Honors: Nobel Prize in Literature (1946), Goethe Prize (1946), Pour la Mérite (1954).

Selected Works: Demian (1919), Siddhartha (1922), Steppenwolf (Der Steppenwolf, 1927), The Glass Bead Game (Das Glasperlenspiel, 1943).

Education: Evangelical Theological Seminary of Maulbronn Abbey, Cannstadt Gymnasium, no university degree.

Died: Augin Montagnola, Ticino, Switzerland.

Parents: Marie Gundert and Johannes Hesse.

Born: Jin Calw, Württemberg, German Empire.

Known For: Acclaimed novelist and Nobel laureate whose work is known for the individual’s search for self-knowledge and spirituality.

I'd love to hear some opinions and bounce some thoughts off of anyone who had a similar reaction to it as I did. I don't mean to gush or to sound like too much of a fanboy. When I reread in in a couple years I'm sure I will recognize something that I hadn't the first time I read it. What I got out of Siddhartha now is that life is a personal journey that we must learn to navigate and appreciate in a way that brings us objective satisfaction. It functions as a bridge between two fundamental schools of modern and ancient thought, and I feel like it's a book that takes on a different meaning depending on what stage of life you're in. Part of the appeal to this book is that it takes many of the key principles of eastern philosophy, and then filters it in way that resonates to someone who was raised on Western principles. I've always felt this immense social pressure from parents, peers, and the people in my life to behave and aspire to be a certain way that may not be in line with what will bring me my own sense of happiness, but because I was trying to please others I never was able to recognize that. It feels like there's this expectation (at least for me there is) to reach all these unrealistic goals that we set for ourselves, to control things we can't and to be in a constant state of concern of what the future may hold. But finding means: being free, being open, having no goal.' 'When someone seeks,' said Siddhartha, 'then it easily happens that his eyes see only the thing that he seeks, and he is able to find nothing, to take in nothing because he always thinks only about the thing he is seeking, because he has one goal, because he is obsessed with his goal.

There have been a ton of invisible dots in my life that I feel have been connected after reading this book, and I've come away from it with a refreshed awareness of the power of fiction and the understanding it brings to how we perceive the world around us. I bought this book on a whim, and it feels like I happened to pick it up at exactly the right time.

The glass bead game by hermann hesse