Wolfman Jack (Steppenwolf - Hermann Hesse)

Member Name: count_zero

Product:	Steppenwolf - Hermann Hesse
Date:	17/10/08 (197 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Excellent fantasy/reality story

Disadvantages: None

Steppenwolf - Herman Hesse

I love my books. I love reading them and I love seeing them on the shelves. I have a particular fondness for old books, ranging from the late Victorian hardbacks my Grandfather won at school in the 1890's to my 1960 James Bond paperbacks. I like to mix them up among the newer books to create an eclectic display, currently I have the Harry Potter series book ended by a 1967 Breakfast at Tiffany's and a first edition of Plato's Republic.

The books I really love are the Penguin's from the 50's and 60's, the ones with the orange/white/orange covers. These have the advantage of usually being very good books in and of themselves as well as looking great on the shelf and it is a rare pleasure when I find a pristine batch in a second hand store.

So it was that I picked up an unread 1962 copy of this book in the Penguin Modern classics range alongside several others of a similar vintage and all equally unread. To be honest I fully intended to keep it in that pristine, unread, condition having had a bad experience with Hesse in the past when an English teacher at school recommended the Glass Bead Game; a book I never got to grips with. But now, older and wiser, I felt strong enough to have another go and I'm glad that I did. Steppenwolf is beautifully written, engrossing and easy to read. The story flows from the page and its 250 pages were devoured in next to no time.

Herman Hesse ~
Hesse was born in 1877 in the Black Forest town of Calw, in the German state of Wüttenberg. He wrote his first novel in 1904 and had several more published up to The Glass Bead Game in 1942, Steppenwolf was first published in 1927. Following service in the First World War Hesse published several articles in which he warned against the rise of nationalism (reflected in the activities of Harry Haller, the Steppenwolf). For these he was vilified by the German press (again like the character Haller) but this did not stop him obliquely opposing the rise of Nazism and its oppression of art and literature and publicly supporting Jewish artists. As the Nazi's grew in power during the 1930's journals would no longer publish his articles and eventually all of his works were banned.

Hesse was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1946 but did not publish any more work. He died in 1962, the year this book was published which makes the introduction he wrote specifically for this edition particularly poignant.


The Steppenwolf ~

Overview ~
Harry Haller is a middle aged, would-be intellectual. Something of a loner he takes lodging in middle class house, in a middle class neighbourhood of an unnamed town. Perpetually considering himself an outsider a part of him despises the bourgeois surroundings of the lodging house but knows it is his natural home as it is representative of his own upbringing and earlier married life.

Haller keeps himself to himself, spending time in his room or strolling around the town late at night, taking in a show here or a meal there but always in solitude. He sees himself as a Steppenwolf (Wolf of the Steppes) and is forever caught in the struggle between the man-half and wolf-half of his personality. The man-half seeks beauty in music and art and welcomes friendship but the wolf-half is always there to sneer at these pretensions and find fault and disappointment at every turn. As Haller concedes defeat to the destructive drives of his wolf-half he regularly contemplates suicide and names his approaching fiftieth birthday as the date on which he will take his own life.

Early in the book Haller is given a small book: 'Treatise on a Steppenwolf' and this book provides a precise description of his own life as a Steppenwolf going so far as to identify him by name. The book discusses in detail the nature of the Steppenwolf but acts only to harden his resolve to kill himself.

Following a disastrous dinner party with a professor he used to be friends with Haller fears that he has lost the battle with the Steppenwolf and in despair wanders the streets into the early hours, afraid to go home knowing that once there he could only slit his own throat with his razor. He seeks refuge in a noisy bar where he meets Hermine and falls into conversation with her. Hermine sees the despair in Haller and taking in turns a provocative or maternal attitude persuades him to put off his suicidal urge and promises to help him beat the Steppenwolf and learn to embrace life and be happy within himself.

In the time that follows she teaches him to dance, introducing him to the enigmatic musician Pablo, and providing him with a lover in the form of the beautiful Maria. With Hermine Haller discovers a hedonistic life he had never known before, finding enjoyment in things that before he had despised. All this only serves to suppress the wolf-half of him and he knows he will soon succumb to the Steppenwolf once more.

At the climax of the book Hermine and Pablo take Haller to a fancy dress ball and after to the Magic Theatre from where he received the Treatise in the first place. Here he will face the Steppenwolf for the last time and try and defeat him, the two halves go in but only one can come out.

Structure ~
The book is presented as a manuscript left by Haller in his rooms for the editor to do with as he pleases. The editor, the nephew of Haller's land lady, chooses to publish the work adding a preface to introduce both himself and Haller to the reader.

There are no chapters in the book as such but there are three distinct parts. The fictional preface, written by the editor, introduces Haller and provides an external view of the man: quiet, solitary and with a suggestion of disreputability. This is followed by the main part of the book - Haller's manuscript. Opening with an account of another solitary late night walk he finds himself outside the Magical Theatre where a strange man gives him a roughly printed booklet, The Treatise, which Haller takes home. The Treatise is then reprinted in full, poorly written it provides an interesting counterpoint to the rest of the book, before Haller's own story continues unbroken for the remaining 200 odd pages.

From the very beginning, outside the theatre and with the strange booklet, Hesse moves between fantasy and reality and this continues throughout the book. While some passages have a ring truth about them and others are deep into fantasy territory (or at least drug induced hallucinations) most of the book could easily fall either side of the real/unreal divide. It would be reassuring to think of Hermine, Pablo and Maria as real but they could equally be merely avatars created by Haller.

In his introduction Hesse describes the book as a poetic novel and fears that it is the most 'violently misunderstood' of his works. Certainly it isn't a straightforward story and the blurring of fantasy and reality leaves a lot of room for personal interpretation but at its heart is a warming tale of redemption and self discovery. Many readers will recognise something of themselves in Haller's internal fight between love and contempt, man versus wolf, but the novel's open ended structure will allow each reader to see the story differently and take away their own interpretations. Closing his introduction, Hesse acknowledges this and declines the opportunity to clarify the books intentions leaving it to each reader to find in it what they will.

Opinion ~
Contrary to my expectations, Steppenwolf is by no means a difficult book; there is none of the labyrinthine existential posturing that I thought would be present and you are left with a straightforward fantasy/reality redemption story, brilliantly told.
I'd heartily recommend Steppenwolf to anyone who likes their books to have a little bit about them; books that you think about when you're not reading them and in the days after you've finished them.

The cover price of my copy is five shillings and you could probably pick up a copy for a similar price (25p) on the second hand market.

Summary: A poetic novel that's easy to read and rewarding