This is Hesse's last and greatest work, a triumph of
imagination which won for him the Nobel Prize for Literature. Described as
"sublime" by Thomas Mann, admired by André Gide and T. S. Eliot, this
prophetic novel is a chronicle of the future about Castalia, an elitist group
formed after the chaos of the 20th-century's wars. It is the key to a full
understanding of Hesse's thought.
Something
like chess but far more intricate, the game of Magister Ludi known as the Glass
Bead Game is thought in its purest form, a synthesis through which philosophy,
art, music and scientific law are appreciated simultaneously. The
scholar-players are isolated within Castalia, an autonomous elite institution
devoted wholly to the mind and the imagination. . .
"Part romance, part philosophical tract, part Utopian
fantasy. Its theme is one that preoccupied Hesse earlier: the conflict between,
and the need to synthesize, thought and action, intellect and the flesh. . . A
fascinating novel, well translated at last."
-- Book-of-the-Month
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Hermann Hesse - The Glass Bead Game ePub PDF Download
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