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wowara's review
inspiring
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
belusalreads's review against another edition
5.0
Le Loup des steppes (titre original : Der Steppenwolf) est un roman de Hermann Hesse, publié pour la première fois en 1927.
Review :
Un livre du style dystopique dans lequel je me suis identifiée à cent pour cent dans le personnage de Harry, jusqu'à ce que le ton du livre ne change au cours de ses apprentissages. J'aurais aimé que ça ne change pas mais il n'y aurait alors pas eu de morale au livre, ni cet clé d'apprentissage. La fin nous tient en haleine, sans nous donner de réponse précise quant au destin de tous les personnages, la fin restant confuse pour moi.
Résumé :
Le Loup des steppes raconte l’histoire de Harry Haller, homme désabusé, qui se déclare tiraillé entre deux personnalités : l'une basée sur un besoin d’isolement, de solitude, presque de sauvagerie, un aspect de lui-même qu’il nomme « le loup des steppes », et l’autre sur l'intégration dans la société bourgeoise qu’il affectionne et recherche encore et toujours malgré toutes ses critiques.
La découverte des carnets de Harry Haller par le neveu de sa logeuse est le prétexte de ce livre. Le héros décrit sa propre histoire, tourmentée, pessimiste, suicidaire ainsi que sa rencontre avec Hermine, qui le prend sous son aile pour l'obliger à sortir de son existence recluse et à se confronter aux multiples aspects de sa personnalité. Il entame ainsi un parcours initiatique (thème cher à Hermann Hesse) qui lui fera découvrir la joie, le rire, la rencontre, la danse et d'autre part lui fera revisiter toutes les expériences de son existence passée. Il apprend ainsi à se détacher, à jouir de la vie et à utiliser l'humour pour se distancier de l'absurdité du monde, des dangers de la politique (dont une partie que l'on désignerait au xxie siècle de politicienne) et de la presse d'opinion, de la crédulité du citoyen moyen et de la vanité de sa morale, de ses principes de vie et de ses absolus qu'il s'est choisis et imposés. Progressera-t-il en adoptant définitivement les différents heureux apprentissages qu'il va découvrir ?
Review :
Un livre du style dystopique dans lequel je me suis identifiée à cent pour cent dans le personnage de Harry, jusqu'à ce que le ton du livre ne change au cours de ses apprentissages. J'aurais aimé que ça ne change pas mais il n'y aurait alors pas eu de morale au livre, ni cet clé d'apprentissage. La fin nous tient en haleine, sans nous donner de réponse précise quant au destin de tous les personnages, la fin restant confuse pour moi.
Résumé :
Le Loup des steppes raconte l’histoire de Harry Haller, homme désabusé, qui se déclare tiraillé entre deux personnalités : l'une basée sur un besoin d’isolement, de solitude, presque de sauvagerie, un aspect de lui-même qu’il nomme « le loup des steppes », et l’autre sur l'intégration dans la société bourgeoise qu’il affectionne et recherche encore et toujours malgré toutes ses critiques.
La découverte des carnets de Harry Haller par le neveu de sa logeuse est le prétexte de ce livre. Le héros décrit sa propre histoire, tourmentée, pessimiste, suicidaire ainsi que sa rencontre avec Hermine, qui le prend sous son aile pour l'obliger à sortir de son existence recluse et à se confronter aux multiples aspects de sa personnalité. Il entame ainsi un parcours initiatique (thème cher à Hermann Hesse) qui lui fera découvrir la joie, le rire, la rencontre, la danse et d'autre part lui fera revisiter toutes les expériences de son existence passée. Il apprend ainsi à se détacher, à jouir de la vie et à utiliser l'humour pour se distancier de l'absurdité du monde, des dangers de la politique (dont une partie que l'on désignerait au xxie siècle de politicienne) et de la presse d'opinion, de la crédulité du citoyen moyen et de la vanité de sa morale, de ses principes de vie et de ses absolus qu'il s'est choisis et imposés. Progressera-t-il en adoptant définitivement les différents heureux apprentissages qu'il va découvrir ?
novabird's review
5.0
Authenticity definition:
"A common definition of "authenticity" in psychology refers to the attempt to live one's life according to the needs of one's inner being, rather than the demands of society or one's early conditioning."
People are most beautiful when their wildness has not been completely quelled or snuffed. People are most godlike when they honour their animality in tandem with their values and integrate this with other aspects of their personhood.
Steppenwolf aided in deprogramming my bid for unattainable civility. It allowed me to accept my untameable quality of being. Steppenwolf ravenously pushed against the walls of my confined thinking. For me, it was a mental jailbreak kind of book that tore me from a self-created prison of too high ideals. It helped to rend me away from too weighty and onerous self-judgments reinforced by my self-chosen adoptive family found in a religious institution that I had spent two decades getting to know. That chapter is closed.
Quote: "If only you did not talk, did not make simple things complicated, did not turn your soul inside out.”
Steppenwolf wondrously granted me a glimpse of, "being-in-the-world" knowledge where "relativism" placed alongside experiences of a mundane world bound by the necessary messiness of earth need not all be labeled and boxed. We talk ourselves into our own boxes by talking to others as though they are imprisoned in our solitary cells. Next, we further talk comparisons about how our solitary cells are better than others. Steppenwolf demasked this collective hardwired tendency.
