World Famous Comics: The Glass Bead Game: (Magister Ludi) A Novel
The Glass Bead Game: (Magister Ludi) A Novel
By: Hermann Hesse Publisher: Holt Paperbacks Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: Holt Paperbacks Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 576 Publication Date: June 15, 1990
The Glass Bead Game, for which Hesse won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1946, is the author’s last and crowning achievement, the most imaginative and prophetic of all his novels. Setting the story in the distant postapocalyptic future, Hesse tells of an elite cult of intellectuals who play an elaborate game that uses all the cultural and scientific knowledge of the Ages. The Glass Bead Game is a fascinating tale of the complexity of modern life as well as a classic of modern literature.
This edition features a Foreword by Theodore Ziolkowski that places the book in the full context of Hesse’s thought.
Atheist Ascetic Academic Changes Careers, Dies Unexpectedly I described "Anathem" to a buddy of mine. He told me if I liked "Anathem", I should try "The Glass Bead Game". I picked it up and went through it fairly quickly. I don't quite know what to make of it.
I've decided this book is one gigantic inside joke.
It's written in this portentious, mock-academic style, about a man who rises to the top of his chosen hierarchy, throws it all away to look for new mountains to climb, and then dies suddenly.
It's an interesting enough read, even if it does leave you gobsmacked at the end. I'll have to re-read it later, to try again to see what others see in it.
A Contrived Style i'm a big fan of the author's Steppenwolf: A Novel, it's one of my favorites.
the glass bead game or magister ludi is written in a completely different style. it uses an unsuccessfully contrived intellectual manner that is stilted, pedantic, decorous, circuitous and, to me, quite a chore to read.
otherwise, i agree with Anyechka's 3-star review. the glass bead game is bloated and generally immobile. some successful authors, once they realize that anything they write will be printed and read, will indulge their disdain for the market that controlled their lives for so long. i suspect that's what this book is about.
i allow myself to disagree with Nobel prizes. some are reflections of an unripe field and some are political. Hesse's was both.
Most important fiction of the XXth Century? The modern idealists' guiding light.
"The Glass Bead Game" could be the most important work of fiction of the Twentieth Century. Rather than addressing symptoms, it addresses underlying spiritual, philosophical, and academic short-comings that crippled human growth in the XXth Century. The plot is both very straight forward, a biography of a man who is promoted to the highest academic office in his land, then goes through a crisis of professional conscience and resigns to obscurity, and very complex, almost rococo with delicate themes woven through out the larger story.
The only caveat is that this book will be slow going until one has completed a couple of years of college. Some of his characters are academic archetypes, and unless you have spent time in the company of people who behave like that, they can be implausible.
Simply by the conceptual scale of the book, it is hard to appreciate in a single reading. It is devoid of action, relationships are muted and subtle, but the vision of a society that appreciates selfless intellectual achievement is inspiring. At the same time it carries cautions about how noble endeavors can fail.
I can't recommend this one highly enough. At the same time I probably shouldn't read it again; developing a social conscience at my time of life is not seemly.
E.M. Van Court
The best Hesse's book First time I read it when I was 15, and I thought it was one of the best books I've ever read. One has to be prepared to read this book and to be able to accept all: strange combination of math, music, language, different ideas, search for harmony. I reread this book every 2-3 years.
His best work Although Hesse is not in fashion among academics these days, this book (unlike some of his earlier more romantic stuff) deserves to be noticed as a great work of the 20th century. It's very complex, and can be frustrating (especially if you have little or no knowledge of German history, literature and music); it's nevertheless an important, and often very moving reflection on the nature of modern society (and isn't yet outdated), and equally on some of the dangers of trying to escape that society.
Anything Goes Trivia
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