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Steppenwolf

Dear reader,

I'm sorry to disappoint. This is not a thread about the comic book villain, but since you're here allow me to ask you this. Have you ever felt societal norms and conventions restricting your chest, the shallowness of life wrapping itself around your mind like a soporific haze that is slowly lulling you into apathy and dullness? Did you ever feel the need to break out of the mold, deeply longing for the certain something that gives your existence meaning? Did your quiet existence turn into the inevitable flatline so devoid of ontological change that the monotony of life has become an almost unbearable noise? Are you sometimes feeling lonely and depressed or unable to connect with people?

If so, then why not read through this thread anyway, it might be worth your while. Because you, my dear reader, might be a Steppenwolf, a soul divided between the deadening comforts of society and the exciting unknowns of the world outside.

“I am in truth the Steppenwolf that I often call myself; that beast astray that finds neither home nor joy nor nourishment in a world that is strange and incomprehensible to him.” - Hermann Hesse: Steppenwolf

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"Steppenwolf" is Hermann Hesse's seminal novel, a darkly romantic tale about urban isolation and a vicious attack on the materialistic bourgeois lifestyle. Hesse wrote the book in 1927 when he was in a period of deep depression and social recession after a turbulent breakup with his wife, who herself suffered from schizophrenia and was later on hospitalized in a mental asylum. In writing Steppenwolf, Hesse drew inspiration from his own spiritual crisis.

The novel's protagonist is Harry Haller, a 47 years old man living in wolfish isolation after losing his job, family and home. Brooding over classical literature and music in his empty apartment by day, Harry is haunting the taverns and city streets by night drunkenly searching for existential meaning. Harry longs to kill himself, yet clings stubbornly to his own morbid emptiness and despair while drowning his sorrows in alcohol. Reflective of Hesse's own experiences with psychotherapy, the book is a painfully accurate description of depression, one that is rarely matched by comparative literature.

When Hesse's book was published, it did not find critical acclaim in the strictly conventional and bourgeois atmosphere of the 1920s. His novel would later on become a cornerstone of the counter-cultural revolution in the 1960s, especially in Europe. Now, before you write off this book as "hippie literature", rest assured that such is not the case. Hesse himself was a deeply divided person, his outside appearance perfectly adjusted to the societal norms of his day and age, but his tumultuous inner life would often see him at odds with his own lifestyle, lending him a permanent sense of self-alienation.


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“There is no reality except the one contained within us. That is why so many people live such an unreal life. They take the images outside of them for reality and never allow the world within to assert itself.”

Steppenwolf is about Haller's spiritual journey towards self-knowledge. The central message of Hesse's book is evident, exploring your inner self is a human obligation lest we become ourselves a living death. The book's main focus lies on the unsolvable paradox between man as a social being and the individual who can only find meaning by himself alone. We human beings long for love and social acceptance, but at the same time we also seek to set ourselves apart from the masses.

“For what I always hated and detested and cursed above all things was this contentment, this healthiness and comfort, this carefully preserved optimism of the middle classes, this fat and prosperous brood of mediocrity. [...] Solitude is independence. It had been my wish and with the years I had attained it. It was cold. Oh, cold enough! But it was also still, wonderfully still and vast like the cold stillness of space in which the stars revolve.”
Harry Haller, the Steppenwolf, is no different in that regard. Two souls war inside him: "the beast", yearning for savagery and isolation, and "the man" seeking culture, society and love. He can only find meaning in isolation, which is why the Steppenwolf detests the lulling comfort of society, but he also fears the coldness of isolation, desperately longing for a kindred soul able to understand his inner turmoil. It is from this dichotomy that Hesse's novel draws its strength.

The wolf is an animal that we fear and admire at the same time. A wild beast with sharp fangs that could easily rip you apart, but also a majestic being without fear that roams free without concern. Our modern society has the same relation with the free-thinkers that reside within it. We admire the artists and intellectuals that push the boundaries of human thought outwards, but at the same time we are deeply worried about their nonconformism. The outside boundaries of society are full of unknowns, incertitude and danger, hence why our society likes to admire these people from afar, keeping a safe distance from the things that wait in hiding outside.