Quote: “There is, in fact, no way back either to the wolf or to the child. From the very start, there is no innocence and no singleness. Every created thing, even the simplest, is already guilty, already multiple. It has been thrown into the muddy stream of being and may never more swim back again to its source. The way to innocence, to the uncreated and to God leads on, not back to the wolf or to the child, but ever further into sin, ever deeper into human life. Nor will suicide really solve your problem [...] You will, instead, embark on the longer and wearier and harder road of life. You will have to multiply many times your two-fold being and complicate your complexities still further. Instead of narrowing your world and simplifying your soul, you will have to absorb more and more of the world and at last take all of it up in your painfully expanded soul, if you are ever to find peace. This is the road that Buddha and every great man has gone, whether consciously or not, insofar as fortune has favored his quest.”
Thank you, Hermann Hesse, I deeply know that in my wildness and flaws, I am not alone.
My wolf is within me.
A more in-depth review:
https://epochemagazine.org/herman-hesse-steppenwolf-shadow-7de5b741c69f
"A common definition of "authenticity" in psychology refers to the attempt to live one's life according to the needs of one's inner being, rather than the demands of society or one's early conditioning."
People are most beautiful when their wildness has not been completely quelled or snuffed. People are most godlike when they honour their animality in tandem with their values and integrate this with other aspects of their personhood.
Steppenwolf aided in deprogramming my bid for unattainable civility. It allowed me to accept my untameable quality of being. Steppenwolf ravenously pushed against the walls of my confined thinking. For me, it was a mental jailbreak kind of book that tore me from a self-created prison of too high ideals. It helped to rend me away from too weighty and onerous self-judgments reinforced by my self-chosen adoptive family found in a religious institution that I had spent two decades getting to know. That chapter is closed.
Quote: "If only you did not talk, did not make simple things complicated, did not turn your soul inside out.”
Steppenwolf wondrously granted me a glimpse of, "being-in-the-world" knowledge where "relativism" placed alongside experiences of a mundane world bound by the necessary messiness of earth need not all be labeled and boxed. We talk ourselves into our own boxes by talking to others as though they are imprisoned in our solitary cells. Next, we further talk comparisons about how our solitary cells are better than others. Steppenwolf demasked this collective hardwired tendency.
Quote: “There is, in fact, no way back either to the wolf or to the child. From the very start, there is no innocence and no singleness. Every created thing, even the simplest, is already guilty, already multiple. It has been thrown into the muddy stream of being and may never more swim back again to its source. The way to innocence, to the uncreated and to God leads on, not back to the wolf or to the child, but ever further into sin, ever deeper into human life. Nor will suicide really solve your problem [...] You will, instead, embark on the longer and wearier and harder road of life. You will have to multiply many times your two-fold being and complicate your complexities still further. Instead of narrowing your world and simplifying your soul, you will have to absorb more and more of the world and at last take all of it up in your painfully expanded soul, if you are ever to find peace. This is the road that Buddha and every great man has gone, whether consciously or not, insofar as fortune has favored his quest.”
Thank you, Hermann Hesse, I deeply know that in my wildness and flaws, I am not alone.
My wolf is within me.
A more in-depth review:
https://epochemagazine.org/herman-hesse-steppenwolf-shadow-7de5b741c69f
jess_mango's review
3.0
I will give this one 3.5 stars. The protagonist felt himself to be half wolf and half man. The book is very philosophical with lots of exploration of sexuality etc. The protagonist does lots of ranting, pontificating and what not about what he dislikes in culture, his connections with people...his run ins with past lovers.
Not really a book that spoke to me at this moment in my life.
Not really a book that spoke to me at this moment in my life.
insomonia's review against another edition
challenging
dark
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
huenchen's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
spectracommunist's review against another edition
5.0
“In eternity there is no time, only an instant long enough for a joke.”
German literature is the best!
This starts as a non-fiction philosophy about the Steppenwolf and what role such animal personalities have to play in human lives. And then begins a journey of self-discovery and a conflict arises between savage solitude and hedonistic pleasures within a magic theatre as a microcosm of our universe. It's a deep meditation and simultaneously lascivious exploration of a mid-life crisis and the erudition of a lone wise wolf or vast possibilities of lustful existence. And after all, the importance of humor.
I even got to know several distinct philosophical aspects of the existence of Mozart as a fictitious character in the fiction itself. And whatever Hesse writes is unquestionably an intellectual and spiritual orgy of the mind to read.
German literature is the best!
This starts as a non-fiction philosophy about the Steppenwolf and what role such animal personalities have to play in human lives. And then begins a journey of self-discovery and a conflict arises between savage solitude and hedonistic pleasures within a magic theatre as a microcosm of our universe. It's a deep meditation and simultaneously lascivious exploration of a mid-life crisis and the erudition of a lone wise wolf or vast possibilities of lustful existence. And after all, the importance of humor.
I even got to know several distinct philosophical aspects of the existence of Mozart as a fictitious character in the fiction itself. And whatever Hesse writes is unquestionably an intellectual and spiritual orgy of the mind to read.
vivaanoush's review
challenging
dark
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
bytheabyss's review
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75