2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25
The Glass Bead Game is the last and main book of the German writer Hermann Hesse. It was published in 1943 by a Zurich publishing house. And in 1946, Hesse received the Nobel Prize in Literature, perhaps thanks to the book The Glass Bead Game. The summary of the work is as follows: the action takes place in the future, the narration is conducted on behalf of a fictional historian who is working on the biography of the protagonist of the novel, Josef Knecht, the Game Master.
Game Master is a title given to the protagonist who teaches specially selected, talented, elite descendants of European society in a specially designated educational institution located in the province of the fictional country of Castalia. The name of the country clearly echoes the word "caste", which is the teachers and students of the school. The main subject of this educational institution is the glass beads game, which includesa mixture of science and art.
To a large extent, Castalia, invented by Hesse, echoes many other works whose authors were fond of thoughts of utopia. But Hesse subsumes under his myth the idea of the spiritual and intellectual end of European thought, in a sense, of the "twilight of the gods." And we accept the creation of Castalia as a necessity.
Hesse describes the spiritual catastrophe that befell industrial Europe, in which all spiritual and creative life ceased. And vital issues such as economics, politics, philosophy and religion began to be judged by people incompetent in these matters.
Many different people remember "The Glass Bead Game". Readers' feedback tells us that Hesse's novel is not a very subtle hint to the modern elite that they are engaged in all sorts of nonsense that will lead society to collapse.
So, the Glass Bead Game. The summary of the novel is as follows: the protagonist Josef Knecht, having begun his studies at the Castalian school, acquires a friend named Plinio Designori, with whom they have long polemical conversations. In these disputes, Designori tries to convince Knecht that he considers it unviable to try to preserve science, culture and art, as well as the education system of the elite in the closed educational institutions of Castalia.
The names of the main characters speak for themselves "Knecht" - servant, "Designori" - seigneur. Probably, they were not chosen by Hesse by chance, since he considers the position defended by Designori to be correct. Designori leaves Castalia to live a "real life" in a "realworld.”
Knecht, who successfully completed his studies, was called to lead the school of Castalia. One day he decides to start teaching with his friend's son, comes to him and, having stayed for a short time, dies, leaving us a collection of poems and stories of his composition.
The question that Hesse asks throughout the story can be formulated as follows: "Is not all science and art, all the spiritual daring of mankind a simple game of glass?".
In the novel, Hesse asks the question of what will happen to art in a bourgeois society that is deeply hostile to any creativity? The death of the protagonist shows us that people like Knecht have no place among ordinary individuals.
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