As Aristotle would say, man himself is a zoon politicon, a social being that relies on the formative structures of his surrounding community. After all, life is safe within the boundaries of civilization, but it is also incredibly boring. Man cannot find meaning in that, lest he transforms himself into a hollow drone, prone to group-think and societal pressure. The individuals outside of these boundaries are either animals or gods and the Steppenwolf is constantly walking that fine line.

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“When I have neither pleasure nor pain and have been breathing for a while the lukewarm insipid air of these so called good and tolerable days, I feel so bad in my childish soul that I smash my moldering lyre of thanksgiving in the face of the slumbering god of contentment and would rather feel the very devil burn in me than this warmth of a well-heated room. A wild longing for strong emotions and sensations seethes in me, a rage against this toneless, flat, normal and sterile life. I have a mad impulse to smash something, a warehouse, perhaps, or a cathedral, or myself, to commit outrages, to pull off the wigs of a few revered idols...”

Unable to solve that paradox, to quench his thirst for meaning while finding social acceptance, the Steppenwolf grows to despise his fellow humans and society itself. Harry Haller does not know what it is that he is looking for, the destination of his journey remaining unknown. Unable to fulfill his life through meaning, he is driven by contempt, especially towards those who do not share his burden. He wants to be happy too you know, but having rejected happiness as a shallow bourgeois pipe-dream, he seeks refuge in the burning passion of despair. This "flat, normal and sterile life", he wants to smash it, rage against it, as he despises with the intensity of a thousand burning suns the revered hollow idols of his society.

“Man designs for himself a garden with a hundred kinds of trees, a thousand kinds of flowers, a hundred kinds of fruit and vegetables. Suppose, then, that the gardener of this garden knew no other distinction between edible and inedible, nine-tenths of this garden would be useless to him. He would pull up the most enchanting flowers and hew down the noblest trees and even regard them with a loathing and envious eye. This is what the Steppenwolf does with the thousand flowers of his soul. What does not stand classified as either man or wolf he does not see at all.”


But you see, the Steppenwolf is a fool. He only seeks the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. He only sees the extremes, but not the myriad of things in between. He either sees himself as wolf or man, never both. Thus he becomes blind to the little things in life. There is no one thing that will make you happy, no single thought that will give answer to your questions, no single fruit that renders all other tasteful delights meaningless. But the Steppenwolf does not know that and in doing so he rejects all the simple pleasures of life that he deems unworthy.

Hesse's work is so multifaceted it's hard to express in words. To the bourgeois his novel is a declaration of war to societal order, and to the social outcasts it is a mere call to rebellion and blind activism. Coming back to Hesse's novel throughout my life, I've often found myself coming down on either side of the fence. It is often this quality that I consider the hallmark of not only good but exceptional fiction. Reading the same story but coming to vastly different conclusions at different points in your life is what makes the Steppenwolf a timeless work of art. The sort of story that changes along with you.

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Hesse himself often said that his book was often misunderstood as a romantic depiction of societal rebellion and despair. What is often overlooked is the protagonist's return from that journey when he finds his love for Hermine. This beautiful young woman enjoys life to its fullest without falling into the trap of dulling and shallow normality. The second half of the novel is basically about their developing relationship, with the Steppenwolf being confronted to several artistic people from Hermine's circle of friends. All of them finding blissful happiness in their craft, caring very little about Harry's self-destructive pondering. One of them in particular, the mysterious saxophonist called Pablo, appears to be the very opposite of what Harry would consider a serious, thoughtful man. Contrary to Harry, Pablo and Hermine both found something that the Steppenwolf is desperately lacking, the ability to find happiness in what they are doing.

“Man is an onion made up of a hundred integuments, a texture made up of many threads. The ancient Asiatics knew this well enough, and in the Buddhist Yoga an exact technique was devised for unmasking the illusion of the personality. The human merry-go-round sees many changes: the illusion that cost India the efforts of thousands of years to unmask is the same illusion that the West has labored just as hard to maintain and strengthen.”

