If we are willing to make this effort, we must imagine Germany in the late 20s, date of publication of this novel is not really one, as many facets of the pull side philosophy, fantasy, poetry, sociology or as it has been written of age story. What courage he had to Hermann Hesse, what despair or to indulge in the endless stream of expressions of his disenchantment stream commute an unlimited hope in human wisdom. It comes to mind musical phrases Brückner or Schönberg that would perfectly illustrate this, as these portraits "decadent" by Otto Dix and George Grosz. Some wrote that this novel was actually the novel of existential crisis. The rest of that cross Hesse, both autobiographical evocations are frequent and numerous allusions like, just to tease and confuse the reader, these puns on proper names (Harry Haller, Hermine, Hermann) Here we are, in this Germanic atmosphere, highly intellectual in some respects, but H.Hesse feel choked by the rise of strange political currents. He chose to speak to tell the path of a fiftieth, Harry Haller (Hermann Hesse ???) board in a charming town, roaming the depths of despair to the intellectual who knew how to "read" the world, arts, human vanities, disillusioned of his relationships with women, and with the other end sees as his poor lonely life, the "lone wolf" that death by the blade of a razor. The fantastic is invited in the novel the first time, in the form of strange visions that make him discover that the world may be different. He met other people, a woman Hermine (or Hermann?) That hypnotizes, a South American saxophone player (Pablo), a kind of voodoo cheerfully handling all kinds of substances to exit the real to better find him. There is also the figure of the Masked Ball, the Theatre (of which only fools admitted "crazy") and the many dreamlike images of corridors, doors, lights, music of the past, etc .. .. It was understood, this novel is a metaphor vertiginous undulation around the essential question of the meaning of life. This existential question found in the writings of Hesse, a dazzling engineering solution. The assembly of the perfect novel, style variations, the choice of characters, the end of the novel, all references and model. We find in this novel of maturity of Hesse, his favorite themes: the initiatory journey and spirituality, all strongly influenced by the emergence of understanding the psyche by psychoanalysis. It is not surprising, as it disturbs and awakens, that this work was classified by the Nazis in a close category of "entartete Kunst" degenerate art, and forbidden. To finish the translation of very high caliber and offers a reading in French in every way faithful to the letter and spirit. For love this book, the rest of the work of Hermann Hesse is of the same quality ...
