/lit/ - Literature

Could'nt relate to Harry Haller very much, most of the time he either came of as annoying, prepotent or just unrelatable. The most relatable thing was actually the Steppenwolf treatise, i also like this as a stylistic device, from what i've read in the original first print it was in a different color to present it as distinctly seperate. Apart from some of that, i couldn't quite get my hand on what was supposed to be the big deal. Themes of alienation and imcompatibility to society have been better handled elsewhere, Hesse also takes himself way too seriously. The alienated, intellectual, unable AND unwilling to fit in and yet yearning for it however serious, always has an element of ridicilousness or comicality. However righteous his feelings, he is also a special snowflake. Hesse fails to capture or understand this. Also the ending was insane: The main point in Hallers healing is that he is cured by a series of random sexual encounters. He basically fucks every women and girl he ever missed out on and recoveres through it in a fantasy or intoxicated dream, or so is implied. Or to put it differently: I dont care about a protagonist who lets out in the end that apparently his only problem was that he couldn't get laid.