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The Glass Bead Game

by Hermann Hesse, Richard Winston (Translation), Clara Winston (Translation), Theodore Ziolkowski (Foreword)

4.09 of 5 stars 4.09 · rating details · 10,850 ratings · 550 reviews

The final novel of Hermann Hesse, for which he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1946, The Glass Bead Game is a fascinating tale of the complexity of modern life as well as a classic of modern literature

Set in the 23rd century, The Glass Bead Game is the story of Joseph Knecht, who has been raised in Castalia, the remote place his society has provided for the intellect

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Paperback, 558 pages

Published December 6th 2002 by Picador (first published 1943)

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Jul 03, 2012 Ben Winch rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: german, mainland-european

There's a scene in Antonio Tabucchi's Indian Nocturne in which the narrator meets an Indian intellectual who asks him, among other things, what he thinks of Hermann Hesse. The narrator, resenting the interruption and perhaps with a sense he is being mocked, heaps scorn on the German 'spiritualist', calling him sentimental and likening him to some kind of sweet liqueur, and only after the conversation is over does he realise he has not said what he really thought of Hesse at all. In some way, the...more

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Jan 09, 2008 John rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: german, modern

This is Hesse's epic novel that tells the story of Joseph Knecht, a boy who passes through the system of the Castalian Order to become the Glass Bead Game Magister. If the last sentence made any sense to you, chances are you have already read the book. Though once the book is read, that is about all it is about. The book is written by an unknown member of the Castalian Order who is retelling the story of Joseph Knecht. The Glass Bead Game is an intellectual game played encompassing all major are...more

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Jul 20, 2012 أحمد أبازيد Ahmad Abazed rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

هذا كتاب هيرمان هيسه الأشهر و الأكبر , كُتب على مدار تسع سنين , و يضمّ معظم أفكار هيرمن هيسه التي عُرف بها فيما بعد
إنّها النزعة نحو الذات , و التأمّل و اليقين الموجود هناك في داخلك ,
وحدة الوجود , التي تقاوم ماديّة العالم و سببيّته الصلبة , الطبيعة تتكلّم معك و بك , و الكائنات كلّها كينونة متنافمة ضمن اللحن نفسِه .
الموسيقى .. أرقّ ما يروي الإنسان و تنطق به الحقيقة
إنّها الحقيقة الواحدة , التي تتراقص ضمنها سيرورة العالم بتبدّياته المختلفة ... و هنا عبقريّة الرواية و فكرتها المذهلة
الحقيقة الواحد...more هذا كتاب هيرمان هيسه الأشهر و الأكبر , كُتب على مدار تسع سنين , و يضمّ معظم أفكار هيرمن هيسه التي عُرف بها فيما بعد
إنّها النزعة نحو الذات , و التأمّل و اليقين الموجود هناك في داخلك ,
وحدة الوجود , التي تقاوم ماديّة العالم و سببيّته الصلبة , الطبيعة تتكلّم معك و بك , و الكائنات كلّها كينونة متنافمة ضمن اللحن نفسِه .
الموسيقى .. أرقّ ما يروي الإنسان و تنطق به الحقيقة
إنّها الحقيقة الواحدة , التي تتراقص ضمنها سيرورة العالم بتبدّياته المختلفة ... و هنا عبقريّة الرواية و فكرتها المذهلة
الحقيقة الواحدة
لعبة الكريات الزجاجيّة , هي لعبة ابتكرتها الموسيقى , ثمّ عبّر بها الرياضيّون عن أنفسهم ثمّ الفيزيائيّون ثمّ نقّاد الأدب ... ثمّ العلوم كلّها
كلّ المجالات و الحقول المختلفة ذات القوانين و البديهيّات و المنطق المختلف , تنسجم و تعبّر عن نفسِها في هذه اللعبة , لأنّ ثمّة قانوناً كليّة وراء الأشياء , يمكن أن يُعبّر به عنها جميعاً , و بالاحتمالات اللامتناهية لكلّ حقلٍ , و بتفاصيله و دقائقه , و لها مختصّون و مدارس و أساتذة و مسابقات , و يفد إليها المريدون من كلّ مكان , و يعتبر أهلُها أنّهم نخبةُ الأرض التي تحمل الحقيقة .
و هي لعبةٌ تعتمد على التأمّل ... لتحفيز النفس على اكتشاف الحقيقة و اليقين في القلب .
إنّها دين ...
و يسبغ هيرمان هيسه على هذه اللعبة و روّادها صبغة واقعيّة مقنعة , فثمّة في المجتمع من يعتبرها مجرّد لهو رخيص , وثمّة من يعتبر المنشغلين بها مجموعة جهلة مخادعين , و ثمّة من يراهم سحرة , و ثمّة من يتعلّم منهم و يرسل أولاده ليصبحوا مميّزين إليهم .
و لا يغفل هيرمان هيسه أن يرسل الكثير من الإشارات و النقد للواقع الاجتماعي السياسي في زمانه بلفتات و تلميحات ذكيّة .
كما أنّ تحليل للموسيقى الغربيّة و المقارنة بينها ساهمت في رفع قيمة الرواية كثيراً لدى النخبة الأوروبيّة , ما قد لا نعير هاهتماماً كثيراً في الترحمة العربيّة .
كما أنّ تحليله للنفس الإنسانيّة و تصويره للحالات الاستثنائيّة منها , و الكثير من الحكم المرتبطة بها و بالعلاقات بين البشر , و بالأخصّ - و هذه مهمّ و رئيسي- سايكولوجيا المنظومات الشموليّة المغلقة , التي تتبدّى معرفيّا هنا في مدرسة الكريات الزجاجيّة , هذا كلّه كان ذكيّاً
طبعاً الرواية لا تخلو من أن تكون مملّة في كثير من الأحيان , و من قال إنّ كلّ فكرةٍ ذكيّة يجب أن تكون روايتها ممتعة ؟! (less)

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Dec 29, 2008 Joe rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: top10

While Hesse's masterpiece has the same theme as Siddhartha, it's not the same short, simple work as that classic. Magister Ludi's inventive setting and method takes the basically unchanged storyline (gifted young man progressing, achieving, and finally discovering the true meaning of life), and creates a sort of historical biography of the protagonist.

