Goodreads Mobile | see what your friends are reading

May 15, 2011

Erik rated it:

At the time of reading, this was my favorite Hesse book and, indeed, it is probably his quintessential novel, the one to recommend for anyone wanting to check him out. I have given away copies of it for this purpose to several persons over the years.

Contrary to the description in Wikipedia, I read the novel from the perspective of Goldmund being lost and then found. Seduced by the snares of the world, he leaves the peace of the monastic life for a life of trial and error, ultimatel More...

1 comment like (12 people liked it)

May 13, 2010

Lorenzo rated it:

When I was a child my parents used to punish me for my bad actions in their own way: I often had the prohibition of reading for a week.
Of course I wasn't so nerd at that time and together with reading there could be no tv, no bmx rides with friends, no late night awake and all sorts of "normal" don'ts.
But the worst one was definitely the "no reading week".

Later in my teenage years, I remember how my mum was very glad about my reading activity, but not More...

3 comments like (5 people liked it)

Dec 30, 2009

Salma rated it:

رواية جميلة و عميقة أخرى من روائع هرمان هسه...
نرسيس أستاذ غولدموند و صديقه في الدير... نرسيس ينفذ لأعماق الروح و رأى أن تلميذه غولدموند ذا روح شاعر حرة و لا ينبغي أن يعيش حياة الرهبان مثله... و هكذا يحثه لينطلق و يبحث عن طريقه عبر الحياة، فينطلق و يعيش حياة متشرد فاسق منغمس بالمتع الدنيوية... بينما يتابع نرسيس في طريق الفكر المجرد و حياة الدير الصارمة...
ثم بعد سنوات طوال يلتقيان... على اختلاف طريقيهما و على اختلاف كل منهما ما يمثله يخلصان لنفس النتيجة تقريبا...
مع أن هسه رجح كف More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jul 06, 2009

Hans rated it:

Can I just say that I absolutely love Hermann Hesse. For me his words speak directly to my soul. I have never exclusively followed an author except Hesse. He is absolutely brilliant and his works are so nuanced to the point where they only mean anything to the reader unless they can relate in some profound way. I have now finished all of his major works and I must say "bravo".

All of his books are about the turmoil and duality of the human soul. He speaks my language. More...

2 comments like (5 people liked it)

May 30, 2007

Michael rated it:

This is a book I picked up and began to read several times. Finally after reading several other Hesse novels and craving more I seriously opened this book which after getting through a tedious groundlaying first chapter, I was swept up into the heartbreaking story of the two friends that met in a monastery during the medieval times. Narcissus, was destined to be a monk from the beginning, knowing as a very young man that he was resigned to live a monastic life filled with religion and ritual. Go More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Jul 08, 2008

David rated it:

Great book, incredibly sad and so beautifully written. Really, the book could have been called Goldmund and his friend Narcissus. It focuses so much more on Goldmund's travels through the world and through many women (the book is a huge turn on). It's a journey of the senses and experience, and along the way he encounters death and is forced to examine the transitory nature of life, all life, forcing him to embrace it much more fully.

It's a quick and easy read I found, something More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Wavegenerator rated it:

Hesse has always been one of my favorites, and it is difficult to rank the books in terms of quality, but this one is near the top. It is set in the middle ages and concerns two friends, one of whom chooses the chaste religious path through life, becoming a monk, and the other who chooses the worldly path of seeking money, sexual pleasure and personal freedom. All of Hesse's books concern this sort of dichotomy in the individual, and here he breaks the components into two different characters More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Feb 07, 2009

Ari rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 17, 2012

Rich rated it:

Inspired by Narcissus and Goldmund (01/16/12):

The greatest thing about life is mystery. All the great things in life have mystery.

Life itself, love and romance, dreams, and purpose.

Mystery leads to discovery. Discovery leads to enlightenment. Discovery is empowering and gives purpose.

This is my meaning of life right now. To enjoy the mystery. To discover. To ebb and flow and think and grow. To love alive.

Some people are borne fro More...

0 comments like

Jun 08, 2011

Conroywt rated it:

Reading Hesse is a really pleasant thing to do. In this novel his prose is almost musically strung together from line to line, paragraph to paragraph and the sentence structure is delightfully simple at times, dense at others but fairly balanced throughout. Each paragraph made me want to read the next. Equally as pleasing is the subject matter he approaches. Hesse is completely unafraid to address the largest of questions that go hand and hand with mortality of all life and yet does it in a More...

