This document consists of three sections. Page notes, and two essays that I wrote. This is the most up to date copy, revised in April 2003.
These notes apply to the Owl Books 1990 edition (Henry Holt and Company), translated by Richard and Clara Winston. To cross-reference the page numbers to other editions, the table of contents, copied from this edition, follows:
The Call 47 Waldzell 86 Years of Freedom 110 Two Orders 145 The Mission 176 Magister Ludi 204 In Office 232 The Two Poles 262 A Conversation 286 Perparations 319 The Circular Letter 344 The Legend 370
82. On the goal of life as striving for the center, and being able to exchange one's discipline for any other (general over special). Do not long for the perfect doctrine, but perfection of self. Truth is lived, not taught.
111. At the universities in the pre-Castalian days, students would "Embark upon the high seas of learning and run aground on the shoals of untrammeled dilettantism." Faust was the prototype of brilliant amateurishness.
119. The concept of knowledge for its own sake reads in almost satirical voice, yet Knecht is being quite serious. Why does it appear to be purposefully ironic? His example is on the study of language. Language in all its glory, rise and fall, is taken as a little gem of conceptual knowledge, yet it seems impossible not to throw something away in doing this. And this would make it trivial, do a disservice to its memory.
148. "A perfect elegy upon the transitoriness inherent in all beautiful things and the ultimate dubiety immanent in all soaring flights of the intellect"
169. To study history means submitting to chaos.
The potential "problem" of contamination by the real world is glossed over - Castalian elite may quit the order to enter the real world, but at this point in the book nobody actually does this. No curiosity whatsoever? How is this possible when the elite are curious enough about their pet research projects, yet have not even the inclination to read a newspaper? It becomes evident that this is truly an ironic work.
222. Joseph Knecht,a man who has never had an ambition beyond his studies, who has,in a way, been tossed by the winds of his superiors, who has never made an effort towards self-ascendancy, is named magister. At this point in the book, Hesse is still carrying on with the praises of the life of the mind: shut yourself up from the world, even from academia, retreat to the innermost confines of the mind, and you will, in a perfect world, be rewarded in every way. The contrast with western culture is one of black and white. Westerners believe in societal ascendancy through striving, consciously, towards a final goal (whether it be title, privelege, money). Hesse's utopia (and this must be in part a product of the impressions of the East on his western-weary mind) gives the ultimate prize to he who desired nothing more than the immediate happiness of his mind. It is a beautiful, simple, and yet powerful contrast, for the world as we know it would come crashing down. Of course, Hesse knew this, as we see later.
Would the world work at all if we had the ability to live the life of our choosing? It is doubtful: to prevent a shortage of workers and stagnation of progress (or even a regression), a controlling government would be required to appoint people to work. This is not freedom. But then, neither is wage slavery in capitalism. Which is worse? And what about appointing 1/2 the population to work, freeing the other half to be an intellectual elite? Is this not, in a way, slavery?
Dictatorship is a prerequisite to an intellectual utopia, because nobody wants to do the work of keeping society afloat or moving it forward. If self-rule is allowed, lapse into capitalism will follow (rewards given to those who contribute to certain fields), or decay into barbarism (nobody would do any work to maintain society).
229. "enveloped and isolated... as if by a shining glaze which had been poured over him in the heat of the fire, and had cooled and hardened."
Why, exactly, could Castalia not analyze the real world, the world of action? And why could they not produce thought? Are these questions related?
233. Art history, philology, music, philosophy are all studied at Castalia. The goal of the game is to realize the unity of all man's cultural efforts, and recognize the ties between disciplines. Perhaps if new insight, new ideas are created, this would break the cycle, make such analysis impossible? But it doesn't seem that new ideas would threaten analysis.
237. Devotion to discipline does not preserve a man from selfishness and vice (Faust for example). "We do not intend to flee from the vita activa to the vita contemplativa, nor vice versa, but to move forward while alternating between the two." There's some irony here. What is meant by v.a. / v.c. is not entirely clear, but appears to be thought vs. meditation (for the purpose of more pure thought). The irony is that neither one is the vita activa qua activa. Compare to Arendt’s “vita activa” which involves political action (the highest function of mankind’s faculties, according to her). Hesse’s position on the polis and political action remains defined only in negative terms throughout the book; it becomes evident that the polis must not be ignored, but it certainly never gains the author’s favor as a structured intellectual activity.
248. More irony: the Elder Brother, shut off from the world in his bamboo grove, has a unique appeal to Knecht, "the magic spell of his life's dream enclosed him year after year." This is a man who has turned his back on the entire world, only to shut himself up and meditate. Hesse’s discouraging opinion of such activity in Siddhartha is further evidence that the Elder Brother stands as an ironic foil.
