Great – but be warned

This is an excellently written book but is much more an exploration of the ideas around the life of the mind than it is a novel. The first part of the book is written as a future history of an individual player of the glass bead game and (like most histories) has rather weak characterization and story. Instead this history is used to explore philosophical ideas around thought and knowledge, belief and religiosity, and education and learning. If you are looking for a light science fiction story, this is not the book for you! If you have read Jung, Nietzsche & Mann you will likely appreciate the allusions to their ideas. If you love German histories and philosophers, you will likely love this book. The last chapter of the book leaves the historical narrative format and is touching. This is followed by the inclusion of three fictional stories written by the fictional protagonist. These are very nice and have the spirit of parables or religious teaching stories. The stories are only linked by their common exploration of the life of the mind. This is a great book, but many a reader may likely wonder what the heck is going on.

58 people found this helpful

Modern Spirituality devoid of Magic Tricks

Someone I met, was saying about Hermann Hesse that he did not wish to read his book as he perceived them to be new age litterature. This is such a misunderstanding of the beautiful universe of wisdom and thoughtfulness to which Hesse invites his readers. As a strong atheist - Hitchen like, I am very suspicious of any author who inflicts upon us superstitious fallacies. This is far from being the case of Hesse. The spiritual essence of his books is truly modern and devoid of supernatural claims. He is not concern with magics or miracles but with the true nature of being human experience.

It had been a while since I've read a book by Hesse, and reading the Glass Bead Game felt like rediscovering an old friend. This book being its masterpiece, I shall say it was quite a reunion. In the Glasse Bead Game explore the tension between Joseph Knecht's love for his art and realization that he is hiding in an ivory tower avoiding the real world, its dangers but also its wonder.

I highly recommend Hesse to anybody looking for a spiritual experience devoided of the cheap magic tricks of «New age» culture. Hopefully, Hesse shows us the way of a modern spirituality.

37 people found this helpful

Surrender to the Magister Ludi's Game

I remember reading Hesse's 'Siddhartha' and 'Narcissus and Goldmund' right out of high school. There was something both disquieting and uniquely calming about these strange little books that Hesse wrote detailing his love and fascinating with Eastern thought and philosophy. I figured this year I would read the 'Glass Bead Game' (and later 'Steppenwolf'). It is in many ways GBG is Hesse's subtle answer to the growing Fascism in his country. But, at its heart, it isn't an anti-Fascist book. He is aiming for more. He is thinking bigger.

It is a book about harmony and the arts. The exploration of how music, mathematics, intellecutalism and life can become transcendent and beautiful. GBG is a mysterious fill-in that allows it to be at once none and all of man's endeavors. It is a holy raga, a tactile masbaha, a literary syncretism, that captures the whole of man's achievements and is practiced by an elite few. Using the framework of the Game Hesse is able to look at the dynamic of all of man's achievements as being both beautiful, worthwhile, but also frivolous and fleeting. He looks at the tension between those who remove themselves from mankind's experiences with those who live IN the world. There is a pull and a reciprocity between these two groups. He is looking for those things that balance those groups and ultimately those things that cause these groups to separate.

The book also explores the (mostly) Eastern ideas of meditation, surrender, loss and renewal. I found these ideas (obviously) beautiful and rewarding, but I'm still not sure if I really liked the structure of the book: Part 1 (pages 7-44): Introduction to GBG; Part 2 (Pages 45-427): Magister Ludi's story; Part 3 (428-445): Magister Ludi's poems; Part 4 (446-558): The Three Lives (other incarnations of Magister Ludi). I'm just not sure if the structure worked for me. It did well enough, but I loved and hated it too. Maybe that was Hesse's intention. The first part was a parody of those 'history of the saints' that appear so often and so frequently in all religious traditions. It was interesting, but just didn't mix well with the final parts of the novel. I did like having Knecht's (re)incarnations be outside of time. While Magister Ludi was set in the future, the other incarnations of Magister Ludi were more likely from the past. An interesting construct, but the weight of the last was too little for the heavy front.

But all measured out these are frivolous issues. For the most part, I really liked the book. It is incredible that in the face of WWII and Nazi Germany Hesse could write this. History and inevitable burning push of evil must have seemed dark and heavy, but ultimately this book (written from 1931 to 1943) contains the germs of peace and tranquility. I think that peace comes from the idea of a spiritual retreat (a common theme) and surrender. Hesse wasn't saying to run from Evil, although he did himself leave Nazi Germany. But I think his book was communicating the ability to find peace through surrendering to one's own situation and place in the universe. GBG one day will disappear, but so too ONE DAY will fascism and evil, because all of man's creation is a game. So, surrender to the game and surrender to the universe.