One of the fun aspects of this work is The Glass Bead Game: he introduces an idea of representing ideas, mathematics, literature -- all knowledge...more

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Nov 16, 2012 Lona rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

(view spoiler)...more

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Apr 09, 2013 José-contemplates-Saturn's Aurora rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: german-lit

A good Tratactus on Society; on what distinguishes the normal ones from the elite ones.

In Castalia, the Elite (or the Order) pursues the Games of the Mind and its cultivation.An elite member renounces material wealth....and embraces poverty to become a Mandarin of the Mind.That is what Joseph Knecht did.

Ah!...at Castalia, they learn meditation (Hesse calls it,so appropriately,psychic hygiene)....and they're in the 23rd century.

Students of the Order,most often, renounce marriage; they are quite f...more

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Mar 12, 2008 Chloe rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, philosophy, 1001-list

I feel that I must open this review by stating that I am an unabashed fanboy of Hermann Hesse. I read everything that he had ever written at a whirlwind pace several years ago and still return to my favorites, Steppenwolf, Siddhartha and Demian, on a rotating yearly basis. That said, I have often heard that The Glass Bead Game is the magnum opus of Hesse's career. The purest expression of the themes that he had highlighted in his other works. If one were to read only one book by Hesse it should...more

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Apr 18, 2009 Robin Tell rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: reviewing-this-from-memory, literary

A tremendous disappointment, especially given the shimmering praise the book garners on all sides. I realize I’m at odds with the world in judging this book harshly, and I realize there may yet be some dimension of brilliance here that I’m just not seeing, but grant me this, it’s not for lack of trying. No other novel have I ever laid down without a backward glance within a few dozen pages of the end, certain at last that the great payoff for my eight hundred pages of patience was never going to...more A tremendous disappointment, especially given the shimmering praise the book garners on all sides. I realize I’m at odds with the world in judging this book harshly, and I realize there may yet be some dimension of brilliance here that I’m just not seeing, but grant me this, it’s not for lack of trying. No other novel have I ever laid down without a backward glance within a few dozen pages of the end, certain at last that the great payoff for my eight hundred pages of patience was never going to come. Here’s the big plot spoiler: nothing at all happens in this book. Not “nothing” in a loaded, John Cage way, just nothing, as when the author cannot deliver on his heady promises but publishes a book anyhow. I actually think it’s kind of important to call bullshit on all the approbation the book receives.

The two fundamental failures in the book are its main character and its central device, the Game itself. Both failures are drearily total, and each is all the more of a letdown for the breathless, never-ending clamor of hype both within and without the book’s pages.

The book starts right out with the declaration of Joseph Knecht’s pivotal importance, as the greatest player the Game has ever had, after whose career the history of the Game could never be the same. This is repeated ceaselessly throughout, in narrative asides. Meanwhile, we watch a pleasant, unassuming, talented young boy as he is handpicked by a professor, becomes a promising student whose great potential is remarked on by everyone he meets, and moves on to become a professor at a young age. He is indeed the youngest ever to become Magister Ludi, so at least that should earn him a mention in the history books. We are told, I think precisely once, that when he runs a game, it’s a good one. And then he gets old; along the way he meets some people and has some conversations. And then he dies in a swimming accident, and then we riffle through some of his personal papers until the book is over. Even his youthful writings, a strange little coda to his own life story, echo the pattern of fervent affirmation of the importance of a character—plainly himself in thin disguise, but now being described, just as fawningly, in his own voice—who goes on to do nothing much.

If in fact Knecht ever does anything of greater historical importance than being generally agreeable and good at what he does, it is not told to us. His life is a dull blank, undeserving of a biography at all, especially when at least three other characters go by who might actually have made good reading. Consider the strangely beatified Music Master, whose unexpectedly mystical transcendence of humanity Knecht merely witnesses when it comes along late in the book; that might be worthy of history. Or Knecht’s boyhood rival, a fiery young student who leaves the academic world and is reunited with Knecht later on one of the protagonist’s vanishingly rare ventures outside his ivory tower; his relationship to the Game is complex and troubled, but this barely ruffles the surface of Knecht’s complacency. Or there is the Sinophile who draws Knecht into a dialogue with Chinese history and literature, who gets to deliver the book’s most interesting challenge: when Knecht seeks his assistance in bringing the symbology of the I Ching into the vocabulary of the Game (much easier, you’d think, than it would have been to encapsulate French poetry or organic chemistry, since the I Ching is already encoded in a set of symbols easily printed on beads), his new mentor smiles and says you can build a garden in the world, but good luck fitting the entire world inside your garden. What’s this? A character within the Glass Bead Game dismissing the Game itself as far lesser than some other symbol system? Here, now, we have the potential for a meaty examination of this Game thing, which we deserve after putting up with so much talk about it. But Knecht just shrugs and goes about his business, and there will be no exposition upon either system. Because the Game is the other aching nullity at the heart of the book; there’s nothing there.

