Reviews

Magister Ludi: The Glass Bead Game by Hermann Hesse

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elcapu's review against another edition

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challenging reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

ionm's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Centuries into the future, Hermann Hesse's imaginary biographer, diligently recounts the life of a twenty-third century scholar, Joseph Knecht. This futuristic tale is the foundation of the author's "The Glass Bead Game". First published in 1943, the most celebrated novel of the 1946 Nobel-prize in Literature winner is a sophisticated meditation on art and science, and their role in society.

Joseph Knecht is an orphan of humble beginnings. His talent for music, allows him to progress first into a respectful preparatory school, and then ultimately be admitted in the most exclusive school in the country, Waldzell, in the future state of Castalia. This boys-only school is at the epicentre of the intellectual life of the country, responsible for the greatest discoveries throughout the ages, and also for their commitment to the development of the enigmatic Glass Bead Game, a post-linguistic exploratory system of ideas. As warned by the title, Knecht becomes the celebrated Magister Ludi, a Pope-like figure responsible for the mastership of this Game.

Hesse brings us into this story with superb stylism. His language, both highly exquisite in form and content, allows us to dive through many aspects of intellectual exploration. The novel is a genuine treatise on the philosophy of art, particularly music, and the role of the artist, the scientist, and the layman in relation to it. Its obsession with history, forces us to reset the assumptions we hold in our perception of it. For the Castalians, history is not an object worthy of study, as its constant retelling of wars and afflictions, are not ultimately leading to the understanding of absolute truth. For Knecht, history is the sole science that allows the individual to place themselves in the role they serve in this world. This dualism leads to pages of exciting analysis on humanism that make this book a masterpiece of intellectual thought.

For all its sublimity of thought, "The Glass Bead Game" is sadly a work that fails to pre-empt history. Its Phallocentrism is its damnation. The vision of a future world dominated by the social structures of 19th century Christian-dominated traditional values would barely ring true to the post-bellic society in which women were given a more prominent role, and it sounds fully inconceivable to the progressive readers of our century. Hesse's vision of women as simple companions to the great minds of men feels rather antiquated and in places the actual admission of men's superiority is truly deplorable.

Few books have managed to create an inner conflict in my own value system. I found myself, just like Knecht, having to weigh the ideal search for intellectual growth with the necessity to use this to improve the society I live in. The realist and the pragmatic ultimately took over in the appreciation of this book. If Hesse intended this exact effect, then I have missed it, even if I unsuccessfully tried to find hints of it in the narrative (written and implied). I refuse to celebrate a world in which greatness of mind is subject to our sex, and for all its beauty, "The Glass Bead Game" fails to emancipate itself from the value system of its author, living in a time he thought pure for all the wrong reasons.

jimbowen0306's review against another edition

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1.0

I'm told I'm not allowed to call this book "pretentious hogwash", so I won't. I will say, however, that much of the book is beyond tedious to read and has a central concept that, to me at least, stretched credulity beyond breaking point. Consequently, I hated it.

So why did I have such a problem with the book?

Set in the future (the 25th Century), Hesse's book describes a world that has miraculously managed to stop fighting, watching cruddy TV, and listening to gossip as vicariously as it does now. This world had wiped out all western religions except Catholicism, and somehow decided "we're going to live a better [i.e. more moral, more intellectual] life."

Into this experience, we see a game develop. It's part maths. It's part music. It's part art. It's part philosophy. It's part non-religious ideas of perfection, and it's protected by sort of "Glass Bead Game" playing priesthood (who aren't really priests because they're atheists, but who have all the convictions of the American "Moral Majority" and the doctrines of the Catholic Church).

Into this story steps Joseph Knecht, a man who becomes a "Magister Ludi" (a sort of archbishop for the game players). After which it becomes a sort of biography of this imaginary guy. He's a man so syrupy in his "goodness" that he'd give diabetes to those who've never eaten sugar. We see his rise up the order. His obtaining of the position, and how he acts (and what he comes to believe -which anyone with half a brain would have top him in about 5 seconds) once he obtains the position.

I'm sorry, but I found the book being syrupy. No one's that "perfect." Nothing can stop us being who we are, and yet we're expected to believe some dumb game where people meditate on where to put marbles on pieces of string (and can take days over it) came along and did just that.

Don't get me wrong, I can see the book's well written, it's just so sickly sweet over the general perfection of Knecht that I can feel myself slipping into a diabetic coma as we speak.

reduck's review against another edition

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2.0

Just got really bogged down in this one even with the audio book version

connorlangham's review against another edition

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4.0

The majority of this novel, the biography and story of Knect's life, is tedious, unnecessarily drawn out and without the sort of introspection and dissection that I love Hesse for. There are interesting passages with characters who change his worldview, but largely it's just too long.

The last two chapters on his life are great, the poems are fantastic and the 'lives', the three short stories at the end, are Hesse's magnum opus. All three are incredible and touch on different parts of his philosophy. They are worth the pain.