0 comments like

May 02, 2011

Leonard rated it:

Goldmund could not fit into the Mariabronn Monastery anymore than a square peg could fit into a round hole and soon left the cloister for the vagrant life. By sleeping in the woods, killing Viktor the thief, meeting the plague, studying under Meister Niklaus and romancing with Lydia and Julie, Lene and Agnes, he explored the sensual life as an artist. When Agnes rejected the old man that he was, he returned to the monastery to meet his friend and mentor Narziss before leaving the world.

More...

0 comments like

Apr 19, 2011

Stephen rated it:

I'm not going to make any pretense of conducting criticisms of this book, and I pursue nothing else other than to write extensively about the experience I've lived through reading it and what is immediate of my personal growth. The reason for this is I find this novel by Hesse, the second of his I've read, to be among those works, lacking in today's fiction, that deserves to be read as a work in progress, a work to be lived more than anything else there is, one which to say something about it More...

3 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 25, 2011

Elsje rated it:

Mijn leraar Duits van de middelbare school liet bij mij zo'n afkeer voor de Duitse taal en literatuur achter dat ik, nadat ik dat vak had laten vallen, nooit meer ook maar een woord in die taal of van een schrijver uit dat taalgebied las. Wat jammer! Want daardoor wist ik niet eens dat er zoiets moois te lezen is als Narziss en Goldmund van Hermann Hesse. Dankzij de meer dan warme aanbeveling van Gufler las ik dat onlangs.

Het verhaal
De jongen Goldmund wordt door zijn vader naar ee More...

0 comments like

Dec 04, 2010

Nick rated it:

Hesse is 2/2 for me so far (The Glass Bead Game).

I guess it's not much of a surprise I see myself closer to Narcissus than Goldmund, though lacking the powerful insight.

Somebody maybe I'll sit down and try to carefully think about them, analyze them, or something. For now, I seem to be quite content to pull out quotes (lots of):

42: I call a man awake who knows in his conscious reason his innermost unreasonable force, drives, and weaknesses and knows how to deal with More...

0 comments like

Nov 02, 2010

Monique rated it:

Please, give me back the hours devoted to reading this book which, had it not been this month's selection for my book group, would have been thrown against a wall long ago.
The premise was interesting enough, i.e., two young men in medieval Germany, one a monk, the other an artist, used to show the dichotomy between intellect/art; Apollo/Dionysus; father/mother. We get it, mostly because we are beat over the head with the "philosophy". What should have been an essay or, perhaps, a More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Feb 24, 2010

Patrick rated it:

If you have a penchant for poetic language, a love for new experiences, and a sensitivity to life's struggles, you will find hope and deep beauty in this story. I recommend finding a place of solitude and spiritual transcendence before delving into this as you will inevitably flip back to the beginning once finished and have to read it again.

“If I know what love is, it is because of you.

It is not our purpose to become each other; it is to recognize each other, to learn to More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jan 07, 2010

مريم rated it:

نارتسیس و گلدموند
کتابی که اینقدر از خوندنش لذت بردم که واقعاً نمی دونم چطوری باید توضیحش بدم. شاید کتابی باشه که بد نباشه هرکسی بخوندش. شاید با خوندنش راه زندگی خیلی ها تغییر کنه. شاید با خیلی از شک و تردید های خودشون کنار بیان و بتونن جسارت تغییر و مواجه شدن با اون رو در خودشون ایجاد کنند...
نارتسیس و گلدموند کتابی بود که برای من همین نقش رو ایفا کرد. یه روزگاری با خوندن ماهی سیاه کوچولو و بعدتر انجمن شاعران مرده خط سرنوشتم تغییر کرد و جدی تر شد، و الان هم این کتاب باعث شد گلدموند د More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Jan 04, 2010

Kitty rated it:

I may have read this over 40 years ago, but read this over Christmas before passing it on to my son.
Goldmund's search, his exploration of being in the world, survival and witnessing of horrors is as apropos to the human condition today as it was over a hundred years ago. I was particularly drawn by the description of emptiness he suffers after creating art . Both his statue of St. John and his big work at the cloister -- and the reflection about how what might have made him happy, workin More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 08, 2009

Mazel rated it:

C'est dans l'Allemagne du Moyen Age qu'Hermann Hesse, prix Nobel de Littérature, a situé l'histoire du moine Narcisse et de Goldmund, enfant très doué qu'on lui a confié et auquel il s'attache. Il sent que sa vocation n'est pas le cloître et l'aide à choisir sa voie. C'est alors pour Goldmund la vie errante, les aventures galantes ; il se décide, par sagesse, à devenir sculpteur : l'art sera une façon de chercher le beau.

