Readings Recommended by HHP

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2004-02-21

NEW 2003

Joseph Mileck

Between the Perils of Politics
and the Allure of the Orient

2003

Moral conviction, not political inclination, determined Hermann Hesse's participation in German sociopolitical matters.  The belief that artists, the ever-alert guardians of human values and cultural heritage, were society's admonishing conscience, determined Hesse's sociopolitical engagement, fashioned his considerable body of political articles, and made him a chronic persona non grata in Germany.   It was likewise not the spiritual lure of the Orient that drew Hesse eastward - for him, the East was less a spiritual journey than an aesthetic adventure. Although Hesse remained a Westerner in thought and belief, his art acquired an enriching exotic cast and his essays and reviews an added Eastern dimension.

This bipartite study focuses upon these two evolving major engagements - Hesse's continuous adult sociopolitical involvements and his lifelong preoccupation with Eastern thought and belief, both firmly rooted in his family's passionate Pietist dedication to the service of God and humankind - and their impact upon both Hesse and his writings.

 

This is a thoroughly scholarly study and a welcome update on Hesse research in the best tradition of Professor Mileck's previous, invaluable discerning contributions to the study of Hesse's life and works!

HHP

 

Contents Foreword Part I THE ARTIST AND POLITICS Hesse's Sociopolitical Involvements and the Repercussions Prolegomena 3 The Monarchy and Pietism 8 The First World War: Seduction and Reaction 17 Social and Political Involvements during the Weimar Republic 28 The Third Reich: Silence and Defamation 33 Renewed Social and Political Involvements 38 after the Second World War Celebrity and Notoriety 42 Flirtation with Communism 45 East Germany's Courtship 52 America, Russia, and the Future 59 Elder Literary Statesman 61 Notes 65 Selected Bibliography 81 Part II HESSE AND INDIA Acclaim and Disclaim Scholarship to Date Prelude 87 Dissertations 89 Articles 108 Summation and Addendum 123 Eastward-Ho Early Exposure to India 127 Introduction to India's Religious Texts 130 Hesse and China 135 Abortive Trip to the East 136 New Possibility: From Self-Denial to Self-Assertion 139 Early Indian Tales 141 Siddhartha: Genesis 144 Siddhartha: Eastern Manner and Western Matter 149 The Years Following Siddhartha 152 India's Literary-Aesthetic Attraction 155 Das Glasperlenspiel: Indischer Lebenslauf 15 Contents ix Zen Buddhism 162 Summation and Addendum 163 Notes 165 Selected Bibliography 181 Index of Hesse's Works 187 Index of Names 191 Index of Subjects 195

 

New York: Peter Lang, 2003

www.peterlangusa.com
(Caution: As of 9/29/03 the URL for Peter Lang, USA, has not yet been updated to include this book)

Berkeley Insights in Linguistics and Semiotics
Irmengard Rauch, General Editor, Vol. 55

ISBN 0-8204-6790-1

Source: J. Mileck

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2003-01-11

Robert H. Farquharson

Toronto: Forum House © 1973
ppb, 107 pp

Contents:
1 .Hesse's Life
2. Beneath the Wheel
3. Demian
4. Siddhartha
5. Steppenwolf
6. The Glass Bead Game
Conclusion
Chronology
Pronuciation Guide
Bibliography
 
 

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April 18, 2002

A Bantam Trade Paperback (Classics)
New York: Bantam, 1995

ISBN 0-553-10023-8 hc
ISBN 0-553-37776-0 pb
263 pp
$14.95 pb

Cover text

March 16, 2002

Robert Musil

The Confusions of Young Törless

Cover: Cadets, St. Polten, Austria, 1910
© BPK, Berlin, Collection Timm Stare

With an Introduction by © J. M. Coetzee, 2001
Translation by  © Shaun Whiteside, 2001
Copyright of the original: © Rowohlt Verlag GmbH, 1978
 

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Like his contemporary and rival Sigmund Freud, Robert Musil boldly explored the dark, irrational undercurrents beneath the calm surface of bourgeois life. The Confusions of Young Törless, published while he was a student, uncovers the bullying, snobbery, and vicious homoerotic violence at an elite boys’ academy.  Unsparingly honest in its depiction of the author’s tangled feelings about his mother, other women, and male bonding, it also vividly illustrates the crisis of a whole society, where the breakdown of traditional values and the cult of pitiless masculine strength were soon to lead to the cataclysm of the First World War and later to the rise of fascism. A century later, Musil’s first novel still retains its shocking, prophetic power. (Text on back cover)

"First published in 1592, "The Journey to the West", volume I, comprises the first twenty-five chapters of Anthony C. Yu's four volume translation of Hsi-yu Chi, one of the most beloved classics of Chinese literature. The fantastic tale recounts the sixteen-year pilgrimage of the monk Hsüan-tsang (596-664), one of China's most illustrious religious heroes, who journeyed to India with four animal disciples in quest of Buddhist scriptures. For nearly a thousand years, his exploits were celebrated and embellished in various accounts, culminating in the hundred-chapter "Journey to the West", which combines religious allegory with romance, fantasy, humor, and satire." (back cover text)