Notes For July 2nd, 2026
This Day In Literary History
On July 2nd, 1877, the legendary German writer Hermann Hesse was born in Calw, Germany. His parents, Johannes and Marie Hesse, were Lutheran missionaries. As a boy, Hermann got into intense conflicts with them.
In 1891, after doing well in Latin school, Hesse was enrolled in the Maulbronn Evangelical Theological Seminary. The following year, at the age of 15, he rebelled and ran away from the seminary. He was found a day later, hiding in a field.
Two months after Hesse was found, he attempted suicide. He began a journey through various mental institutions and schools, and completed his primary education in 1893. From there, Hesse began an apprenticeship at a bookshop, but only lasted three days.
He tried his hand as an apprentice at a clock tower factory, but after a year, he could no longer stand the monotony of the job. So, in October of 1895, Hesse decided to make a fresh start and become an apprentice bookseller again. He would use the experience as fodder for his second novel, Beneath The Wheel (1906).
Hermann Hesse next apprenticed at the Heckenhauer Bookshop in Tubingen. The bookshop specialized in books on theology, philology, and law. Hesse's job was to organize the books, archive them, and pack them for sale.
After work, Hesse preferred to spend his time with books instead of people, studying Greek mythology and the works of Goethe, Lessing, and Schiller. He also took an interest in the German Romantics; German Romanticism was an intellectual movement that tried to create a new synthesis of art, philosophy, and science.
In the summer of 1899, Hesse published his first book, a poetry collection called Romantic Songs. It was followed shortly by a prose collection, One Hour After Midnight. Neither book was commercially successful. By this time, Hesse had become a respected antiquarian bookseller.
He moved to Basel and landed a job working for a famous antique bookshop. Though he lived with the town's most intellectual families, Hesse's new job and home offered the solitary writer the opportunities for private artistic self-exploration.
He soon made a name for himself as a writer, his poetry and prose frequently appearing in literary magazines. In 1904, following the publication of his first novel, Peter Camenzind, Hesse was soon able to quit his job and write full time. The poetic novel was a precursor of Hesse's future writings.
Peter Camenzind is a young poet with a desire to experience the world. In addition to a physical journey through the landscapes of Germany, Italy, France, and Switzerland, Peter also takes an intellectual and spiritual journey through the course of the novel, enhancing his ability to love life and see the beauty in all things.
Hesse soon married, and his wife Maria Bernoulli bore him three sons. In 1906, his second novel, Beneath The Wheel was published, followed by Gertrude in 1910. Hesse later disowned Gertrude, calling it "a miscarriage."
He had struggled to write the book amid a personal crisis - his wife began exhibiting symptoms of mental illness, and it took a toll on their marriage. Hesse began delving into Buddhism, which would be the subject of one of his greatest novels.
In 1911, he went alone on a trip to Indonesia and Sri Lanka. When he came back, he moved his family to Bern, but the change did little to help his marriage. When World War I broke out in 1914, Hesse couldn't sit idly by while young writers were dying on the front.
So, he enlisted in the Imperial Army, but was declared unfit for combat duty because of an eye condition. Assigned to care for prisoners of war, Hesse found himself becoming bitterly opposed to Germany's war, which he correctly saw as nothing but a power grab.
In November of 1914, he published an essay, O Friends, Not These Tones, where he appealed to his country's intellectuals to not let patriotism cloud their minds and make them support an unjust war. Hesse was vilified by the German press, bombarded with hate mail, and saw old friends turn their backs on him.
Personal crisis reared its head again in 1916. First, Hesse's father died, then his son Martin fell ill, and his wife's schizophrenia grew worse. Hesse was forced to leave the military and receive psychotherapy. This began his fascination with psychoanalysis.
He would soon become friends with the legendary Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung. His creativity rose to new heights, and during a three-week period between September and October 1917, he wrote his next novel, Demian, which was published in 1919 under the pseudonym Emil Sinclair - who was the main character and narrator.
When he returned to civilian life, Hesse found that his marriage was over. His wife suffered a severe psychotic episode, and though she recovered, he saw no future with her. They divorced, and Hesse moved to a small farm in Ticino, Switzerland, where he lived alone.
