Magister Ludi

I'm a big fan of Hesse and this was the sixth book of his I've read. I'll remember it as one of the most profound, original and idiosyncratic of this great author's impressive canon. Initially though I struggled and my patience was tested. In fact it wasn't until perhaps halfway through the book that The Glass Bead Game really started to lure me in and work its unique charms on me as a reader. There are plenty of other reviews on this site that elaborate and comment upon the plot, the protagonists and the themes of this book; I won't rehash any of that. But I will recommend to anyone - particularly fans of Hesse's other works - that they have a go at and persist with The Glass Bead Game. You will reach the end and reflect on a literary experience quite unlike any other. The whole concept of the story is surely as fresh and original today as it was when it first appeared. Architecturally it is as sublime as the poetic prose for which Hesse will always remain a cult favourite. Few authors can write about the human condition with quite the same elegance, insight and aching beauty. The way all of these traits converge as he describes Joseph Knecht's last days is simply stunning. Ultimately I was so deeply moved that I feel almost ashamed of my impatience at the beginning. I am so glad I persisted, and I suspect you will be too.

This book is to Hesse as "The Brothers Karamazov" is to Dostoevsky. Throughout it are the same ideas that have been put forth in earlier works, often with similar characters, but with a fuller and more articulate expression than before. Like Dostoevsky, he finally figured out how to say *everything* he had to say in one volume. So it comes as no surprise that those only concerned with certain aspects (particularly the more spiritual ones) of Hesse's writing would find it disjointed and tedious. If you want to read more of Hesse's stories about tormented and/or confused souls looking for meaning in the world, this isn't your book - go reread Damien and Steppenwolf. This book has that esoteric search, but its main character, Joseph Knecht, pursues this search as a curiousity and not out of some desperate need. I'm sure that's why several people seem to find him lacking compared to other Hesse protagonists - they're expecting a conflict in him that isn't there.As I read these other reviews I find it fascinating that everyone seems to come away from the book with such different things that they were struck with. In my case, this was the socio-political commentary. Through this book, Hesse comments on our own time and on a fictional opposite to it, thoroughly exposing the flaws in both. I remember most distinctly Knecht's letter of resignation from Magister Ludi, where he tells his colleagues that although they understand the importance of their society's existence, they made the fatal mistake of not educating the people who support them. That they cannot take the existence of what they have for granted, for the day would eventually come when all they built would be dismantled. Perhaps this was because I read this book when I was in an institution that resembled much of what Hesse wrote about, and exactly when Congress cut the NEA.Reading this book changed my view of the world most in that it changed my expectations of it. More to the point, I abandoned my expectations. I am much more apt to let other people be themselves. To explain how or why would take far too long, suffice it to say that there is more to this book than a pursuit for spiritual meaning or a balance of intellectual and physical need, but also balance on many other levels, and Hesse explores all of them in his classic manner - first by their disparity, then by their eventual unity. A stunning conclusion to the career of one the greatest writers of all time.

I just read this book and it was one of the best books I've ever read. The preface to my edition compared it to Thomas Mann's "Dr Faustus (my favorite Mann)- which i found to be very true. I love Hesse but this is the only one of his books that was on the level of Mann for me. "Goldmund and Narcissus" and especially "Stepanwolf" also are excellent. Magister Ludi has a lot in common with the character Goldmund. This book has the intellectual incisive prose that I like so much in Mann - the mind and motivation are clearly written out, not just suggested.The book follows the life of a great scholar from grade school to death. What distinguishes him is he has a great heart/sense of morality along with his genius. You follow his evolution as a person throughout the story. The story is set somewhere around 2500 AD but theres no indication that technology has advanced since the 1940's - or that life socially is much different...the emphasis is on the political situation as it relates to Knecht's scholarly order. Since there the order is celebate like the 19C Oxford scholars there are no female characters of consequence - so you see a lot of male relationships in all different shades. Hesse lets you know as much about the game as he can and still do it justice...the game is supposed to be one of the supreme human achievements so he couldnt invent it fully fleshed out for the purposes of a novel. Magister Ludi is Joseph Knecht's title: he is Master of the Game. He's on the highest board which includes a Music Master and Master of Meditation. The climax of the book is a discussion Knecht has to have with the Master of Meditation/President of the Board of Educators to justify a momentous life changing decision he makes. I reread very few classics (I plan on rereading the major Mann and Doestoyevsky books) but this is one I would reread: it's beautiful. If you loved "Doctor Faustus" or "Goldmund and Narcissus" you most likely love this one.

First: From a prose point of view, I found the first 50 to 100 pages of this translation to be very difficult going. More astute readers would probably pick up on the subtle humor (Ziolkowski mentions it in his introduction) but I found it dry and tough going. I mention this because I've run into a number of people who say, "I really wanted to like it, but I couldn't even make it past the first 50 pages!" If you find this to be the case, just grin and bear it: Know that after the first 100 pages the book picks up considerably in pace.I won't comment on the book's philosophical corollaries or references, since others better versed in such things have already done so, better than I could.Rather, one of the aspects of the book that I found particularly compelling is the Game itself and the ideas behind it.The Glass Bead Game, as Hesse describes it, is a meditation, seemingly both competitive and collaborative, on different fields of knowledge, where the point is to take concepts from otherwise disparate disciplines and associate them in creative, profound ways -- finding a pattern shared rhythmically by a piece of Baroque music and spatially by ancient Chinese architecture, say.An observation I've made over time is that of all the people I know, those that I would say are possessed by genius all share a common trait, the ability, to use the cliche, to "Think Outside the Box." To realize new, previously unseen associations between things is a quality of a great mind, and here Hesse acknowledges the value of this talent, elevating it even to an artform (though I suppose the Castalian players in the novel would firmly call it "post-art".)The analogy I make is to 2D math: Consider a point in space, represented in either Cartesian or polar coordinates. Each representation is as valid as the other, but each representation, makes different analyses easier and others harder.Another good analogy is the Windows 98/2000/XP explorer window: the window displays a list of files, with a number of columns of various information. You can click a column header to sort the list by that information. A given sort makes certain things easier, and others harder. If I sort by file size, I can easily find the largest file. If I sort by name, I can easily find a file beginning with the letter 'C'.The idea of the Game is, essentially, to find different "sort columns" -- to find different ways to slice knowledge to compare it and examine it and learn from it.The fascination of *Glass Bead Game* was that, for me, it began to formalize the idea of meta-knowledge -- that is, how we think about what we know. There's probably tons of psychology literature about this phenomenon, learning theory, or whatnot, but Hesse manages to incorporate it not into a dissertation on the Game, but on a decidedly artistic book that revolves around the Game. What talent, to so eloquently present such a profound idea as merely one aspect of a larger work of art!It took me about a month to