I can remember the days we used to sit
around in South Kensington when I was a student talking about the latest Hermann Hesse we had just
read. It’s over 45 years ago…and I´ve not read much of his work since then.
Beneath the Wheel is an early work, his
second novel, published in 1906. Strangely, it does not feel like the work of a
young man, despite dealing with adolescence as its central theme.
Hans is a studious young man from a modest
background who outperforms his own estimation in entrance exams. He gets his
place. He becomes very studious indeed and seems certain to graduate with
sufficient achievement to become a pastor. Whether this is his own ambition is
never particularly clear. But the assumption follows him around as he studies.
And then there appears Hermann, who may or
may not be named after the Germanic opponent of the Roman Empire. Hermann is a
direct, experience-led, let’s go for it type, the very opposite of Hans. They
become friends. There is at least a suggestion that the thought of
homosexuality, rather than the reality, formed part of their process of mutual
change. Their relationships with their own intellects change, however, as does
the way that intellect is approached by others. Hans is destroyed. But he is
happier, we might think, than he would have been had his life never contained
risk.
At least that’s one way of looking at
things. It might also be read as a warning, a morality to encourage the young
to stay on the straight and narrow. One might conclude that at the time Hesse
himself was aware of a dichotomy within his own thinking, and this might have
been his way of writing what he saw as a demon out of his system.
The style was recognizable from early on.
There is a detachment about this writing. Dialogue usually seems said and
difficult, and the roundness of the experienced is tempered by the fact that it
seems rather removed from the reality in which it participates. Didn’t expect
it to enthrall, but it did.
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