Intellect fused with nature

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32460, 21 November 1970, Page 10

Intellect fused with nature

The Glass Bead Game. By Hermann Hesse. Jonathan Cape. 558 pp. This is a new translation by Richard and Clara Winston of the German author’s Nobel Prize winning novel first published in 1946. Dedicated to “The Joumeyers to the East,” it reflects the author's interest in Eastern philosophies, music and the psychoanalytic theories of Jung. The Glass Bead, Game is a process of selfexamination and through discipline and meditation the player aims at perfection. In its early stages the Game was nothing more than a witty method of developing memory and ingenuity among students and musicians and being a good player was equivalent to being a very good mathematician. Developed in the kingdom of Castalia around the year 2400 when people can no longer accept the consolation of the churches nor obtain any useful advice from Reason, they lose themselves in puzzles and games. Although some practice the Glass Bead Game as an interesting speciality or as an intellectual sport, it develops into a universal language and method for expressing intellectual concepts and artistic values and reducing them to a common denominator.

One of the most adept pupils of the Game is Joseph Knecht who attends the training school where explorations of all possible disciplines and types of study are encouraged. Previous to this period of freedom, Knecht’s training consisted of a period of hard discipline without which the natures of these gifted men would be endangered, especially those who, like Joseph Knecht, have gifts that aim at integration, synthesis and universality and are not driven by a single talent. Although during the post-graduate course when Knecht is permitted to range at will in self-chosen studies he appears to be ostentatiously neglecting the Game, he has, in- fact, heard the Inner Voice which is the true meaning of the Game. The perfect poise of his dispassionate nature radiates calm, strength and dignity and he eventually becomes the Magister Ludi. Readers may find this book long, difficult'and esoteric but never unrewarding. It has a sublime quality and is so credible that one feels that the author has succeeded in his search, for a dynamic fusion of intellect with