Steppenwolf

I have found myself thrown into one of my obsessions again. Those that are such rare delights to be savored and burst within my soul, speaking to me upon such deep depths in which I feel a connection spark, and an understanding born within me. I am speaking of course of another one of my literary obsessions in which a book so suddenly, unexpectedly reaches out and grabs me by the throat and refuses to let me go. Which I consume with greedy hunger and yet never want it to end. Where I see a flicker of myself reflected back at me within the written words of the author.

I have recently started reading Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse, who I think is a fabulous author, I remember how deeply he spoke to me and touched me with Siddhartha, which for me was a highly influential and inspirational book and I think also a book I read just at the right moment in my life. Now he has done it again with Steppenwolf. I was transfixed by the very first sentence and drawn into this marvelously irresistible story. A book that every time I pick it up I feel I have come away with another burst of enlightenment. It looks within and speaks directly to me.

The very premises of the book is a concept of which I cannot help but to find irresistible and fascinating, for it portrays almost a sort of psychological Lycanthropy. It is a philosophical and psychological way of examining that aspect within us where we are torn between our rational mind and the baser natural instincts, which werewolf lore stems from. The difference between the "beast" and the "man." In which the narrator of the story is the Steppenwolf, which means "Wolf of the steppes" which is a lone wolf character who is isolated from the rest of society because of his awareness of the fact that he is different, that he is divided into these two selves, the man and the wolf, and yet he cannot find harmony between these selves which torments him and leaves him completely alone feeling like he does not belong, where there is no place for him.

But beyond that, the truth is even deeper. Hesse spent a great deal of time studying the Eastern Philosophies and religions, and so this concept of the Steppenwolf is only a fraction of the truth, only a sliver of seeing through the illusion the fact we are in fact made up of many several "selves" that we consist of countless different identities, though most of us can only see in the singular, while the Steppenwolf is aware that there is more than one self within him, he is unable to embrace the enormity of the truth and so he sees himself as being divided only between two different halves.

7:40 PM - 3/8/2010 - post comment

For though All are not able to write books, all conceive themselves able to judge them. ~The Monk

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