Hermine herself is not any less intriguing than the Steppenwolf. Despite her joyful appearance she is capable of deep reflection and is able to perfectly understand Harry's inner turmoil. Like an onion, there are many layers to her, from serious to lighthearted, she is able to taste from every fruit in the human garden. Hermine's enigmatic character is hard to analyze, constantly shifting appearance, personality and tone, sometimes a boy and sometimes a woman. Hermine is showing Harry that there are millions and billions of options for himself, if only he weren't so stuck in his own personality. The fact that she can be a boy or a girl, act old or young, and is unabashedly bisexual, means that she has embraced all of the opportunities life has to offer. This should come to no surprise as Hermine is both, human and animal and everything in between.

Much could be said about the theme of love in Hesse's novel, but from my personal perspective it all boils down to a very simple yet powerful message: love is the best cure for the depressed. Which isn't surprising, considering Hesse's grief over his wife when he wrote this book. Now if you're afraid that the novel degrades into some kind of mushy romance, fear not, it's nothing like that. While the central message might sound corny, it is not presented that way. If you really think about it though, depression is the inability to find happiness, so what's better than being surrounded by people willing to spread and share their own happiness?

Hermine quickly takes a liking to Harry, maybe out of pity, maybe out of passion, it's difficult to tell really. But before Harry is allowed to fall in love with her, she tells him that she has but one request, that he must fulfill her last command:

"You won't find it easy, but you will do it. You will carry out my command and—kill me. There—ask no more."

This unusual request is a perfect example of the extreme and multifaceted way that Hermine acts half of the time with Harry. It reveals her to be a dangerous presence in the novel because she's asking Harry to do something really out of the ordinary and violent. However, she's also got a light side. She loves music and she loves to dance. Hermine is quite the dancer, and can't believe that Harry doesn't know how to boogie with all of his studies and smarts. So she takes it upon herself to get him to dance. After all, dancing is silly, dancing is not profound, it is the little pleasure in life that the Steppenwolf is frowning upon...

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There is a solution to the Steppenwolf paradox, it is to not go exploring the outer boundaries of society and the deepest depths of despair on your own, but to be accompanied by a loved one. Do not concern yourself too much with what society thinks about you, instead narrow your societal needs down to a handful of good friends who care about you because only then will you truly be able to find yourself. Because in the end, as Hesse acknowledges, the Steppenwolf is an untenable solution, a narrow-minded path that ultimately leads into self-destruction. Man or wolf, black or white, it is the shades in between that make life worth living.

I'm sorry for not delving into the story much further, I don't want to spoil it for you. But if what you read above piques your interest, you won't be disappointed jumping head first into this marvelous novel. If anything, the ending will blow your mind, you'll just have to trust me on that.

Reading Hesse's Steppenwolf was a deeply transformative experience in my younger years and I just felt like sharing my love and passion for this particular book.

Thank you for reading this overly long post.
 
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petran79

Banned
One of the good analyses I have read. I too had read the novel in German years ago. German is not my native tongue btw. I had read previously Narziss und Goldmund in German, by the same author, a book we had gotten as a gift. Reading it made me fascinated by that author. There he explores the dichotomy you mention but in a different time setting, medieval I think, through two different characters. This lead me to become interested in his most important work.

I too agree this is one of the most transformative books I read. Now I do not remember much but the feeling and impression it left me remains unforgotten.

I think that the best work of modern German literature, capturing the tragic history of the country, is Doktor Faustus by Thomas Man. One of the best but most difficult books I have read, despite not being written in the style of Kafka, Joyce or Proust.
 
Excellent writeup! You can put these out everyday for all I care and I'll read each one. This is good content.

But you see, the Steppenwolf is a fool. He only seeks the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. He only sees the extremes, but not the myriad of things in between. He either sees himself as wolf or man, never both
This lesson is almost always lost or ignored. It is why I think nihilism is ultimately a useless standpoint to cling to. We go to the extreme ends and then correlate the shock value and discomfort with the truthfulness of what we found. It is why the Logos (word made flesh, or the intersection of the ideal with physical reality) remains such a powerful concept. The ideal doesn't matter until it exists as a part of crude reality.