Philosophe autant que poète et romancier, Hermann Hesse aspire More...

0 comments like

Jun 06, 2009

Carrie rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like

Jan 27, 2012

Roger rated it:

Like all of Hesse’s now classic novels, Narcissus and Goldmund investigates the inner-voice. Through the competing souls of the two title characters, a teacher and a student, Narcissus and Goldmund respectively, Hesse shows how the voice within takes control and guides an individual. As much a story of the destiny of two men, the novel presents the idea that humans are capable of awakening to instincts that guide them towards fulfilling more than they ever imagined. The courage and discipline to More...

0 comments like

Apr 09, 2009

Samuel rated it:

The central theme is one that permeates literature : the mother/father dichotomy. It was seen in the Greek plays, notably in the Oresteian Trilogy, and, more pertinently, it was seen, in another form, in the philosophical work of Nietzsche. He wrote, instead, about the Dionysian/Apollonian dichotomy, which is nearly identical, but not quite, to the mother/father dichotomy presented in N&G.

I refuse to spoil the book. None of my reviews will ever do such a thing. Let me just say that t More...

0 comments like

Apr 20, 2011

Nathan rated it:

From a serious Hermann Hesse fan, I very much recommend Narcissus and Goldmund. I found it very thoughtful and deep.
One might notice that the book itself is rather lengthy, but although it takes a little bit longer to read, it was so, so very worth it.
It mainly follows the story of Goldmund's life, and in its detailed description of his life, complete with his death, the story leaves readers with a sense of fufullment, a sense of being both captivated and rewarded by H More...

0 comments like

Jul 16, 2011

Maria rated it:

This is the story of 2 medieval men, one a young student, the other a novice monk, living in a European cloistered abbey, separating, then coming together again, written in a soothing, maybe overly florid style -- but I don't presume to criticize Hermann Hesse. Hesse continues the philosophy of his earlier books (Siddhartha and Steppenwolf are both more powerful than this one, in my opinion) and if you are Hesse lovers, this is worthwhile.

The searching young artist, Goldmund, repr More...

3 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 05, 2010

Rebecca rated it:

Perhaps this book is interesting as an example of the dichotomization of body/mind, angel/whore, ascete/wayfarer. Put the dicktalk aside (which is no small task here) and you still have an enormous vine from which to swing back and forth from pole to pole. At best woman is subject here, at worst she so thoroughly blends into the background she's invisible. More than bleak considering this is a meditation on the roles of the artist and thinker (and never the twain shall meet mind you) in a modern More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Feb 19, 2009

Pats rated it:

While it's unfair to judge this book just yet, these are a couple of my preliminary thoughts:

The setting of this novel nearly scared me away from reading it at all. A story about a monk and his pupil in medieval Germany is hardly my cup of tea. And to be honest, I cringe a little each time a knight is mentioned. So reading it at all is almost an ascetic act in itself. Like molehair rubbing at my raw flesh.

It only gets worse when Goldmund's rumspringa (essentially), turn More...

0 comments like

Mar 05, 2011

Arnon rated it:

A book where nothing really happens. Goldmund walks through life without ever actually doing anything. He's sensitive and women love him for some reason... that's about it. The only person he cares for, for some strange reason, is his "soul friend" Narziss; a friendship based on... i'm not really sure, it's never really explained (apart from maybe some form of physical attraction), They have nothing in common.

Throughout the whole book I never once felt myself caring what wi More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Dec 29, 2010

Andy rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like

Jun 18, 2008

Erika rated it:

This is the only book I've read by Hesse. I've heard great things about his more famous "Sidhartha". This novel was slow at first for me. However, I did like that it took the reader through the middle ages and the plague. I haven't read much from that time period. I also liked its philosophical bent. At times it got a bit heady and definately comes from a more male perspective. Lots of great sex scenes though!

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Sep 09, 2010

Gal rated it:

The book conveys the artist's struggle between the materialqsensual world and that of the spirit world. This struggle is conveyed by a story of two friends in medieval Germany; one is a monk - Narziss, who eventually becomes the head of the monestary he's in. The other, is an artist, Goldmund - who starts as a young student at Narziss's monestary, but then leaves the monastary, wanders the country for years, and becomes an artist. He is forever inspired by the "Great Mother", an abstra More...

0 comments like