Comment on Book Recommendations

Tue, 10 Aug 2010 02:02:32 GMT

I also have a pretty jaded opinion of that same category of dabblers in science fiction, but I didn't really perceive Hesse in that light.

I identify "science-fictiony" books as being not only about technology, but about unusual, daring ideas taken to their logical conclusions; e.g. Borges and Calvino would usually qualify. But I didn't find Glass Bead Game to be focused on that; I found the most gripping parts of the book to be Knecht's intellectual and spiritual development, and how each of the characters negotiated the balance between a life of the mind and the rest of the world. Not very SF.

However, it's true that the big "idea", the Game itself, was immensely attractive to me, in a science-fictiony way, and maybe in a narcissistic way. I wish Hesse had been alive to learn computer programming; perhaps he would have had something to say about that.

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