Steppenwolf

I have always loved this story. Many do & many don't. I think people often miss the point that you can choose to be happier if you so choose. Many focus only on the gloom and doom. We all have many paths that come our way. We can be stubborn and be sad or make a change to find happiness. The choice is always there to take.AS far as Amazon and their support on having this work on your computer, if I could rate I would give it zero stars. I will never buy another digital book. Trying to explain something to someone who can't comprehend is a total waste of time. iTunes is an apple application and unless I overlooked it somehow why is it only for windows. It was not made by windows. Windows music system is so bad they need iTunes by Macintosh to sound good. I have windows machines so I know the difference. I want it on my Mac not on Windows. This was my first and only digital book.

The author Hermann Hesse takes the reader on a journey through one man's life (Harry Haller) of middle aged melancholy. The author introduces several interesting characters all whom show Harry Haller that he has lost his zeal for life by forgetting to enjoy the enavaible journey.The author at times looses the reader with an archaic vocabulary in describing the numerous settings Harry Haller's life travels through out the story.Overall, the story of Steppenwolf is a story of hope that it is never too late bring about change and fulfillment in one's life.

There are people out there, reading this review now, who have gone thru life feeling as though no one has ever understood them. Some of those people will read this book, 'Steppenwolf', & it will hit them like a bolt(& some wont like it at all). Not only will a few of them feel as though they have finally been understood, but they might feel as though at last they can begin to understand themselves!Yes, there is someone who understands. His name is Hesse. Unfortunately he has passed on, he was from an earlier generation. But you know, when he lived people from all over the world wrote him letters asking for his understanding. He answered them all, & he usually had good advise for them. & he was able to understand not only because he was intellgent, but also because he had also suffered the problems of his 'Steppenwolf' himself. Yes, it might seem that he were writing this best of all books about each of us individually, but it was, in fact, autobiography. Half autobiography, half poem, & 100% masterpiece. Please read it, & dont allow the 1st 80 pages throw you off- it is going to come alive for you, as it has for people since 1927. You might be in for a treat.However, some dont feel this way, especially these days. It is a little odd, I feel, that Hesse (who was so popular with readers from my generation in the early 1970s) has had a decline in popularity from 1980 on. He doesnt seem to strike the same chord in todays young readers as he did 30 years ago. Maybe because his books spoke about the importance of spirt over that of technology, I dont know. I dont think Hesse would have seen the rise of the PC & the internet as a bad thing at all, & think it would have been right up his alley, & that he might have made the internet a better thing than it is. In fact, the theme of 'The Glass Bead Game' brings to mind todays internet, & there is a website devoted to just that. But, for me anyway, the fact that todays generation has sort of rejected Hesse is one of the more sad things about it, because I would have believed that they would have embraced him even more than mine did. I think the reason that they havnt might be because that while they are very much in favor of the enlightment that Siddhartha, Goldman, Harry Haller, Sinclair, etc ultimately reach, they have never experienced the PROBLEMS of the Steppenwolf that set those characters on that road in the 1st place. I think that those kinds of problems might have been unique to my generation, & that Hesse came along for Americans just at the right time. It seems that the times have changed

Twisted and interesting. Definitely has that dark German feel about it. For the eccentric philosophical and spiritual types likewise. It's about mental illness but the story is one of a kind. The ending omg...

Few things in life could be better than Peter Weller reading me Steppenwolf. Glorious!

Here I am, like the Steppenwolf, approaching the age of 50. I understand him now for I have lived his life. His deepest thoughts are mine- indeed, they read exactly like my own journals. No wonder I am told that Hesse is my soul mate. It is true.I lived Steppenwolf's solitary life. I knew his crisis. I share his rejection of bourgeois society because it grates the fundamental essence of my soul. And I know what he means by the strength derived from knowing that you can leave this world any time. I know the conviction to never sell yourself into wage slavery for mere money. I know his night wanderings, his books, his music, his rooms, his cigars, and his wine. I know.But I also know his central crisis. For when we are ready then a door really does open to a higher perspective. I literally walked through that door in the wall for "madmen only." Like the wulf I had always sensed the golden moments that form the golden path to that door. I was eventually shown it. I had always suspected that man was more than a half rational animal, that he was a child of the Gods and destined to immortality. When you are ready, when you are sick enough of the petty ego, you will be shown the kingdom on the other side of time and appearances. It is just necessary to stumble through your share of dirt and humbug before you reach Home.Time and the world, money and power belong to the small and shallow people. To the rest, the real men, belongs nothing. Nothing but death- and eternity- and the kingdom.

Steppenwolf is, above all, an odd book. There's more than a thread of Nietzsche running through it, and it straddles the strange line between full blown philosophy writ large in a story, and a story which relies heavily on philosophical musings. In any case, it is well wroth a read. I found perhaps the first 50 pages or so a little bit of a slog, but I feel that was less because it was dull or boring, and more because I didn't really know what the book was tying to be. After this, it cleared up a bit, and a more 'narrative' story appeared, which made the reading easier and more straightforward. I would recommend that you pick this up, if only because there's not that much quite like it.

This is one of those book which will stay with you forever and every time you'll open it you'll be deeply touched. Existential poetry!

Excellent!!!

good condition

superb