Product Description

Harry Haller is the Steppenwolf: wild, strange, shy and alienated from society. His despair and desire for death draw him into a dark, enchanted underworld. Through a series of shadowy encounters – romantic, freakish and savage by turn – the misanthropic Haller gradually begins to rediscover the lost dreams of his youth. This blistering portrayal of a man who feels himself to be half-human and half-wolf was the bible of the 1960s counterculture, capturing the mood of a disaffected generation, and remains a haunting story of estrangement and redemption.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #14278 in Books
• Published on: 2008-08-07
• Original language: German
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

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.

Customer Reviews

A deserving cult classic - a philosophical novel
Argued by many to have influenced the counterculture of the 1960s, "Steppen Wolf" succeeds in captivating the reader with its philosophical informative stance, while entertaining with its inclusion into an immersing plot.

Similar in style to "Sophie's World" by Jostein Gaarder, this is a book about philosophy using the plot of a novel to present its ideas, although with more maturity and depth than this comparison. The main narrator is the Steppen Wolf himself - a self-concious and depressed man cynical of the bourgeouis soceity in which he lives. Although a very distinct character, we are able to empathise with his experiences and the thoughts he has. We follow a great change in the Steppen Wolf as he is introduced to new relationships and a very different culture and way of life to that which he endures at the beginning of the novel. The reader is presented with an alternative method of thought, looking deeper into the obvious and ourselves.

Nothing more need be said of this classic except of its guarantee to captivate the reader and force upon them obvious questions perhaps never asked before - one of those books you find your mind drifting back to long after its back on the bookshelf.

Worth the effort
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
Worth the effort, July 6, 2007


I read this book in 2001 when I first started making an effort to read and still remember the effect in had on me. I would read about 10 pages a night before having to put it down because in a lot of ways the story brought on a feeling of emptiness and depression similar to what the main character experienced in the story. Yet the story and the character Harry Haller made me think, look at myself and life which to me is one of the most valuable things a book, story or experience can provide a person. The story has a chance to stir your soul if you reflect on the main themes and question - what is life.

life changing, but not necessarily for the better.
Indeed, Steppenwolf is a book of horrifying truths. Upon finishing the book, I could not help but question everything I held dear. It forces the reader to look around, and recognise the hypocrisy inherent in, not just society, but every action we do. The book does not necessarily do this by undermining, it merely praises certain attributes as isolation, revulsion and rejection.
I would advise you strongly to read this book. It is one of Hesse's best, and like his others, takes the individual as its focus. For all its pessimism, it is an incredibly uplifting book, simpy because it will open your eyes.