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The Glass Bead Game

Hermann Hesse,

Richard Winston (Translator),

Clara Winston (Translator),

Theodore Ziolkowski (Foreword)

Start date: July 1, 2022

Finish date: September 30, 2022

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What Members Thought

Nov 05, 2013 Laura rated it really liked it

Shelves: read-2013, 1001-books-you-must-read-before-you, german-literature, audio-books, science-fiction

From BBC Radio 4 - Classical Serial:

Joseph Knecht is a rising star in the Castalian Order, a band of elite intellectuals who live a closeted life of study and Glass Bead Game playing. But Joseph's elevation to one of the highest and most respected ranks of the Order coincides with a crisis of conscience, as his ever deepening doubts about this idealistic and sanitised society threaten to topple its very foundations.

Joseph Knecht is singled out from an early age as one of the Castalian elite. As ...more

6 likes · Like · see review

Feb 16, 2019 Karen rated it really liked it

Shelves: 1001

3.5 stars. I have read several books by Hermann Hesse, and although I may never really completely satisfied with the endings, I enjoy the journey.

The Glass Bead Game is really a biography of a fictional character set in a fictional country and according to Hesse set in the future (25th century), Although, he does not describe this future at all, except to say after the age of terrible wars. The province of Castalia was set up an order of men (no women) to bring about an aristocracy of intellect ...more

1 like · Like · see review