Demian: The Story of Emil Sinclair's Youth
Ratings108
Average rating4.1
A weird one. Demian is a very imperfect book. Some passages can be tedious or uninteresting; it is very much a product of its time, and often made me roll my eyes. But I cannot deny that there is a slumbering power within these pages - it's a book I'll often think about in my own struggle to be born, to come home.
on a less serious note, Demian is literally just Griffith from Berserk (pre-Eclipse), and Hesse is just the German Murakami(or, more appropriately, Murakami the Japanese Hesse).
Demian waxes and wanes poetically about the human spirit, but in contrast to Siddhartha, it is surprisingly direct in its focus on individualism and self-reliance.
The story is relatively simple – a bullied, questioning, and morally grey protagonist encounters an aloof individual named Demian, who takes a peculiar interest in him and makes him question Biblical allegories. He gains such an outsized influence in the protagonist's life that even his dreams and art are dictated by him. It is worth mentioning that the novel contains so much Freudian influence that it should list him as a second author.
However, the meat of the story lies in its subtext – its glorification of individualism to insufferability, the “Mark of Cain” through which society's disaffected individuals find each other, and its focus on dreams as a tool for discovering oneself. While it is hard to disagree with the novel's aims and its unsubtle hints for people to start finding spiritual meaning, Demian sometimes becomes too heavy-handed, and it doesn't have nearly as interesting characters, monologues, and plotlines as those in Siddhartha. I'd recommend Demian only because it makes note of the fact that solitude is important in one's life and cannot be found in the company of others, however evident this sounds.
‘The bird fights its way out of the egg. The egg is the world. Who would be born must first destroy a world'
First I need to thank my love for not only lending me this book but also for motivating me to finish.
Demian is the book that all youth should at least once read, with the capacity of encapsulating an alive consciousness, Hermman Hesse not only translates the confusion of a young boy but also demonstrate all the aspects of adolescence, the curiosity, the fear, the desire, the punishment. I wish that me, as an early teenager, had been confronted with the same masters that Sinclair have found, given in some ways an answer to the mark I carried on my forehead. however, beyond all the personal connections i could make with the story (believe me, there are many) the book is written in a very beautiful, deep symbolism, where the main character puts into live all its inner demons (literally ha ha ha ).
I feel like if one day was granted to me the possibility of directing a movie, I would love to adapt this book, every scene described in the pages have a very intense visual appeal. especially the scene when his on the church, sad as hell and he asks the priest to play Buxtehude Passacaglia in D minor while he sinks in his own thoughts. this moment will always destroy me.
So to summarize, the book is well written, is all that ‘the catcher in the rye' wish it could be, the translation of one youth, particularly European and middle class (but fully aware of it), an immortal book.
‘The things we see, said Pistorius gently, are the things which are already in us .'
PS: I will not condone the whole thing with fantasizing your friend's mom, if is my friend there is no talk, you getting out of my house.
alright here we go again... much better than the outsiders and why on earth should i read them both after each other?
People seem to love this book, but I had a really hard time connecting to it at all. Maybe reading it at an earlier stage of life it would have resonated more, being centred quite a lot about moving beyond your childhood and into adulthood and choosing a path that's right for you by discovering your inner self through trials and tribulations. I just didn't enjoy it much at all, even though I can see some worthwhile insights here and there. Maybe I'm missing something or maybe this really isn't my cup of tea. I should have FELT something more considering it deals a lot with loneliness and not fitting in and wanting to carve your own path apart from society's expectations - all themes I enjoy, but it all fell flat for me.
Nearly 50 years has passed since my first reading of this book, which was my first exposure to Hesse. I became obsessed. Next, I read Siddhartha and then I read everything else of his I could find in English. And now I begin the project of re-reading all those volumes. Demian remains a stunning achievement, and I can see how I was so drawn to it as a high-schooler. Don't we all see ourselves as Emil Sinclair? Don't we all wish for a guide like Max Demian?
I wasn't sure if I would enjoy this but it was a surprisingly good read. I limited myself to reading a chapter a day, but I probably would have read it in a day if I hadn't.
Brilliant! Hermann Hesse makes solitude seem so beautiful that you actually start abstaining from the world the around you! Such is the elegance in his writings! Another masterpiece from the genius of Hesse!
