Product Description

STEPPENWOLF is a poetical self-portrait of a man who felt himself to be half-human and half-wolf. This Faust-like and magical story is evidence of Hesse's searching philosophy and extraordinary sense of humanity as he tells of the humanization of a middle-aged misanthrope. Yet this novel can also be seen as a plea for rigorous self-examination and an indictment of the intellectual hypocrisy of the period. As Hesse himself remarked, 'Of all my books STEPPENWOLF is the one that was more often and more violently misunderstood than any other'.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #26613 in Books
• Published on: 1999-02-25
• Original language: German
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

About the Author
Hermann Hesse was born in Calw, Germany in 1877. After a short period at a seminary he moved to Switzerland to work as a bookseller. From 1904 he devoted himself to writing, establishing his reputation with a series of romantic novels. During the First World War he worked for the Red Cross and afterwards, consolidated his position as a leading contemporary thinker. Hesse won many literary awards including the Nobel Prize in 1946. He died in 1962 at the age of eighty-five.

Customer Reviews

On life
Steppenwolf is a novel on what it means to be alive, albeit the character of life in this book often finds itself the recipient of harsh criticism and hatred.

Hesse claimed that this work was written to portray some of the feelings of alienation and isolation that the author was feeling around the time of his fiftieth year. Despite being broken into three parts Steppenwolf essentially deals with one theme - that of the main protagonist Harry, and the struggle between his animal instincts and society.

Although Harry is somewhat alien to most of us in his utter and almost innate sadness, he does share with us a great deal. He in essence shares the struggle we all have - the one between instinct and decorum, between sensation and society. Harry is trapped because he is living as a wolf and as a man. The wolf part his base desires and the man the part of him that seeks solace in the music of Beethoven. However in reality both parts of Harry are human in nature. We all live as sensuous beings and at the same time as members of a working society, in which there are rules of conduct that will curtail the beast in us.

Steppenwolf was taken up by sixties counter-culturists as a brick to break down the walls of society around them, finding in its pages a bleak portrait of the world in which we live. The beast within lashed out, ripped the pictures from the walls and called in a new decorator! Necessary as this may have been at the time, this was not the message Hesse intended. Indeed his message was far more universal and timeless. He told us that we should enjoy the fullness of life, soak ourselves in its reveries, mine the pleasures of the intellect, but also learn how to dance and make love, to duck and dive in and out of its many forms of existence. And to do this we must not dispel the man or the beast, but we must let them lie together in an embrace, tumbling through the tides of life

This novel makes you think
This is a great novel. The first third of Steppenwolf's narrative was a little heavy going, but once you get past this bit it turns into the most wonderful dream-like narrative.

The atmosphere of this book is just perfect, and the mysterious encounters of Steppenwolf and the changing shapes of his own personality are magically portrayed. As Steppenwolf explores his sense of self, the reader gets more and more drawn into his increasingly bizarre and captivating world. Steppenwolf takes the reader with him on his journey, and this is what Hesse does so well.

Although Hesse was concerned that the book might not have wide appeal, in my opinion there is something here for everyone. This is a philosophical novel and as such it doesn't have a traditional storyline. Nevertheless it is extremely engaging and really makes you think.

The only thing missing from this edition (Penguin classics) was an Editor's introduction. I wish there had been one to help explain some of the philosophical issues the novel explores, the wider historical context (as I believe this is an important part of the novel), and some background to Hesse's work. This could only have enhanced my enjoyment of this excellent novel.

A glorious chaotic fusion!
Steppenwolf, the story of a tortured outsider, has been misinterpreted by many. The problems are a relection of Hesse's own psychological crisis at the time of writing. The glorious imagery and play with notions of space, time along with the destablisation of the notion of reality make this book unique. Through a blinding, chaotic fusion of Buddhist, Jungian and Nietzschian elements a profound essay on the nature of the self is realised. A life changing, ultimately life-affirming book.