/lit/ - Literature

Well no fucking shit, it's basically the requiem of German culture. Nobody seems to get this.

It is not pretentious. You should look up the meaning of the word and maybe think about why a German author would refer to important German composers and writers. I don't think you understand "purple prose" either, it is written very straight-forward and does not digress that much.
Maybe you should then think about why Harry feels entrapped, and how it relates to his times and the propositions that were made in the beginning of the 20th century in order to free themselves from feeling entrapped.

What you just did was a shitty review full of misunderstandings and lack of knowledge.
Go away, we don't need you.
0/10 would not read any of your threads again.

>>2705446
See, I never got why /lit/ graded Hesse as 'bad' and 'for kids'.

>>2705446
Well, that makes sense. Awwwwkward...

Still I stick to my views on his style: pompous.

>>2705446
then Hesse's best advice for the German is to go full hedonist?

>>2705455

Because most of /lit/ has read him at a young age (including myself) and now disregards him because his spiritual endeavours a la Siddharta are very naive (which is then reflected in the appreciation of Hesse's works by the hippies & 60s counter-culture and then our disdain for baby-boomers, naive hopefulness et al.)

It is cynicism at its worst but it's a symptom of our times.

>tfw too big for a girl to hold you

>>2705503

I can smell your neckbeard from here

>>2705485
Well, it's your fault to have chosen Der Steppenwolf to get into Hesse's writings and philosophy. He may have been awarded for this novel, and I see its quality.
But then, to face the facts, his solution for nausea of the World, ennui and self-hatred, in short, existencialist problems, have been discussed far more creatively long before Hesse (and before Sartre as well).
Hedonism as a solution for Weltschmerz has been abandoned by Huysmans' A rebours quite some time before Hesse. In this work, Huysmans takes hedonism and aestheticism to the limit and shows how it takes you to nowhere but to inevitable breakdown.
Moreover, all these scenarios have been thought over by Kierkegaard in Enten-eller.
But anyway, if you want to get to know the true quality of Hesse, try Siddharta or Narziss and Goldmund.

>>2705926

>thought over by Kierkegaard in Enten-eller.
>Enten-eller

it's called Either/Or you pretentious fruit

>>2705417


80% done Steppenwolf and it's aight...kind of disappointing

>>2705417

You completely missed the meaning behind the composers and Goethe references. But no surprise, you need to know them to understand all the underlying threads. You need to understand Goethe. What he was when he wrote Sorrows, what he was later in life, what he was to public and what he is to Steppenwolf (notice his hate for Goethes romantic depiction).

Its all about what genre, and what quality of work makes one 'immortal' (in the eyes of Steppenwolf, at least). Take for example his and Mozarts observation of Brahms and Wagner being chased by "players of all those notes and parts in his scores which according to divine judgment were superfluous." There was a big row between both composers and their supporters, but they are both bashed aside here. On other hand Steppenwolf loves Mozart, Hugo Wolf and Chopin. This alone speaks volumes on what person he is.