At this point we reach the midpoint of the book. From here forward, things become a bit clearer as Knecht's criticism of the system becomes manifest.
265. Sensitivity to historical concept of Castalia first manifest in Knecht
266. "The problematical nature of the creations of the human mind is its transitoriness."
267. First mention of "illicit" thoughts and impulses in Castalia.
278. History: why it is irrelevant to Castalia, and why it is not.
310. Which of us (Plinio, Knecht) is really the authentic and integral human being? (Plinio's response: neither of us)
310. Finally all the doubts that I, the reader, have been cataloging in my mind for the past three hundred pages reveals itself plainly (as opposed to being cloaked in irony) in Plinio’s tirade against the insular nature of Castalia.
311. Knecht (to Plinio): "Your heart is still full of hatred for us, and at the same time full of... envy and longing." Just as I, the reader, feel simultaneously attracted and repulsed by Castalia.
315. Castalia is a "flight from the terrors and abysses of reality into a clear, well-ordered world of mere forms and formulas, mere abstractions and refinements."
315. On meditation, and the virtues of serenity.
316. The ultimate attainment of civilization is serenity, the serene mind. This is Hesse’s true belief, but the danger is to ignore the rest of the world (like the Elder Brother).
342. Why leave Castalia? Knecht feels unfulfilled as a person. Untapped potentiality.
343. The board, in allowing Knecht to leave, would be admitting that "life in Castalia might mean renunciation and imprisonment."
345. Knecht's letter of resignation, explaining reasons.
350. The task of Castalia: to preserve the intellectual foundation of the world.
351. Hesse takes an unusual stab at Hegelian historicism, for the first time mentioning a historic figure by name and calling Hegelianism a "repulsive distortion of history and destruction of all feeling for truth." (Hegel thought truth is subjective to historical context and is thus always in flux). At the same time, Hesse embraces the Hegelian idea that man is always creating history and must act with this knowledge that every action is a historic action. Did Hesse fail to understand Hegel completely? Or does he believe that Hegel’s concept of truth did more damage than historicism? Or am I misinterpreting Hegel?
355. "Today we live as their heirs in a building almost too splendid." "...we live in it like rather vapid and complacent gests." -- this statement is easily applied to our own culture, the members of which, for the most part, are blithely ignorant of the intellectual foundations which shape the world we live in. Philistinism.
359. "It is treason to sacrifice love of truth, intellectual honesty, loyalty to the laws and methods of the mind, to any other interests, including those of one's country." "It is our duty to save the truth."
Hesse believes strongly in the understanding of history as that which is created in this moment, for eternity. Nietzche?
On Knecht's death: Knecht's last admonition to the Council was that the outside world would kill Castalia, because Castalia would no longer seem useful or pertinent to the world. Knecht himself saught the dangers, risks, and fecundity of the real world, lush with the raw passions of life. It is somewhat of an irony that Knecht would be killed by it, for he is the one Castalian most prepared for a life in this outside world. In Knecht's death Hesse has more sharply defined the line between the two worlds. Not only is Castalia an elite society full of academicians but even the best of them cannot survive in the real world. (I see it as irrelevant that Knecht died of a physical condition, as his death is meant in a symbolic sense: the death of ideas, of learning for its own sake in a world that requires more than self-absorption). The two are incompatible. And this is Hesse's final conclusion: a world of academics, completely ignorant of the historical nature of humankind (Hegel, Nietzsche), and of their own nature of Being (Heidegger), is doomed to drown in the vast waters of the world.
Stepping back from this impressionist painting comprised of hundreds of brushstrokes, we see a broad picture consisting of three distinct ideas.
One, ignorance of historicism (awareness of the Hegelian concept of man as an active agent in history) means a lack of concern for the world-spirit, for taking an active role in shaping history (by teaching, or by creating new ideas, by "transcending").
Two, ignorant of existential nature of man. Knecht's "awakening" which he talks of in his letter to the Order, could be seen as a sudden existential awareness. Alexander's admonishments of Knecht is representative of the anti-individual atmosphere fostered by the hierarchy of the Order. Hesse strongly believed that knowledge of the self, and the progression of the self through upward-reaching stages (always progressing, never resting) takes precedence over any external system. Additionally, Knecht’s walks in the forest are existential experiences; once he undertakes the position of Magister he forfeits these opportunities to explore his self. One more possible evidence of the lack of Castalia’s inhabitants awareness of Being is their distaste for historical memory of people (recall the introduction’s concession that Knecht’s name is fictitious, because his true name did not bear remembering).
Three, humanism. Recall Feuerbach's concept of man as a species-being: we must be aware of ourselves as members of the species, and everything we do must be done with that in mind. Knecht’s desire to mentor Plinio’s son.
In Das Glasperlenspiel Hesse continues the venerated tradition of the intellectual mind, that of introspection and criticism.