Hesse was inspired to write, beyond doubt, by the legitimately awesome notion of the Game. He imagines a symbol system within which all academic disciplines can be encoded, and can interact with each other, like a conversion chart for all fields of knowledge. Within this system, all concepts are encoded on beads, and it seems any of them can meaningfully combine with any other, such that wild new ideas emerge in the interplay. Here is the complex discourse wherein some kind of game, some competition or contest, can flourish, a game of all human learning, ranging like lightning from one discipline to another, referencing everything. Only a rarefied kind of academic could hope to understand such a game, let alone play it competitively. And the book is set within the cloistered academy where these super-scholars are trained.

It’s a sweeping, fascinating idea. It’s enough, without adding much of anything else, to drive a really memorable short story. But Hesse wanted it to crown a towering edifice, worthy of the sense of weight and magnitude that was, in fact, only the subject of the idea rather than its dimensions. By which I mean: it was a vague little slip of an idea about something vast and weighty, rather than actually being a vast and weighty idea. But Hesse fooled himself, and in his excitement he determined to write a very long novel, and that was a mistake from which there could be no recovery.

The fatal problem is that Hesse wilts instantly before the task of filling in any kind of detail about what the game was and how it worked. He hasn’t a clue. Inspired by his book, several people have gone on to design more or less playable games to match their impressions of the game he only alludes to—you can find them on the internet if you look around—but he never does. And the more ambient suspense the author generates by promising a brilliant reality, without ever showing even a flickering corner of it, the worse the bland filler starts to smell when it all gets stale. Mind you, I know it’s too much to ask for him to generate a practical game that lives up to his vision. But we don’t need him to do that. He need only sketch some part of it, fill in a detail here and a detail there that his characters can make part of their workaday conversations. He does need to do something, though, and it needs to pass muster as at least a tantalizing beginning of the thing itself. One example, perhaps, of a specific bead that represents something from the science of biology; what is written or drawn on the bead? What might be one instance of that bead’s being played in answer to a bead representing some architectural concept? That would be enough. He makes frequent mention of music—indeed the deification of music, common among writers, is so relentless here as to become a minor problem in its own right—but no sign of how it relates to any other field. Of course, a writer needs to be able to let the reader fill in empty spaces that the story only sketches with spare gestures. But the gestures need to be the beginning of something worthy.

In the event, that one game—”composed” by Knecht during his tenure as Top Official in Gameland—gives us just enough detail to make clear, after most of the book has gone by, that what’s actually happening here is a solo show. Knecht has composed a complex exercise in advance, and now the other players are just acting it out, perhaps filling in some details at their own discretion but abiding by a predetermined structure. Our one glimpse of the practical nature of the game has all the fanfare of a whoopee cushion. The Game isn’t actually a game. Nobody's playing. There are no objectives. It’s some sort of abstruse, very quiet performance art.

A long book full of portentious self-promotion but with nothing to say. An elaborately wrapped present with no gift inside. A big fat nothing. Not the nothing of the Bhuddist, who longs for nothing and seeks it, but that of the Wizard of Oz—a nothing that noisily proclaims itself to be everything.(less)

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Jun 17, 2012 Mientras Leo rated it 3 of 5 stars

"Es nuestro propósito consignar en este libro el escaso material biográfico que pudimos hallar acerca de Josef Knecht, el magister ludí Josephus, como se le llama en los archivos del “Juego de Abalorios”. No nos ciega el hecho de que este intento está de algún modo en contradicción con las leyes y los usos vigentes en la vida espiritual, o por lo menos parece estarlo. Porque precisamente la eliminación de lo individual, la inserción más acabada posible de la persona en la jerarquía de las autor...more "Es nuestro propósito consignar en este libro el escaso material biográfico que pudimos hallar acerca de Josef Knecht, el magister ludí Josephus, como se le llama en los archivos del “Juego de Abalorios”. No nos ciega el hecho de que este intento está de algún modo en contradicción con las leyes y los usos vigentes en la vida espiritual, o por lo menos parece estarlo. Porque precisamente la eliminación de lo individual, la inserción más acabada posible de la persona en la jerarquía de las autoridades educativas y de las ciencias, es uno de los supremos principios de nuestra vida del espíritu. Y este principio ha sido realizado también por larga tradición tan ampliamente que hoy es difícil en extremo, y en muchos casos aun del todo imposible, encontrar pormenores biográficos y psicológicos de individuos que han servido en forma sobresaliente a esta jerarquía; en muchísimos casos no se pueden establecer siquiera los nombres propios. En realidad, es una de las características de la vida espiritual de nuestra “provincia”, el que su organización jerárquica posea el ideal de lo anónimo y llegue muy cerca de la realización de este ideal."

Hay autores que nos vienen marcados por una o dos obras. Es el caso del autor que hoy traigo al blog, Herman Hesse, quien era para mí el autor de Siddartha hasta que descubrí que su obra más famosa era el libro que hoy traigo y me lancé a leerlo, eso sí, desde la precaución que viene siempre motivada por el reconocimiento manifiesto de una obra por las grandes voces de la crítica. Me llevé una sorpresa tanto por la temática como por el contenido. Hoy traigo a mi estantería virtual un juego, El juego de los abalorios.

Nos traslada el autor a Castalia, en el año 2.400. Comparten en este libro protagonismo, el juego que da nombre al libro al que se dedican los intelectuales de esta sociedad futurista y el maestro Josef Knecht, al que conocemos durante su vida y aprendizaje hasta convertirse en maestro.

Estamos ante la gran obra de Hess, nombrada durante su entrega del Premio Nobel de literatura y, sin embargo, dejada de lado frente a El lobo estepario, Demian o Shiddarta. Se publicó con grandes dificultades, más por empeño del editor que del propio autor viendo la luz apenas un puñado de ejemplares en su primera tirada que fueron considerados pequeños tesoros por aquellos que pudieron acceder a su lectura.

