It's been decades since I read Siddhartha but it had a strong effect on me. In my youth I was a philosophy major and a seeker, trying on different religious and spiritual approaches. Eventually I arrived at myself, at the now, at the goals of non-attachment, awareness, compassion, adaptability. I adopted bits and pieces of many philosophies, most notably Buddhism and Hinduism, without becoming a believer in reincarnation, heaven and hell, or any of the other dogmas. New age religion in the US is very much a groovified hand-me-down from the culture behind these religions, and reincarnation is the most common belief system I encounter among people who pretend that they are enlightened. More appealing to me is the stark realism of the German philosophers. "To exist is to be in the way".
In Demian Herman Hesse suggests that the truth is not any of these religious structures, the truth is something far simpler, but harder to live. It is not easy to go through this world stripped of comforting beliefs. Hesse says we create gods and then we fight with them. Many of his ideas are reminiscent of Nieztsche, for whom I've always had a soft spot. He is the German philosopher who said "God is dead" and pissed off generations of religious people.
The protagonist of Demian is a young man named Sinclair, and his story begins when he is only 10 years old. He is early at becoming aware. Demian is a character who helps him, initially simply to avoid a predatorial character, and later to begin to think critically and to trust in himself. When they are schoolmates Demian suggests alternate interpretations of Bible stories, especially the one about Cain and Able, and the mark of Cain. By the end of the book I was thinking that I too must bear that mark, because I have never been a joiner, never been willing or able to submit to authority or dogma.
This book would make excellent reading for a teen who is beginning to sort out a path through all the competing authorities. It does not provide a blueprint, but it does say that you must find your own path, and that it won't be easy or comfortable. When Hesse first released this small book in 1919 it was in pieces in a magazine, and anonymously. Why didn't he want his name attached? Why didn't someone recognize his voice and thoughts, when they are so distinctly his? Perhaps it is because Demian is also a commentary on the sadness of war, on the fruitlessness of giving lives for some shared ideal which might be bunk. Some of the things he writes harken to the Jungian concept of collective consciousness, for example the shared premonitions of the onset of world war one. Do we really share a consciousness, or do we simply share some of the same inputs, and arrive at some of the same intuitive conclusions? Jung and Hesse did.
The most fruitful thing a person can do is to become themselves, I agree with Hesse on this point. To be with people who are also themselves, this is a very satisfying thing.
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