It is egotistical to expect that life would deliver to you the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. Simply because you cannot find meaning doesn't mean life is meaningless, and simply because you found meaning doesn't mean everything you lay your eyes upon is meaningful.

Hesse himself often said that his book was often misunderstood as a romantic depiction of societal rebellion and despair.
Yes. Many people treat Steppenwolf like the sequel to Catcher in the Rye but for big kids.

There is a solution to the Steppenwolf paradox, it is to not go exploring the outer boundaries of society and the deepest depths of despair on your own, but to be accompanied by a loved one
Psychology established the notion (almost 100 years ago) that certain facets of the human psyche cannot be directly observed. They manifest exclusively in our interaction with other humans (the act of 'projection' and the Archetypes being two prominent examples).

So, even from a purely materialistic viewpoint, Hesse's criticism of the lone wolf is correct. We can never reach completeness in isolation. The mind itself knows it is incomplete (this could perhaps be considered the root of our curiosity).

Aside: Herman Hesse's Siddhartha is a necessary companion to Steppenwolf, in my opinion. If the latter is about the existential torment of social life, then the former is about the exploration of the inner world you mentioned in your OP.

Thanks again for the good read.
 

black_13

Banned
You got me interested even tho I thought this was a Justice league thread. Gonna see if the library has this book
 
The problem with loved ones is: do you mean just Friends? or Romantic partners? Friendship is good, but many would not be satisfied with just good friendships.


Romantic partners, it seems it is more common to have a tendency towards serial monogamy, the spark and intensity of romantic love dies down in many humans, only some humans appear to retain the intense romantic attraction life long, the rest seem out of luck. Some say people should work at it and they can somehow reignite mad love with the same partner, but the main drive of working at it is the motivation, pretty sure there are plenty of relations where people worked at it but falling in love with someone outside the relation can throw quite a wrench.

My opinion is that given the rarity of lifelong highly passionate relations staying madly in love, combined with some claiming brain scans show some actually do, is that either there is some misrepresentation of the data or there is a fraction of humans whose intense romantic love does not die down ever. I mean if it was possible to have intense romantic love long term with a specific set of behaviors within the relations, practically all humans would be like prairie voles lifelong, as such would become common knowledge and practice.

Neuroscientists have studied madly-in-love folks, putting them in the fMRI machine while they look at a photo of their beloved. The parts of the brain that “light up” while looking at the lover are the same brain areas activated by cocaine—the reward centers. These researchers concluded that love is like a drug. I’ve never tried cocaine, but I’ve certainly tried love, and it is indeed a high.-goodtherapy-linkbelow
We were awash in the chemicals of early love: testosterone (the hormone fueling the sex drive in both men and women), dopamine (focusing on “that special someone”), and oxytocin (the bonding hormone/neurotransmitter). I didn’t notice my lover’s flaws, nor he mine. It turns out that in early love, the critical part of the brain goes quiet. This is the science behind “love is blind;” we see our lovers through rose-colored glasses. Perhaps this is nature’s way of helping us bond with the beloved, oblivious to the problems that lie ahead.-goodtherapy-linkbelow
Crazy in love is a temporary state; the brain can’t stand the intensity forever. At some point the critical parts of the brain come back online, and we see our partners, warts and all. The jazzed-up chemicals settle down, and our drug high gives way to a calmer brain state.
https://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/after-the-thrill-is-gone-the-science-of-long-term-love-1205147
Sure some form of friendship like relation can form after the spark dies, and people can enjoy each others company, but not only can romantic attraction die down, but the spark can be ignited towards those outside the relationship. Even if it doesn't spark towards others there is still problems. Romantic love distorts judgement such that things you wouldn't normally find tolerable are found tolerable and even pleasing, once it runs out, all the flaws you don't REALLY tolerate. start becoming really noticeable, this has a good chance to bring down a good number of relations(even if remaining together, may even hate each other).