Lo primero que llama la atención es el ambiente futurista que recrea el autor, basándose en un arquetipo de sociedad que se basa en su propia satisfacción, sin desarrollar ningún tipo de sentimiento crítico hacia lo que les rodea. Resulta cuanto menos curioso que un autor de principios del siglo pasado reflejara de una forma tan vívida una sociedad que se aproxima mucho a la actual en la que los libros han perdido vigencia frente a los televisores que son, muchas veces, quienes hacen de niñeras de lo que serán los dirigentes del futuro. Crea El juego de los abalorios, que da nombre al libro, partiendo seguramente de la idea del ábaco y planteándolo como un sistema que combina todas las ciencias del conocimiento y que incentiva a pensar y descubrir nuevos puntos de vista de aquellos privilegiados que lo practican, siendo el eslabón más alto el del Maestro del juego. Con todo no deja de ser un juego empírico y para ello utiliza Hesse a su protagonista, un hombre que asciende poco a poco estudiando desde su infancia por la escalera social que va asimilada al juego y que, estando en lo más alto, no puede evitar comparar su vida con el mundo viendo que ha estado hasta ese momento en una utopía, no tanto irrealizable como imposible en la práctica, que le lleva a cambiar su concepto de la vida.

Entra de este modo Hesse en la crítica que tanto le gustaba, diferenciando al pueblo llano y a la orden encargada de legar a ser "Castaglios". Una crítica velada a la iglesia y a la sociedad en la que vivió el autor que muestra su fascinación por las artes y, sobre todo, por las ciencias. No olvidemos que refleja un mundo en el que la cultura ha dejado paso a las ciencias mostrando una utopía repetida mil veces en otras tantas obras y que, como ha de suceder con todo aquello que se nos antoja numérico y carente de sentimientos, termina abocado al fracaso. Una obra con un tinte pesimista en la que nos vemos empujados a valorar aquello que tenemos, sobre todo en momentos como este en que unos números que varían a cada instante en pantallas que recorren el mundo, parecen regir nuestras vidas sin que nadie nos haya pedido nuestra opinión. Una obra compleja, difícil de expresar en apenas un puñado de líneas, pero que tiene muchos puntos para debatir, el primero de todos muy básico:
Aquello que puede parecer perfecto sobre el papel, la teoría... ¿deja su perfección en el camino a la práctica?

Gracias(less)

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Oct 13, 2010 Clark rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book was a really incredible meditation on accomplishment, ambition, finding peace and the breach between intellectuals and reality. Hesse creates a reality in which an intellectual elite has created an entire society that lives above and beyond the rest of the world playing an incredibly esoteric game that seeks to connect all knowledge as a series of symbols. There were a number of things that struck me in this world. First of all, the connections to modern science, with its own increasin...more

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Feb 23, 2009 Patrick rated it 3 of 5 stars

I must admit that I am having a hell of a time digesting this one. I think I will get the negative stuff over with so I can move on to the the more positive aspects of this book. I am a big Hesse fan (esp. Siddhartha, Steppenwolf, and Narcissus & Goldmund) and I really wanted to give this one four stars instead of three. What stopped me was how much of a slog it ended up being. I have no problem with long books (or movies for that matter) but there needs to be some sort of justification for...more

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May 25, 2013 Nick Orvis rated it 4 of 5 stars

"The Glass Bead Game" is an engrossing but occasionally unfocused work, a fictional biography from the future. Its subject is Joseph Knecht, the Magister Ludi of the Glass Bead Game, a scholarly/aesthetic puzzle "played" (where playing is understood as constructing elaborate theses) by linking apparently disparate subjects. Hesse's prose is exquisite, and the story is deeply compelling in a strange, circular, quasi-religious way (Hesse's fascination with Asian mysticism is clearly evident, both...more

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Mar 01, 2013 John Martindale rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: classics, philosophy, audiobook

I am a huge fan of Hermann Hesse, though I can't say I liked the Glass Bead Game as much as some of his other works, still it was good.

This novel is written as if its a non-fiction biography of a great man. Hesse is so good at chronicling the journey of the soul.

I listen to part of this audiobook while delivering pizzas, and yeah, often while driving I'd be overcome with angst and impatience; due to painful slow drivers, long stop-lights, terrible pot holes, dead-ends, one ways, buses, trash tr...more

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Feb 28, 2013 Gwan rated it 1 of 5 stars

I simply hated The Glass Bead Game, all fifteen million pages of it.

The whole philosophy behind the book rubbed me up the wrong way - basically it's set in an alternative future where after the wars of the 20th century people turned their back on the worldly pursuit of scholarly fame and fortune to live entirely the life of the mind in an isolated scholarly province in what seems to be Germany. The cream of the intellectual crop are sent here as kids, separated from the outside world and their...more

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Nov 30, 2012 A.C. Fellows rated it 4 of 5 stars

Joseph Knecht rises through the ranks of the intellectual hierarchy of Castalia to the exalted state of Magister Ludi, or ‘Master of the Game’ – or, as we role-playing-gamers might say, ‘Game Master’ or ‘GM’. But his tragedy is that he never really becomes a GM: he is always a player. If I was running this novel as an RPG, it would be set in the Star Wars Universe, since the main personal dynamic of the novel is the Master/Disciple (aka Master/Padawan) relationship. Joseph Knecht rises through t...more Joseph Knecht rises through the ranks of the intellectual hierarchy of Castalia to the exalted state of Magister Ludi, or ‘Master of the Game’ – or, as we role-playing-gamers might say, ‘Game Master’ or ‘GM’. But his tragedy is that he never really becomes a GM: he is always a player. If I was running this novel as an RPG, it would be set in the Star Wars Universe, since the main personal dynamic of the novel is the Master/Disciple (aka Master/Padawan) relationship. Joseph Knecht rises through the hierarchy always as a Disciple, a player, defined by his relationship to a Master at a more exalted level of consciousness. Then when he reaches the top he does not quite know what to do, since he has no higher Master to follow; he can only become a Master in his own right by abandoning the Order altogether.
(view spoiler)