Anyone who says Hesse's masterpiece is a tribute to the life of the mind has only understood the first half of the book. Hesse's novel is a history of one man's understanding of the world, and the novel must be read in light of this temporal nature, this progression of ideas. Luckily as humans we tend to read from front to back, but it is critical to understand that the real Hesse is speaking only in the second half of the book, and that the first half serves only as an ironic foil to the second. Perhaps Hesse's boldest statement is that the life of the mind can be dangerously egoistic; if we do not share the love for knowledge with others, if we choose to harbor an intellectual elite in the universities, precious pearls in a lockbox, the world may very well forget the beauty it once engendered.
The main character's final days are spent with the goal of passing on knowledge to others.
Hesse's utopia is morally reprehensible because of its abdication of worldly duties yet at the same time holds an allure for the intellectual who feels slighted by the unwillingness of society to grant him the freedom of the vita contemplativa.
Hesse invokes Marx on many levels, the most prominent of which is the granting of pure freedom of the mind (which Marx held in highest regard), liberating the individual from the labors of life that sustain the mind. By eliminating labor from Castalia, Hesse eliminates Marx's alienation.
Some of the other ways in which Hesse invokes Marx are more obvious by their absence, for example, the absence of history or historical thought. The concept of dialectical synthesis, of which Marx was very fond of (to say the least; a more embellishing statement would credit Marx with re-introducing the concept to the forefront of modern thought, if only for a brief period) is one of the foundational principals of Castalian thought; that Joseph Knecht tought a class on the subject emphasizes its importance. Yet it stands as a great irony that the process of dialectical synthesis should be held in such high regard, and that History should be left, literally, to the past.
Hesse also manages to entirely do away with capital. Castalia is certainly a communist-oriented society, with libraries and knowledge communally shared, with the exception of that knowledge which the elite keep in their own ranks. There is little if any mention of material goods; save for a table or chair or a few fish, there is no art on the walls, rugs adorning the floor, or sculpture in the courtyard. Should we interpret this absence of art as conspicuous, or is it simply Hesse's style to be more interested in internal character as opposed to external, scenic descriptions? (compare to other works).
Regardless (whether it's Hesse's writing style, or the art is absent on purpose), the effect is the same: external perceptions are of little importance; this is made clear by his concentration on meditation. In Castalia, this makes sense. There is no greed or coveting of things, because the ultimate life is that of the mind. The body is merely a vessel for the mind. Existence itself becomes meaningless: Hesse cares little for the physical human (there is no mention of food in the entire book); an old man or young man is simply an old or young mind. Knecht's interpretation of the Music Master's acute Alzheimers is, ironically, not one of decline but of uplifting of his mind to a higher place. Before Knecht saw it in this way, everyone thought the Music Master was going nuts. But (perhaps because of Knecht's elite and revered status) now it is accepted that the Music Master has become an almost spiritual being. That this appears at the end of the book is troubling because for the most part Hesse’s philosophy in the second half is consistently one of , yet it is unclear as to whether Knecht’s final visitation with the Music Master is meant as a final irony (perhaps to provide closure with Castalia), or whether it is meant to stand out as a singular instance of truth.
Knecht also saw something in the reclusive Chinese master that nobody else saw. Is Knecht meant to be the ideal, uber-perceptive, intellectual? Or is he meant to be so desperate for truth that he sees greatness where there is none? We never hear the Music Master play a great work of art, we only hear him tinker out fuges one note at a time. And sure, it is impressive to a schoolchild to hear variations on a simple song, but it's still a simple song. Yet Knecht sees greatness in tinkering out a fuge with one hand. And of course he always held the research of his peers in the highest regard, even if it was something ridiculously mundane.
With this topic in mind, the book is a warning of the trivializing of intellectual persuits. If we build a utopia for the mind, will we lapse into nonsense and see greatness? Spend our lives figuring out the proper pronunciation of Latin in 1510, yet entirely missing the true beauty of Virgil? What is it that Hesse is warning us about? His utopia is so far removed from our lives that we have trouble drawing parallels. We may laugh at this fictional world, but how closely does it resemble ours? If 16th century Latin Pronunciation is trivial and intellectually devoid of value, what about a postmodern interpretation of Homer? What about Hegel and Marx? Dare we poke fun at Hesse's studious Castalians, lest we ourselves be taken for hypocrites?
And what of the Game? What of the irony that specialty is silly and wholistic knowledge is valued (ref), when the Castalian residents (we can't really call them citizens) spend their lives in minutia? From our perspective, Castalia is full of people who can't see the forest for the trees. Rather than producing new works of art and intellect, they build finer and finer apparatus for dissecting old knowledge. Maybe Hesse only values intellect that is capable of producing, creating new things, birthing new ideas.