Steppenwolf
Apr 2012 · Penguin UK
4.4star
5 reviewsreport
Ebook
272
Pages
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About this ebook
A new translation by David Horrocks.
At first sight Harry Haller seems like a respectable, educated man. In reality he is the Steppenwolf: wild, strange, alienated from society and repulsed by the modern age. But as he is drawn into a series of dreamlike and sometimes savage encounters - accompanied by, among others, Mozart, Goethe and the bewitching Hermione - the misanthropic Haller discovers a higher truth, and the possibility of happiness. This haunting portrayal of a man who feels he is half-human and half-wolf became a counterculture classic for a disaffected generation. Yet it is also a story of redemption, and an intricately-structured modernist masterpiece. This is the first new translation of Steppenwolf for over eighty years, returning to the fresh, authentic language of Hesse's original.
At first sight Harry Haller seems like a respectable, educated man. In reality he is the Steppenwolf: wild, strange, alienated from society and repulsed by the modern age. But as he is drawn into a series of dreamlike and sometimes savage encounters - accompanied by, among others, Mozart, Goethe and the bewitching Hermione - the misanthropic Haller discovers a higher truth, and the possibility of happiness. This haunting portrayal of a man who feels he is half-human and half-wolf became a counterculture classic for a disaffected generation. Yet it is also a story of redemption, and an intricately-structured modernist masterpiece. This is the first new translation of Steppenwolf for over eighty years, returning to the fresh, authentic language of Hesse's original.
Ratings and reviews
4.4
5 reviews
Emmanuel Odejimi
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July 5, 2018
Not the type of book you'll understand with one read but with contemplation
and analysis from oneself and other sources.
2 people found this review helpful
Jeremy Williamson
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September 10, 2019
Profoundly thought provoking, confronting at times, conceptually inspiring, opens the reader to multiple potential avenues of subjective personal interpretation. Highly recommended for all human ponderers of conscious existence.
2 people found this review helpful
About the author
Herman Hesse was born in southern Germany in 1877. Hesse concentrated on writing poetry as a young man, but his first successful book was a novel, Peter Camenzind (1904). During the war, Hesse was actively involved in relief efforts. Depression, criticism for his pacifist views, and a series of personal crises led Hesse to undergo psychoanalysis with J. B. Lang. Out of these years came Demian (1919), a novel whose main character is torn between the orderliness of bourgeois existence and the turbulent and enticing world of sensual experience. This dichotomy is prominent in Hesse's subsequent novels, including Siddhartha (1922), Steppenwolf (1927), and Narcissus and Goldmund (1930). Hesse worked on his magnum opus, The Glass Bead Game (1943), for twelve years. This novel was specifically cited when he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1946. Hesse died at his home in Switzerland in 1962.
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