Steppenwolf (originally Der Steppenwolf) is the tenth novel by German-Swiss author Hermann Hesse. Originally published in Germany in 1927, it was first translated into English in 1929. The novel was named after the German name for the steppe wolf. The story in large part reflects a profound crisis in Hesse's spiritual world during the 1920s. Steppenwolf was wildly popular and has been a perpetual success across the decades, but Hesse later asserted that the book was largely misunderstood. In 1924, Hermann Hesse ...
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Steppenwolf (originally Der Steppenwolf) is the tenth novel by German-Swiss author Hermann Hesse. Originally published in Germany in 1927, it was first translated into English in 1929. The novel was named after the German name for the steppe wolf. The story in large part reflects a profound crisis in Hesse's spiritual world during the 1920s. Steppenwolf was wildly popular and has been a perpetual success across the decades, but Hesse later asserted that the book was largely misunderstood. In 1924, Hermann Hesse married singer Ruth Wenger. After several weeks, however, he left Basel, only returning near the end of the year. Upon his return, he rented a separate apartment, adding to his isolation. After a short trip to Germany with Wenger, Hesse stopped seeing her almost completely. The resulting feeling of isolation and inability to make lasting contact with the outside world led to increasing despair and the return of Hesse's suicidal thoughts. Hesse began writing Steppenwolf in Basel, and finished it in Z�rich. In 1926, he published a precursor to the book, a collection of poems titled The Crisis: From Hermann Hesse's Diary. The novel was later released in 1927. The first English edition was published in 1929 by Martin Secker in the United Kingdom and by Henry Holt and Company in the United States. That version was translated by Basil Creighton. In 1926, Hesse also became acquainted with jazz music, attending Swiss performances of the Revue N�gre featuring Josephine Baker and Sidney Bechet; Steven C. Tracy, professor of Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts, writes, "the character of Pablo... was inspired by Bechet's playing" In the preface to the novel's 1960 edition, Hesse wrote that Steppenwolf was "more often and more violently misunderstood" than any of his other books. Hesse felt that his readers focused only on the suffering and despair that are depicted in Harry Haller's life, thereby missing the possibility of transcendence and healing. (Close friends and longtime readers of Hesse criticized the novel for its perceived lack of morality in its open depiction of sex and drug use, a criticism that indeed remained the primary rebuff of the novel for many years. American novelist Jack Kerouac dismissed it in Big Sur (1962), though popular interest was renewed in the 1960s - specifically in the psychedelic movement - primarily because it was seen as a counterculture book, and because of its depiction of free love and explicit drug use.wikipedia.org)
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I first read Herman Hesse's novel "Steppenwolf" in the late 1960s, as did many baby boomers. Although I loved the novel at the time, I gradually became embarrassed by the book as an error of my youth My growing disenchantment, probably was due to my increased discomfort with the counterculture, which never appealed to me, and to "Steppenwolf's" adoption by the movement. I have always been generally conservative about most things. My unwillingness to revisit the book persisted even when I became seriously interest in Buddhism, more than fifteen years ago. I decided to revisit "Steppenwolf" upon reading a recent book about philosophy. The author mentioned Hesse's novel several times and obviously thought a great deal of it. The references in a book I liked prompted me to reread "Steppenwolf" at last.
After rereading the book, I thought that I was right to love it upon the first reading, right to leave it alone for more that 40 years, and right to revisit it. As with so many books, "Steppenwolf" loses something when read by the young. In a 1961 author's note, Hesse claimed that "Steppenwolf" often was "violently misunderstood". He attributed the misunderstanding in part to the book's popularity with young readers. Hesse also pointed out that the book tended to attract loners and intellectuals who identified with the loneliness and apparent alienation of Harry Haller, the novel's main character. This certainly would have been true in my case. Hesse wrote:
"[T]his book knows of and speaks about other things besides Harry Haller and his difficulties, about a second,higher, indestructible world beyond the Steppenwolf and his problematic life. The 'Treatise' and all those spots in the book dealing with matters of the spirit, of the arts, and the 'immortal' men oppose the Steppenwolf's world of suffering with a positive, serene, superpersonal and timeless world of faith. This book, no doubt, tells of griefs and needs; still, it is not a book of a man despairing but of a man believing."
The book tells of Harry Haller's, the "Steppenwolf's" redemption from a life of loneliness and despair through his efforts at writing and self-understanding and through largely hallucinatory meetings with a range of characters, including his alter-ego Hermione, a lover, Marie, a strange saxophonist and band leader, Pablo, and the historical figures Goethe and Mozart. Much of the story is set in bars and in Harry's lonely rooms, as he revisits his impoverished love life, divorce, loneliness, and wanderings. A long final scene is set a strange "Magic Theater" where Harry undergoes a series of transformative, if sometimes shocking experiences.
The "Magic Theater" and a small number of ambiguously meant references to drug use in the course of the novel understandably contributed to its appeal to the counterculture. The book has also been read as a strong critique of "bourgeois" society and its
conformity, an interpretation I find misdirected. Harry comes to terms with his life and with the different aspects of himself during the novel. He learns to accept the "bourgeois" world of respectability and business just as he learns to accept and be happy with his own sexuality, learning, independence, and his past. Harry learns to love his life as it is.
The strongest parts of the book are the long descriptions of spiritual Buddhist-derived teachings which discuss the nature of selfhood and the need for letting go and acceptance. The book relies heavily on Buddhist teachings on the lack of a fixed, substantial self. The book integrates Buddhist teachings with Harry's tortured experiences to offer a convincing, if extreme, novelistic portrayal of non-self. I learned much more from rereading this book after I had acquired both "life experiences" and a rudimentary knowledge of Buddhism than I learned when I was young and more foolish and when I knew comparatively little about Buddhism.
Hesse (1877 -- 1962) was born in Germany but became a Swiss citizen in 1923. He wrote the strongly autobiographical "Steppenwolf" in 1927, and it was first translated into English in 1929. The popularity of the book soared in the 1960s and has remained high. Those readers who read "Steppenwolf" when they were young, as I did, might well enjoy revisiting and rethinking the book as they have gone forward in life.
Robin Friedman.
cagahoje
Nov 19, 2009
An interesting book, the title accurately describes the protagonist who is indeed a wolf of the steppes.