You can see how Joseph Knecht is a player, but not a GM, in the ‘Lives’ that form the final part of the novel. These are finely realised portraits of characters, but they would only work in a one-on-one RPG where the GM was pandering to the player and the player was the kind who wanted to grapple with difficult moral quandaries instead of going out and knocking orcs over the head. I know those sort of players are very rare. The stories also depend for their impact on the character making exactly the *right* choice when faced with their moral quandary, which players never do.
(view spoiler)

Some people think the book is too long, apparently, but as far as I was concerned it was too short. The time allotted to his tenure as Magister Ludi is short and the sense of Joseph Knecht struggling with his role so that his abnegation follows logically does not really emerge: which makes sense, I guess, since it is theoretically supposed to be his life imagined from the outside and chronicled, not his life lived.

The book is set in a semi-monastic state almost entirely bereft of female characters, so about halfway through I started trying to read it while mentally reversing the gender of all the characters and kept this up intermittently until the end. I can recommend this, it is great fun and lends a different flavour to the book. I am tempted to film scenes of the book in this gender-reversed form as SWTOR machinima. If I was not so busy with other projects I would probably do that.

The only thing that really bugged me was (view spoiler)

Oh, and the 'Poems of Joseph Knecht's Student Days' were very good, I thought.
(less)

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Nov 17, 2012 Danielle Tremblay rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: utopia

The Glass Bead Game is about a future society called Castalia in which the most highly regarded cultural institution, almost a religion, is the game of the title, in which players relate ideas to one another in a sort of cabalistic exercise but encompassing every field of human knowledge (but especially mathematics and music) rather than just scripture. The Game, however, has little connection to real life but operates in a sort of Platonic world of Forms, as the relations between ideas it estab...more

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Oct 06, 2012 Justin rated it 4 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I feel that any opinion that I have about The Glass Bead Game would be greatly enhanced by actually knowing something about the author and some of the historical references he made to music and literature throughout the book. However, I hope that by listening to Bach while reading it helped my thought process to commune with Hesse, Knecht and the spirit of the novel.

In general I enjoyed the book quite a bit. As is to be expected, the prose provided such clarity that even the long, seemingly unne...more

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Jul 24, 2012 Mikey Gee rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-many-times

Reading the reviews for this book I am surprised that so many readers are amazed by the science fiction aspect of Hesse's utopian future. They are in awe of the setting as if that was what the story was really about. Ray Bradbury is not about rocket ships and this book is not about the glass bead game or Castalia. This book (like all books) is about the person reading the book.

It is not an easy read. Its length is not prohibitive but the paragraphs are all dense and descriptive. If this were mo...more Reading the reviews for this book I am surprised that so many readers are amazed by the science fiction aspect of Hesse's utopian future. They are in awe of the setting as if that was what the story was really about. Ray Bradbury is not about rocket ships and this book is not about the glass bead game or Castalia. This book (like all books) is about the person reading the book.

It is not an easy read. Its length is not prohibitive but the paragraphs are all dense and descriptive. If this were most like a book in the Bible it would be either the Gospel of John or Deuteronomy, not because of its content but just its style. If you know any smug self important intellectuals this is a great book to test them against. Most likely it will crush them with its long paragraphs and near invisible conflict but if they manage to finish it (including the appendix) it will at least smooth some of their rough edges. Because the book is in many ways about the dangers and foolishness of being a smug, self important intellectual if they happen to finish and understand the book they will be less likely to have an inflated ego about it.

I had mentioned that the conflict is near invisible and this was Hesse's great literary achievement in the work. The Castalian setting idealizes a kind of inner harmony not unlike the idealized Medieval monastery but even more like the Chinese sage masters. In these ideals conflict is overcome by cheerful serenity rather than direct action, it is shed off like an old skin rather than overcome. This makes it difficult to identify, particularly to our Modern Western thinking but each chapter of Knetch's life can be understood as an overcoming of his natural inclination to retreat from the world of the mind to engage in the world. It is an ironic conflict in our world which is far from the dangers of a reflective life but a serious one all the same.

Much of the book is aided by a familiarity with the major players in Western philosophy and main tenants of Eastern thinking. Hegel, Aquinas and Nietszche in particularly are all throughout the book which in itself an amazingly contradictory selection of philosophers. From the East Confucius is the most explicit references but the meditation is more playful than religious.

Music is also an important element of the story and is lifted up as the ideal metaphor for the protagonist, a playful cooperative game which results in beauty rather than conflict. I am not particularly musical so have little insight into this but just note when I say music I mean nothing after Mozart.
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Jul 17, 2012 Mary Magdalene rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Mary by: Florin Zamfirescu, Sandrina

This book has had a great impact on me. It's one of those few books that made me love it deeply yet at the same time despise it entirely. It might sound surprising, especially since this is an unanimously loved and admired book -- even awarded with the Nobel prize; it might also seem awfully arrogant of me to compare my beliefs to the wisdom of a man like Hesse. But I have to. And I found many principles and ideas in this book, some of them only subtle insinuations, that I completely disagree wi...more

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Apr 23, 2012 Jim rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: good-foreign-books

I'm told I'm not allowed to call this book "pretentious hogwash", so I won't. I will say, however, that much of the book is beyond tedious to read and has a central concept that, to me at least, stretched credulity beyond breaking point. Consequently, I hated it.

