[Melusine]

OK, I've had this post on Wordpad for days
I'm SO GLAD we're back!!!!!

Originally posted by Djinn Raffo: I read Siddartha by Herman Hesse outside yesterday. Is only a short read (150 large print pages) and I would highly recommend it. It is about life. From start to finish. The journey of a man through out life as son, and as father. As greedy man and as loving man, as rich man and as poor man...smart man and foolish man. The gamut of emotions...and done in a way that gives it credibility. This book really makes me feel good...it fills my hollow heart with love for life and offers me a vision of the way things are that really hits home. Probably the fourth time I have read it but the first time in several years, and frankly I will never wait that long to read it again. I feel that this is a book that all schools should have as courseware. Required reading for everyone...all ages too. Herman Hesse the author has also wrote several other good but a lot deeper books. Magister Ludi (also called Glass Bead Game) is good and has a lot to offer but is also dry. I think he won noble prize for it and wrote it while in an asylum...but I could be wrong, can't remember. Thank you for reading this post...please read this book...is very short and easy to read and it could change your life. I can think, I can fast, and I can wait... P.S. I know this book is not of the fantasy genre and I apologize if you are offended...just can't limit myself though...sorry. The Library Bar is well stocked after all! Also the Library has taken a lot of effort. Constant 'page cannot be displayed' 500 - Internal Server Errors yesterday and today. Djinn Raffo has cast 'Submit New Topic' 101 times and even as I write hope is fading...awwwww.

Great idea Djinn Raffo!! Thanks!
Hesse is very interesting to read, though I have long avoided his books like the plague for all the hippy/new age associations (you know, Steppenwolf and all that), the cheap Freudian psychology etc... I still think you need to be open to that sort of thing if you want to read him without a slightly sarcastic smile on your lips but I do see that my view of him was biased, he has written some very good books
I recommend Demian, it's easy to read, not too long and it really touched me... I was mesmerised for days after reading the whole thing in one night
Yes, it has the all too obvious Jungian references and explanations, but they are actually quite effective as a psychological framework for this novel.


Oh, and Hesse indeed won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1946, "for his inspired writings which, while growing in boldness and penetration, exemplify the classical humaitarian ideals and high qualities of style."And he indeed suffered a mental breakdown in his life. I am writing an essay for a course in Literary Theories, picking psychosnslysis as the literary theory I'm going to examine and Hesse's Demian as the book to apply it to. So I bookmarked some sites, here's a quote from one:

The war itself was especially hideous to H., although during that time he worked with German prisoners and edited a newspaper for them, the Deutsche Internierten-Zeitung. Under the pressures of the prolonged illness of his oldest son and the mental illness of his wife, H. suffered a nervous breakdown. In 1916 he began a two-year period of psychoanalytic therapy administered by a disciple of C. G. Jung (q.v.), an experience that had significance for his subsequent literary works. When his unhappy marriage ended in divorce in 1919, H. moved to Montagnola, becoming a Swiss citizen in 1923. Among the honors H. received for his writings were the Goethe Prize of the City of Frankfurt and the Nobel Prize, in 1946, and the Peace Prize of the German Bookdealers' Association, in 1955.

Love the quote from Steppenwolf; "Nur für Verrückte" (for madmen only)



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Melusine, High Queen of Fluffies, Archbabe of the OHF, the LH,
the HADB and the SPAE(Society for the
Prevention of Acronym Extinction) &
Official Entertainer Elf of the BG2 Bar

Your voice is ambrosia