35 people found this helpful

A false dream ...

It is the last work of Herman Hesse, and his "Magnum Opus". In some sense the book is philosophical science-fiction, though there are no typical elements of sci-fi genre. The author predicts that the period in human history will come when the knowledge became wide-spread and popular, with multitude of authors writing multitude of stories. This period, called "The Age of Feuilleton" was highly individualistic. The main feature of the age was the passionate search of freedom.
At this moment comes the main prophecy of the book. Hesse predicts that on the ashes of the feuilletonistic age, new movement is born. The purpose of the order is the cultivation of science and music. The order cultivates highly elitist structure and its rule is as strong as the rules of religious orders. It also includes meditation and contemplation. The culmination of the order achievement is the synthesis of all sciences and music in an instrument called "glass bead game". A game, was a like a symphony but with deep scientific background. The main character of the book, Joseph Knecht, after swift carrier, becomes the chief Glass Bead Game custodian and player. The most of the book is about his life and his path - first to the order of Castalia, than through the rungs of the order hierarchy - to the startling decision to leave the order, and become "awaken" to the everyday life ...
Despite the end of the Jospeh Knecht story - Hesse, through the entire book, demonstrates the admiration to the concept of intellectual elitism, to the notion of "intellectual order" to the medieval concept of hierarchical knowledge, well organized, and integrated with the quintessence of art - with the classical music.

In some sense the Hesse prophecy is dangerous...

We no longer need "mental elite" - the current culture proved to be vibrant and precious. The human knowledge can, and is built, by millions of people, and we do not need any orders.

26 people found this helpful

One of Mankind's Best Books

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

It is not enough to say that this is a GREAT story for it's depth, wisdom and beauty are so evident that each word of Hesse's award winning novel moved me into places that only a true master could so magically conjure. I loved the reader as well and felt that the entire production was perfect. Thanks audible for providing such a service.

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Glass Bead Game?

The masterful way in which Hermann Hesse concluded his story. It was pure genius.

Have you listened to any of David Colacci’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

No

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

Too many to mention. But the story of how Knecht sacrificed himself was brilliantly conceived.

Any additional comments?

To me this book has been a favorite of mine for years and each time I read (and in this case listen) I am moved to new levels of just how vulnerable we are as humans and just how beautiful each of us plays out our unique role.

20 people found this helpful

Long, tedious, unfulfilling

I love the German language (what little I remember of it). But my experiences with German literature, at least in translation, have not been salutary. I bounced off Thomas Mann, and this is my second attempt with Hermann Hesse. I found Steppenwolf to be interesting and bizarre, but mostly full of pretentious wankery, and The Glass Bead Game, which is ostensibly a future biography of the master of an intriguing game and intellectual order, was more like 19 hours of boredom which I finished only out of a completionist desire to mark it on my checklist of books finished.

Supposedly set in the 23rd century, this book is in no way science fiction, except under the loosest definition, as the world described shows no evidence of advanced technology or social advancement - it is essentially our world in an alternate history in which an academic order known as the Castalia coexists with the Catholic Church and produces philosophers and intellectuals who engage in abstruse dialectics and subtle social positioning for reasons that only matter to the internal mental states of the participants. The "glass bead game" after which the book is named is really just a plot device to seed the premise of the book - inasmuch as the book has a plot, which it doesn't, really.

The main character is a man named Joseph Knecht, and most of the book is a fictional future biography of Knecht, who (in the 23rd century) became revered as as the Magister Ludi of the glass bead game and Castalia. Following his progression from gifted young student to Magister Ludi, who then steps down from his exalted position, over the opposition of the Castalia, The Glass Bead game might be read as a bildungsroman, though I have read elsewhere that it's actually more of a parody of a bildungsroman. I can see how this book could be satirizing the form of the bildungsroman, but as far as wit or humor, there was none evident to me. The lengthy, detailed accounts of Knecht's upbringing, his interactions with fellow students, teachers, and mentees, who engage in long-winded philosophical exchanges with him, and his decision to eventually retire as Magister Ludi, when there is no mechanism or precedent for a Magister Ludi to retire.

Castalia, as described in the book, is the very epitome of an ivory tower - academics go to Castalia, are supported by taxes from the outside world, and spend all their time pondering heavy thoughts or playing the glass bead game. Knecht is eventually swayed by arguments with a schoolmate from his younger days, and a Catholic clergyman later in life, that Castalians should not withdraw from the world, but use their intellectual gifts for the benefit of others.