So why did I have such a problem with the book?

Set in the future (the 25th Century), Hesse's book describes a world that has miraculously managed to stop fighting, watching cruddy TV, and listening to gossip as vicariously as it does now...more I'm told I'm not allowed to call this book "pretentious hogwash", so I won't. I will say, however, that much of the book is beyond tedious to read and has a central concept that, to me at least, stretched credulity beyond breaking point. Consequently, I hated it.

So why did I have such a problem with the book?

Set in the future (the 25th Century), Hesse's book describes a world that has miraculously managed to stop fighting, watching cruddy TV, and listening to gossip as vicariously as it does now. This world had wiped out all western religions except Catholicism, and somehow decided "we're going to live a better [i.e. more moral, more intellectual] life."

Into this experience, we see a game develop. It's part maths. It's part music. It's part art. It's part philosophy. It's part non-religious ideas of perfection, and it's protected by sort of "Glass Bead Game" playing priesthood (who aren't really priests because they're atheists, but who have all the convictions of the American "Moral Majority" and the doctrines of the Catholic Church).

Into this story steps Joseph Knecht, a man who becomes a "Magister Ludi" (a sort of archbishop for the game players). After which it becomes a sort of biography of this imaginary guy. He's a man so syrupy in his "goodness" that he'd give diabetes to those who've never eaten sugar. We see his rise up the order. His obtaining of the position, and how he acts (and what he comes to believe -which anyone with half a brain would have top him in about 5 seconds) once he obtains the position.

I'm sorry, but I found the book being syrupy. No one's that "perfect." Nothing can stop us being who we are, and yet we're expected to believe some dumb game where people meditate on where to put marbles on pieces of string (and can take days over it) came along and did just that.

Don't get me wrong, I can see the book's well written, it's just so sickly sweet over the general perfection of Knecht that I can feel myself slipping into a diabetic coma as we speak.(less)

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Dec 14, 2011 Roberta rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2008

Questo romanzo di Hesse rappresenta la sua reazione al nazismo. Articolato in tre parti (l’introduzione del curatore – che spiega l’origine, la storia e la funzione del Giuoco; la vita del protagonista, Joseph Knecht; gli scritti da lui lasciati) il libro affronta infatti la problematica del rapporto dell’intellettuale con il nazismo e più in generale con la storia. La soluzione di Hesse è proprio la creazione di un regno dello spirito (la Castalia) che si contrapponga alla barbarie del mondo “s...more

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Oct 24, 2011 Guy rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction-and-fantasy

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I had an antipathy towards Castalia and hence the book from the beginning. I have always thought that there was something suspect about heaven, and so does Joseph Knecht. The Glass Bead Game (GBG) is like angels sitting around and singing... beautiful, but ultimately sterile. Stasis and absolute hierarchy; rebels seen as flawed and undesirable. The world of the GBG is like heaven: perfect. But perfection and time are incompatible. Perfection and change are incompatible. And there's the story in...more I had an antipathy towards Castalia and hence the book from the beginning. I have always thought that there was something suspect about heaven, and so does Joseph Knecht. The Glass Bead Game (GBG) is like angels sitting around and singing... beautiful, but ultimately sterile. Stasis and absolute hierarchy; rebels seen as flawed and undesirable. The world of the GBG is like heaven: perfect. But perfection and time are incompatible. Perfection and change are incompatible. And there's the story in a nutshell.

The book invites being read as a religious parable (it is not perchance that the name of the main character is Joseph -- sterile "parent" of the Messiah). But "Knecht" means "servant", with the implication of unwilling servitude. And sympathy with Lucifer is expressed early. There is interesting complexity here....

Knecht's and the narrator's age is not just old, it is dead. Creation of art is forbidden, and the GBG does not change. The theoretical ability to express all possible knowledge does not mean that it will actually be done. Meditation is not doing. Often in the past men have believed that they knew everything... and they have always been wrong. I suspect the future will be no different.

The narrator is undermined from the outset: he frowns on individualism and praises subordination to the hierarchy, and then he writes a biography of an individual who does not subordinate himself. So, is this irony on the part of the narrator or the author? It seems to me that we are dealing here with authorial irony -- the narrator is too earnest and seemingly unaware of his flaws and inconsistencies. Not my favorite mode: I prefer my narrators to be somewhere between competent and omniscient....

The narrator writes from Knecht's future... how far is unclear. The root of Knecht's rebellion was his foresight that the Castalian "idyll" was threatened. And yet to judge by the narrator nothing has changed. Is there a gathering storm to which the narrator is blind, or did Knecht through his sacrifice avert the threats of his time, or was Knecht just wrong (unlikely, but an unavoidable alternative given the book's silence on this matter)? I understand Hesse's desire to provoke thought... but by giving no indication of any troubles either subsequent to Knecht and/or contemporaneous with the narrator he sort of undermines Knecht. Which I don't like, because I like Knecht.

Stephenson's Anathem is an homage to this book.

