Written 6-1-2022
After reading Steppenwolf, I was interested in what else Hesse had to say. And since so much of his story telling centered around these spiritual coming of age stories, I figured traveling back in time to an earlier work of his would give me a fuller sense of Hesse’s sense of rebirth. I gravitated toward Demian for one reason or another and looking back now it seems like a good first or second Hesse novel. Where Steppenwolf is autobiographical of Hesse’s later married life, Demian is an autobiographical of Hesse’s early life and is clearly more juvenile in several aspects. Stylistically it feels a little bit more disjointed and the ending is startlingly political, but overall it tells a more grounded story.
Once again the story follows Emil Sinclair through his youth and spiritual development, this time with more central focus on the spiritual mentor and the role they play in one’s life. The story immediately presents a more tender tone. Even before the protagonist’s coming of age his disposition is such that he’s deeply sensitive to the mundane realities of being a schoolboy. His story of a bully is at once a vulnerable statement, in both Hesse and Emil’s perspective, and the first time Demian is introduced. Demian is a classmate that seems to have an otherworldly sense of things. Things come easy for him and the daily classwork, which Emil has been told has great importance, doesn’t worry Demian in the slightest. Demian ends up mentoring Emil, teaching him what things really have importance in the world (the symbolic, the esoteric, the personal, experience).
On a spiritual level Demian feels like a stronger, clearer work. On most every other level Demian lacks some of the pazazz that Steppenwolf has. You get the feeling that while writing Demian Hesse had a very specific spirituality, particularly eastern spirituality, in mind. Steppenwolf however feels like a true articulation of what you get with a spicy 20th century mix of eastern mysticism and western art. Demian is not completely unlike Goethe’s bildungsroman, but feels refined, distilled, somehow off the walls but also deadly serious, penetrating something ultimately more interesting and more important than what 99% of authors spend their time talking about while trying to arrive where Hesse seems to live absolutely.