For those that do have the luck of the rumored eternal love, and manage to fall in love with a partner who also has the trait of eternal love, it is still not "and lived happily ever after", sooner or later one of the two will die(probably due to aging.).

The ideal doesn't matter until it exists as a part of crude reality.
In ages past people thought they could be freed from their limitations through magic, false gods, the fountain of youth, the philosopher's stone, alchemy, misguided by false theories, false paths towards dead ends.

But in this age we now have real, true theories about the workings of the world, the means, should we choose so, to transcend all physical limitations and attain the ideal.

Soon the hardware of man will match or surpass the energy efficiency of the human brain(koomey's law), what was lacking, the financing of ai is now in place. Only a delay in the software side could stop the imminent transformation of the world, the unstoppable wave of change.
 
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Great thread strange headache strange headache . I commit to reading this one within the next 7 days and sharing my impressions. :lollipop_raising_hand:

Looking forward to this. Hesse is a well known classic here in Europe, so I'd be quite interested in seeing how Hesse's novel is perceived from across the pond.

It is egotistical to expect that life would deliver to you the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. Simply because you cannot find meaning doesn't mean life is meaningless, and simply because you found meaning doesn't mean everything you lay your eyes upon is meaningful.

I think part of that mindset is cultivated by a society often conveying the message that 'bigger is better'. We see that happening especially in our media, where every sequel needs to be more bombastic (more 'splosions, more action, more drama, higher stakes...), we see it happening in our notion of physical attractiveness, where primary and secondary sex organs need to become ever bigger (bigger boobs, bigger asses, bigger muscles...) and we see it happening with almost every product we consume, be it your ginormous SUV, your XXXXXL meal, your giant mobile phone, etc...

As a society, we took a liking to the extreme and I think it is also impacting our outlook on happiness and life in general. Our constant need for 'more stuff' runs contrary to what I would consider real happiness, instead you'll see us chasing from one thing to another, never being fully satisfied with what we have.

The problem with loved ones is: do you mean just Friends? or Romantic partners? Friendship is good, but many would not be satisfied with just good friendships. [...] Romantic partners, it seems it is more common to have a tendency towards serial monogamy, the spark and intensity of romantic love dies down in many humans, only some humans appear to retain the intense romantic attraction life long, the rest seem out of luck.

You'd find me hard pressed to argue with your pragmatic views, but Hesse's book leaves the notion of love explicitly vague because the author is very aware of the fact that it's not a notion that can be universally defined. Besides, Hermine is far from monogamous, in fact she's the embodiment of Cape Diem. Introducing a sexually open, bisexual, cross-dressing character in the 1930s was a bold move, but the reason why the novel became such a classic nonetheless was because its characters were so multifaceted and expertly written. Modern storytellers could take inspiration from that.

Lastly, Hesse was married 3 times, struggling to find that elusive everlasting love himself.
 
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You'd find me hard pressed to argue with your pragmatic views, but Hesse's book leaves the notion of love explicitly vague because the author is very aware of the fact that it's not a notion that can be universally defined. Besides, Hermine is far from monogamous, in fact she's the embodiment of Cape Diem. Introducing a sexually open, bisexual, cross-dressing character in the 1930s was a bold move, but the reason why the novel became such a classic nonetheless was because its characters were so multifaceted and expertly written. Modern storytellers could take inspiration from that.

Lastly, Hesse was married 3 times, struggling to find that elusive everlasting love himself.

Well, when I say serial monogamy I don't mean just sexually, but in terms of changing emotional attachment. A person could have multiple partners in some cultures and locations, but be emotionally attached to just one.

Even in fiction with harems, you see the notion of jealousy as well as preference. There are even cases where an individual fails to get it on with the person they truly want, some may even retain the spark of romantic attraction, yet settle for another, having children and all.

A known trope in fiction between two guys competing for the heart of the same woman, where one guy gets the girl but says to the other, who didn't, I know you're the one she really loves, you have her heart.
 
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The titans were replaced by the gods which were replaced by the humans, and so too shall the humans be replaced by the ideas.
The race of ideas and above all the idea of beauty.\\

The perfect ideal lifeforms
 
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