Maybe I just read it too late in life....(less)

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Sep 28, 2011 Katie rated it 5 of 5 stars

This may be my favorite Hesse book. Hesse sculpts a world that I've always wished to live in: An academic institution, or rather monastery, that instills in the student a love of beauty and truth (rather reminiscent of St. John's). A place where intellectual rigor is aimed at the classics texts but tempered through meditation excercises. Hesse also warns against the danger of such a place, as if to say that it represents only one half of man's soul. And so we are always drawn to the messiness of...more

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Jul 01, 2011 Cassandra Silva rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: classics

Hmmmm. This book was ponderously interesting. A world is created but ever so lightly as to leave much to the readers imagination. The glass bead game (unless I missed something) never seems to be played in epic battle proportions as described in this book, its never openly laid out other than just the basic idea. There is no real description of the differences that make up the world outside of what the main character is experiencing. Does that make sense? Its like you get this massive narrative...more Hmmmm. This book was ponderously interesting. A world is created but ever so lightly as to leave much to the readers imagination. The glass bead game (unless I missed something) never seems to be played in epic battle proportions as described in this book, its never openly laid out other than just the basic idea. There is no real description of the differences that make up the world outside of what the main character is experiencing. Does that make sense? Its like you get this massive narrative about this particular characters life that seems to have some sort of basic interesting plot line and yet the execution of that plot is so bizarre as to render it almost a side note. Its almost as if the plot isn't the point. Its the point behind the point. Get it? No its like uhhhhh. There is something else going on here. I think the author is trying to make statements about art and culture. He is makings statements about being on the outside of something you love and that is integrally part of yourself. Making a statement about manipulation? I don't honestly know. But the plot is obviously only hiding something and that much seems obvious, though it isn't "hit you in the face" obvious enough for the number of pages that went into the venture to actually discern if he is hiding one thing or many. I can see the relations to Siddhartha. I loved that and the ending with Ramma I thought was really well conceived although the entirety of the post humorous writings really threw me for a loop. I don't know it was like it had this epically amazing idea. The game itself is a beautiful and engaging idea, the world even is engaging but he focused nothing on it. Like I said it wasn't the point. The focus continually went back to the character. Perhaps "self" is the point? If someone felt like they really got this book I would love a discussion. Write me a message. The whole book felt like grasping to me. Maybe that was the point! Oh gosh, there are too many things this book could mean, maybe it is everything. Maybe this book contains the answers to the meaning of existence and I blew the exam.(less)

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Jun 21, 2011 Caroline Donaldson rated it 4 of 5 stars

One of my favourite books. In particular, the introduction is extraordinarily thought-provoking in anticipating the inter-connectedness of the world post-internet. It takes place at an unspecified date, centuries into the future. Hesse suggested that he imagined the book's narrator writing around the start of the 25th century. The setting is a fictional province of central Europe called Castalia, reserved by political decision for the life of the mind; technology and economic life are kept to a...more

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Jun 08, 2011 Sourabh Chatterji rated it 5 of 5 stars

What is the book all about-
The glass bead game is not a work of literature, It is a work on philosophy. It deals (like siddahrtha) with the most common but recurring philosophical conflicts between mind & matter, between worldiness & renunciation, between fact & truth. In dealing with such conflicts hesse tries to arrive at a compromise or rather a synthesis & harmony between the opposites.(In fact Unity of the opposites is one of the many underlying themes that the book deals wi...more What is the book all about-
The glass bead game is not a work of literature, It is a work on philosophy. It deals (like siddahrtha) with the most common but recurring philosophical conflicts between mind & matter, between worldiness & renunciation, between fact & truth. In dealing with such conflicts hesse tries to arrive at a compromise or rather a synthesis & harmony between the opposites.(In fact Unity of the opposites is one of the many underlying themes that the book deals with). And like other books of his he represents these two opposites through different characters .
First question that arises is "what is the glass bead game" after all.whenever we think about the cosmos , immediately into our mind comes the idea of the solar system with differnt planets rotating about the sun.They appear as glass beads or rather of whenever we think about the cosmos the entire universe apears to interspersed with beads of glasses(planets,stars, galaxies).These beads of glsses although they seem to be moving around chaotically ,are actually following certain rules.Scientific rules such as 'kepplers laws'or copernicus laws prove that.That is , in this chaos actually, there is a pattern.More so,this universe in the source and synthesis of all knowledge for whatever new knowledge a scientist or a sage is dicovering or experiencing ,all that knowledge exist in the universe 'a priori'.So when the author says that the glass bead game is the synthesis of all knowledge ,he means the cosmos . The term 'game' can be replaced with 'plan' or the scientific "laws" awhich the universe follows.
Castalia is the realm of the ideal mind, a part of the universe or the ultimate ,which contains all ts onknown knowledge which is inclined to "calmness" "order" discipline and sagacity duty conscience etc.Apart from facultiess such as mathematics music it also has the faculty which knows about he synthesis of all known filed of knowledge ie the glass bead game.Knetcht is the master of this game.Similarly other characters also represent other aspects of the mind and the world . For example pilinio represents the world . The interaction between pilinio & Knetcht represt the conflicts aforementioned.Tegalirius represents the most negative aspects of the mind thatis individuality and relenting to passions & that the departure of Knetcht(master of the game - that is who knows about the cosmic plan ,or who knows about synthesis of all knowledge) from castalia to the world represents the endavour as also the requirement of achieving that harmony of the opposites.And in this endavour lies the greatness of Hesse and his workbecause instead of writing an intellectual philosophical treatise appealing only to a select few, he made the endavour to deal with such a complex subjectin themost simple manner which appeals to all.
In my opinion Hesse supesedes kant and spinoza in these respects(less)

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Apr 26, 2011 David rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favourite-books

Some books have themes so big that they stand out from all the millions of books ever written. Magister Ludi, or the Glass Bead Game is such a book for me.
Herman Hesse wanted to write a story that involves the essential ideals of learning with a puzzle that asks the reader to get involved.
Education is seen by many as some kind of punishment, a prison for innocent children who should be out in the world playing games. Hesse presents an institution that has mystery like Hogwarts has for Harry Po...more

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Sep 20, 2010 Patrick Gibson rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: contemporary-literature