Very deep and intellectual. Also very, very boring.

As a casual, lapsed go player, who loved the novel Master of Go, I was more interested in the glass bead game itself. Hesse must have been inspired in part by go when he created this fictional game, but the glass bead game is only described abstractly - like go, it is a "lifestyle" game for those who truly dedicated themselves to its mastery, and it embodies everything from philosophy to mathematics, and music. The actual rules and mechanics of the game are never described, though, and despite being referenced throughout the book, in its relationship to Castalia and the outside world, the game really doesn't have much to do with the story.

The biography of Joseph Knecht ends abruptly, and the latter part of the book contains several poems and stories supposedly written by the fictional protagonist. The stories are alternative incarnations of Knecht, written as if he had been born as a prehistoric shaman, an early Christian hermit, and an Indian prince.

All of this was very detailed, thoughtful, literary, and intellectual. And very, very boring.

I'm sure I missed oceans of meaning, but The Glass Bead Game just disappointed me on every level. I'm giving it 2 stars because 1 star would be an insult - I can recognize the literary merit of the work. But as far as enjoying it or ever wanting to revisit it, I find that about as unlikely as my ever wanting to read another book by Hermann Hesse.

9 people found this helpful

Severely Outdated and Self Absorbed

Would you try another book from Hermann Hesse and/or David Colacci?

I read Siddhartha and liked it. After this, I am leery of investigating Hesse's other work. Colacci did an acceptable job.

What could Hermann Hesse have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

I have read Hesse's Siddhartha. It was engaging and interesting, especially as a consideration of an adult Westerner's interpretation of Eastern Gnosticism. The Glass Bead Game is widely praised though not particularly widely known today. I expected a thoughtful philosophical text that mused on the role of education and intellectualism in repelling the rise of fascism.

Instead, I read a long-winded diatribe utterly convinced of its own cleverness. And it was, frankly, boring. I would like to say that this view is the result purely of my contemporary diet of literature where sliding narrative, constructed framing devices, and aside discussions of ideological issues are relatively commonplace. These things are all practiced in Star Trek for Gods' sake. But I cannot. Hesse did not invent, nor did he perfect these techniques.

Hesse's fascination with Eastern mysticism becomes outright fetishism in this text, with a seeming endorsement of the I-Ching as a problem solving tool. The general idea of greater emphasis on enshrining rational thought in society is defeated by the pointless and Pyrrhic death of the main character, halfway through the book. The codas are pointless and preachy, effectively repeating the main story three times! He should have stopped navel-gazing at some point and taken some sort of stand or argued some hypothesis.

If the book is neither purpose-driven, nor entertaining, the only reason to read it is historical curiosity.

What aspect of David Colacci’s performance would you have changed?

None

What character would you cut from The Glass Bead Game?

The 3 extra lives of Knecht

Any additional comments?

More than I care to take the time to discuss here.

7 people found this helpful

Then and Now

I thought this book was Classically, Epic-ly great when I read it in the 70's. YUCK! Couldn't even get through the first half on a long road trip with plenty of time to get through the over-the-hump of introduction. Philosophy 101 it isn't. Not even Philosophy for Dummies. More like -- there are no people in the world, only rules and regulations that take 99,000 pages to explain & justify.... I think I may have remembered it more fondly if I hadn't read other books addressing philosophical questions that were more interesting, more character-filled. Not available on audio - M A Foster's Gameplayers of Zan, which reminds me to mention M K Wren's Wolfe/Phoenix trilogy, Available on audio - Heinlein's Time Enough for Love or The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Okay, not strictly philosophy, but characters & ideas. Not just ideas!!

7 people found this helpful

Very challenging but also very interesting.

I felt like this was a hard read--or rather, listen. Narration was fine, not distracting, but not brilliant either. Thematically very engaging but also very puzzling. Hesse seems to fully accept two contradictory positions on hierarchy: that it is both problematic and necessary. Then everything is complicated by the fact that the novel is told in the form of a biography, with sources that may or may not be of dubious authenticity. This novel is like a puzzlebox that reveals layers and layers and the layers are infinite and you never find out if they have a bottom.

5 people found this helpful

Great book. Not so great narrator.

The book is great... no doubt it was the apice of Hesse's work... I confess the narration was not so inspiring, and rather dull at times.. But worth my time, and credit.

5 people found this helpful