Ascension towards you in Utopia.

The game of glass beads / Hermann Hesse
This text is the last work of Hesse. This is a book danticipation, an arduous test, an initiation novel, the fictional biography of Joseph Valet.
It took me two months to read carefully both the substance is dense.
Appeared in Switzerland in 1943, it took until 1946 that it was published in Germany. Twelve years were needed to Hesse to write this Doeuvre leader who earned the Nobel Prize for Literature the same year 1946.
Throughout the war years, he embodied the spirit of resistance against the forces of barbarism, the National Socialism of Hitler.
The general theme is that of the teenager then ladulte in search of himself through revolts and conflicts. This work autobiographical aspects is complex, dense and rich in symbols, and language is of great beauty, sometimes ironic, sometimes parodic. The influence of Freud, Nietzsche and of German Romanticism (Goethe, Schiller, Thomas Mann, Brentano, Hölderlin, Wackenroder, especially Novalis) shines widely.
This is a double entry opus: next to the outside is factually domestic allegorical level, very inspired by Goethe in his latest creations and eastern extreme thinking that brings calm and stability Hesse. The concept of "karma" is omnipresent and essential: wheel of becoming, and seamless continuity of the universe. The influence of Hesse in Hindu thought is tempered by that of Chinese thought that eventually will dominate because of its greater serenity founded on the notion of harmonious unity of the universe, that of Taoism. Some spoke out of a Doeuvre chief science fiction lintériorité.
Page 67: "There is not doubt that minds like Abelard, Leibniz, Hegel made the dream one day to kiss spiritual universe in concentric systems and dunir living beauty of the spiritual art and the magical power of exact disciplines formulas. "
This work is also a reaction against the decadence of spirit and civilization, a profession of faith for the Spirit (Geist) in times when reeling core values. Reference is often made to music and sometimes dune quite unexpectedly: "In China legendary ancient kings, it was recognized music a decisive role in the life of the state and the court. It almost identified the greatness of music with that of culture and morality, or even Empire and music masters had to ensure strictly that Ion might preserve ancient tones and this quon respectât purity. The music she knew a decline? He was a sure sign that the government and the state were on a slippery slope. "
And further these words of Lu Wei Bou, Chinese Empire regent in the third century BC: "The decadent States and the older people for the decline nignorent not music, but their music lacks serenity. Also, the more the music is loud, the more the country is in danger. "
Hesse sees in classical music "essence and the sum of our culture, as it is the gesture and the most obvious and most telling event. Classical music is a gesture that means: I know the tragedy of the human condition, I agree with the cause of human destiny, of valor, of serenity. Whether the grace of a minuet by Handel or Couperin, either sublimated sensuality in a gesture of tenderness, as in Mozart, or peaceful The acceptance of death as in Bach, there are still around bravado, heroism , chivalry and The emphasis of a superhuman laughter, dune immortal gaiety. "
The Castalia is a cultural imaginary province where teaching comes our hero, Joseph Jack, chosen because of its exceptional capabilities in all subjects and who will go to the elite École. Lélève selected sil feels that he can accept a vocation, or refuse after a period of reflection. The ultimate goal is to daccéder the Order and become the Magister Ludi Game glass beads.
The events are diverse and sometimes unexpected: for example appeared "a kind of resume known essay consisting of a fictional autobiography, located at any time in the past. The task of Letudiant was to get back into an environment and a culture in a given period dune spiritual climate of the past and imagine a life that corresponded to it. The preference was for imperial Rome, the France of the seventeenth, to lAthènes Pericles LAutriche or Mozart. "(The three fictitious biographies Compact are proposed in the appendix to the story.)
While the study of ancient Greek is the honor, reflection on the language and by extension on all my languages ​​seemed very interesting: "We were looking to close the culmination dune language and splendor of the time, we traveled with it in minutes a path that was asked several centuries, and this show the precariousness made on me a dune strength striking impression: I saw there before our eyes a very complex organism, old, venerable, that it had taken generations to build slowly, reaching its growth and flowering already contained the seeds of its decline, the whole building began to skillfully composed saffaisser, to degenerate, to stagger, the end wasnt far away and at the same time, like a flash, and a thrill of joy, an idea through me: the decay and death of this language yet navaient not lead to nothingness, his youth, his flower, his decline sétaient stored in our memory, in the knowledge that we had delle and its history, and she continued to live in signs and scientific formulas every moment she could be rebuilt. "
Wonderful way!
Jack became Magister Ludi will discover "the joy quon feels transplanted in mind dautrui his own intellectual acquisitions and see it take shape and an all new radiation, joy therefore denseigner and then the fight with the students personality and students, and to work in one dacquérir authority BE a guide, so the joy déduquer. "
The Jack of meeting with the older Master of Music is a great moment: "At the same time he put his hand on my arm, she was as light quun paillon, he looked into my eyes and smiled insistently. At that moment, I was defeated. Something his serene silence, patience and calm place within me, and suddenly I understood fully that old man and took his turn quavait be, leaving the men to silence, speaking for music, thought for unity Just after my resistance had been broken, I felt that it maccueillait in its peace and clarity; we were me and him in a pen of serenity and wonderful rest. "
Tegularius, co-disciple of Jack, the story sinterroge value to conclude that "universal history, this is linterminable narrative, without spirit or dramatic device, violence against the weaker by the stronger. Universal history is a competition in time, to gain a race to power, treasure. Milky spiritual, cultural, artistic is exactly the opposite: this is every time an escape from lesclavage time; the man from the mud of its instincts and its inertia, slipped and hoisted to another level in lintemporel the supra-temporal, the divine, in a radically foreign domain and rebellious history. "
Over time, Jack understands that his déducateur charge and Magister Ludi is a serious obstacle to lépanouissement of his faculties the best and most fruitful. However, a combination of circumstances, it will not follow that path and wants to become the tutor to the son of his friend Designori. Gradually he will realize that the Castalian culture is too scope narcissism and conceit as much Quà lélitisme and self-indulgence. He'll give up his charge Magister after a long reflection lamène to think like any culture, that of Castalia disappear, consumed by its tranquility, ephemeral, potential obsolescence hit dune gradually sactualisant to enter history. It seems to Jack that he has reached a state close to the "awakening", "We did not penetrate into the heart of the world, but in the heart of his own person. Cétait also why it quon was experiencing was so communicable, so singularly rebellious to the floor and formulation. It seemed quexprimer these areas of life did not make part of the objectives of language. "
In the magnificent chapter "Legend", the ultimate conversation between Jack and the Grand Master Alexander is a pathetic moment and of great spirituality.
It is not doubtful that this book is of a difficult access; very focused on meditation and everything related to lintellect, it does not read like an ordinary novel. And the player who has the chance to be touched by the depth of this story transformed into spring. The end of the chapter "functions" is particularly revealing.
At the end of this very long story whose ending is surprising, it appears that the operation of the game of glass beads nest detailed at any time by the author who delivers nen few keys, which leaves room for the imagination of the reader.
Head Doeuvre, beware!