The ‘Game’ is the pinnacle of intelligence, wisdom and learning that the 23rd century Castalia has to offer. Students are plucked from their families and lives at a young age to become 'elite' pupils, gradually inducted into the Order and the Game to carry on the traditions and ceremonies of Castalia. The Order's purpose is two-fold: One, to protect the sanctity and accuracy of knowledge from the current time down to antiquity, and two, to showcase the talents and minds of the elite with dazzlin...more The ‘Game’ is the pinnacle of intelligence, wisdom and learning that the 23rd century Castalia has to offer. Students are plucked from their families and lives at a young age to become 'elite' pupils, gradually inducted into the Order and the Game to carry on the traditions and ceremonies of Castalia. The Order's purpose is two-fold: One, to protect the sanctity and accuracy of knowledge from the current time down to antiquity, and two, to showcase the talents and minds of the elite with dazzling, lengthy Glass Bead Games.
But there is a problem, and only Joseph Knecht, the Magister Ludi - Master of the Game and hero of the story - can see it. The Glass Bead Game, while being the summit of intellectual achievement, has no creativity, no ability to move beyond what it currently is. Philosophy, music, art, mathematics, sciences: all these are condensed into symbols representing, say, a piece by Bach or a mathematical equation. However, no new symbols are allowed, or if they are, the process is so mired in bureaucracy that it may as well be impossible.
We follow Joseph from childhood to Magister Ludi, and we learn through him what Castalia is and is capable of. A supreme intellect, his life culminates not in the appointment as Magister Ludi - as so many other great player's would consider it to be - but rather with his famous 'circular letter', addressed to the other members of the Board, highlighting his concerns with the Glass Bead Game.
The plot of the book is minimal, and we are all but told it at the very beginning. Rather, we are invited to take a look at this could be-world of Hesse's. Castalia, however, is not the entirety of the world, as much as the inhabitants would like to think. No, they are 'merely' an enclosed, fully-supported (but not self-supported) university like establishment, churning out works that may or may not have any real use outside of their walls.
At first, the book mercilessly attacks our time, with its commercialism, its way of turning men intelligent in one field into minor celebrities in another, its way of asking movie stars or musicians to comment on the state of the world even though there talents lie elsewhere, its way of putting wealth above all. It seems at times as though Hesse was caricaturing his own time, but the frightening thing is, in 2010, we have become this caricature. After this attack, the beauty of Castalia is revealed, as explained above. But then, as Joseph Knecht learns and discovers and becomes Magister Ludi, we learn that Castalia is not so important, not so wonderful, not so essential as first presented. It is difficult for him to accept this, but easier for us.
In the end, no solution is given. Hesse emphatically states that our present time is too shallow to be the answer, but so is the staid environment of Castalia. It is worth noticing that no character beyond Knecht has a personality; even his is poor. Females do not play a part, and there is no conflict. Is Hesse saying that a world without creativity becomes a lifeless, boring world capable of beauty but incapable of appreciation of this beauty?
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Sep 05, 2010 David rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: european-literature

Tedium, tedium, tedium....the Germans cannot do satire, parody, or the comic novel...not in the national character. Where's the ironic distance...the affected pauses, the nudge, the wink???? The Teutonic character is for philosophy, social realism, even fabulism (of a sort) but writing a satirical novel about the over-weening gravitas of an academic biographer and the fellow's subject....it's supposed to be funny but gets nowhere close to being this.

When I was a teenager, mid-teens, I got heavil...more

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Mar 28, 2010 Nick rated it 4 of 5 stars

Feel like I'll almost certainly be reading this again several times. Perhaps not just yet, but someday. And also reading more by Hesse.

Some collected quotes or so. I suppose you might consider it a little bit of a spoiler, if you pay attention.

22: They assiduously learned to drive automobiles, to play difficult card games and lose themselves in crossword puzzles - or they faced death, fear, pain, and hunger almost without defenses, could no longer accept the consolations of the churches, and cou...more

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About Hermann Hesse

Hermann Hesse was a German-Swiss poet, novelist, and painter. In 1946, he received the Nobel Prize in Literature. His best known works include Steppenwolf, Siddhartha, and The Glass Bead Game (also known as Magister Ludi) which explore an individual's search for spirituality outside society.

Hesse was born in the Black Forest town of Calw to a Christian missionary family. Both of his parents served...more

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Quotes from The Glass Bead Game

“What you call passion is not a spiritual force, but friction between the soul and the outside world. Where passion dominates, that does not signify the presence of greater desire and ambition, but rather the misdirection of these qualities toward and isolated and false goal, with a consequent tension and sultriness in the atmosphere. Those who direct the maximum force of their desires toward the center, toward true being, toward perfection, seem quieter than the passionate souls because the flame of their fervor cannot always be seen. In argument, for example, they will not shout or wave their arms. But, I assure you, they are nevertheless, burning with subdued fires.” — 51 people liked it

“Oh, if only it were possible to find understanding,” Joseph exclaimed. “If only there were a dogma to believe in. Everything is contradictory, everything tangential; there are no certainties anywhere. Everything can be interpreted one way and then again interpreted in the opposite sense. The whole of world history can be explained as development and progress and can also be seen as nothing but decadence and meaninglessness. Isn’t there any truth? Is there no real and valid doctrine?”

The master had never heard him speak so fervently. He walked on in silence for a little, then said: “There is truth, my boy. But the doctrine you desire, absolute, perfect dogma that alone provides wisdom, does not exist. Nor should you long for a perfect doctrine, my friend. Rather, you should long for the perfection of yourself. The deity is within you, not in ideas and books. Truth is lived, not taught. Be prepared for conflicts, Joseph Knecht - I can see that they already have begun.” — 26 people liked it

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