From there, he moved to Montagnola, where he rented four small rooms in a castle-like building called Casa Camuzzi. At the Casa, Hesse painted and wrote, and the result was his great novel, Siddhartha (1922).
Siddhartha is based on the true story of a young Indian boy called Siddhartha - a prince who renounces his title and wealth and embarks on a spiritual journey where he achieves enlightenment and becomes the Buddha.
Siddhartha was adapted as a feature film in 1972, directed by Conrad Rooks and starring Shashi Kapoor as Siddhartha. It was shot by the legendary Swedish cinematographer, Sven Nykvist. In 1923, Hermann Hesse became a Swiss citizen. He married Swiss singer Ruth Wenger, but the marriage was never stable.
Hesse continued to write. In 1927, he published another classic novel, Steppenwolf. The novel is a manuscript written by its main character - Hesse's alter ego, a writer named Harry Haller. A sad and withdrawn man, Haller is physically, emotionally, and spiritually ill.
One day, while aimlessly wandering about the city where he lives, Haller receives a pamphlet. Its text addresses him by name and provides an uncannily accurate description of him as a "wolf of the steppes," embroiled in a struggle between his spiritual and animal natures.
He was given the pamphlet by a person advertising something called The Magic Theatre. Later, Haller meets an old friend who invites him to his home. Disgusted by his friend's nationalism, Harry resumes his wandering to avoid going home and committing suicide. He stops to rest at a dance hall.
There, he meets a young woman named Hermine who acts as his spirit guide, mocking his self-pity, then teaching him how to live. She introduces him to Pablo, a mysterious saxophonist who leads him to the Magic Theatre - a metaphoric extension of Haller's psyche, where he can live out his fantasies and explore all the possibilities of life.
A brilliant and dazzling novel regarded as a classic work of literature today, Steppenwolf was harshly criticized at the time of its publication. Patriots and political activists railed against its anti-nationalist themes, while others condemned it as too pessimistic.
Some decried the book as immoral because of its hedonistic philosophy and depictions of sex and drug use. Haller learns to accept that casual sex and drug use are legitimate components of a full and happy life.
In this regard, and with its psychedelic narrative, Steppenwolf became a classic of the 1960s American counterculture. That wasn't really the author's intention, which is why Hesse said that Steppenwolf was his most misunderstood novel.
Steppenwolf was adapted as a feature film in 1974. It was written and directed by Fred Haines and starred Max Von Sydow as Harry Haller.
In the 1930s, when Hitler came to power in Germany, Hermann Hesse denounced Nazi ideology and aided exiled writers such as Bertolt Brecht and Thomas Mann. Hesse had already been widely published in German literary magazines and newspapers and used that notoriety to speak out against Nazism.
He publicly supported Jewish writers and artists, and others persecuted by Hitler. The Nazi regime banned all of Hesse's works, including his last and greatest novel, The Glass Bead Game, which was published in 1943. Originally published in two volumes, it's a futuristic, Zen Buddhist-like tale set in the 23rd century.
Castalia is a remote European province designed to allow the intellectual elite to grow and flourish. Josef Knecht, (his last name means servant in German) a young boy raised in Castalia, becomes consumed with mastering the Glass Bead Game - a seemingly simple game that is anything but simple.
Mastering the game requires perfect synthesis of artistic and scientific knowledge. One must understand art, music, literature, mathematics, science, and philosophy. As he grows into adulthood, Josef's quest to master the Glass Bead Game leads him to achieve enlightenment and become a Magister Ludi - a Master of the Game.
That's actually an incredibly simplified description of Hesse's incredibly complex epic masterwork. The Glass Bead Game is a beautiful and profound meditation on the human condition, a masterpiece of philosophic meta-fiction. It won Hesse the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Hermann Hesse died in 1962 at the age of 85.
Quote Of The Day
“For what I always hated and detested and cursed above all things was this contentment, this healthiness and comfort, this carefully preserved optimism of the middle classes, this fat and prosperous brood of mediocrity.”
- Hermann Hesse
Vanguard Video
Today's video features a complete reading of Hermann Hesse's classic novel, Steppenwolf. Enjoy!
