. It is so multi-layered that it is difficult (and unfair) to single out one thing. But the most important topic, of course, is Sinclair's spiritual quest, which in some places quite strongly echoes the biography of Hesse himself (especially if you remember that the name Emil Sinclair was his pseudonym at first).
Loved the novel. And even very much. And as is often the case, writing an enthusiastic review is much more difficult than writing a “swearing” one. I don’t want to share my high-flown maxims, but others don’t come to mind :)). Therefore, I will put an end here, and the product - a "hard ten"!
Score: 10
Being yourself in any circumstances is a luxury that is hard to achieve.
On the one hand, this novel can rightfully be called atheist, primarily because in it the idea christian god which is love, is exposed harshest criticism. And on the other hand, this is, of course, a God-seeking book, because it is our main character and his fellow travelers in the book who are engaged in the search for God in themselves and outside.
Judging from the psychological bell tower, this book tells about the ways and process of growing up a person, about the maturation in a young individuality of what is precisely a Personality (certainly with capital letter L). At the same time, it is not at all a fact that the Personality in the narrator (Sinclair) has already matured at the time the story ends. And in general, it is almost never possible to say that the process of personal growth is over - in fact, it is something endless.
In close connection with the previous postulate about personal growth Hesse raises the topic of a personal Teacher, a personal Guru, one who appears in one or another period of human development (most often young man) his Mentor and Driver, his Leader and Guide. Moreover, in the novel this is not always Demian at all, because for some time this role is played by the same musician, whose name I have already forgotten, but whose role was imprinted in my memory quite clearly (I climb into the network and remind myself - his name was Pistorius) .
Of course, all of the above problems are also due to the emerging and developing sexuality of Emile Sinclair - a maturing male body of course, he brings his bright and exciting themes into his mental and psychological life.
In terms of energy, the book is literally permeated with a sense of the crisis in Europe, the collapse European culture in the form in which it existed in the first decade of the 20th century. This is really the decline of Europe.
As for me, this book is strongly tied to its time. It literally comes from the first decades of the 20th century and carries the energy of this particular period. But is it still relevant now, a century later? I am sure that it is relevant, the guarantee of this is the fact that it was recommended by a student of the 10th grade of the ordinary high school. But this circumstance is the best way to demonstrate to us that the book will be most relevant and useful for a young person, who is just at the stage of the emergence and maturation of the same Personality that we have already talked about above.
If you wish, you can find other thematic and semantic layers of this novel and continue talking about them. But I think (hope) that it is this (search and discussion) that we will deal with at a meeting of members of the Klyuch reading club in Valdai.
