The Glass Bead Game (German: Das Glasperlenspiel) is the last work and magnum opus of the German author Hermann Hesse. Begun in 1931 and published in Switzerland in 1943, the book was mentioned in Hesse's citation for the 1946 Nobel Prize for Literature.
| Author | Hermann Hesse |
|---|---|
| Original title | Das Glasperlenspiel |
| Translator | Richard and Clara Winston |
| Language | German |
| Genre | Novel |
| Publisher | Holt, Rinehart and Winston |
Publication date | 1943 (Eng. trans. 1969) |
| Publication place | Switzerland |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 558 pp |
| ISBN | NA Parameter error in {{ISBNT}}: invalid character |
"Glass Bead Game" is a literal translation of the German title. The title has also been translated as Magister Ludi. "Magister Ludi," Latin for "master of the game," is the name of an honorific title awarded to the book's central character. Magister Ludi can also be seen as a pun: lud is a Latin stem meaning both "game" and "school."
Plot summary
Template:Spoiler The Glass Bead Game takes place during the 23rd century. The setting is a fictional province of central Europe called Castalia, reserved by political decision for the life of the mind; technology and economic life are kept to a strict minimum. Hesse mentions the political violence of the 20th century in passing, but his main critique of that century is encapsulated by his dismissive name for it: the Age of the Feuilleton, an intellectually superficial and decadent period, when middle brow journalism replaced serious reading and reflection.
Castalia is home to a monastic order of intellectuals with a twofold mission: to run boarding schools for boys (the novel is thus a detailed exploration of education and the life of the mind), and to nurture and play the Glass Bead Game (see below).
The novel chronicles the life of a distinguished member of the order, Joseph Knecht (the surname translates as "servant" or "farm hand"), as narrated by a fictional historian of the order. Hence the novel is an example of a Bildungsroman. At any given time, the member of the order deemed the best Game player is honored with the title Magister Ludi.
Polarities lie at the heart of the work, as is commonly the case in Hesse's novels. Two relationships are of particular interest, that of Knecht with his teacher, the learned monk Father Jacobus, and with his best friend at the boarding school run by the order, Plinio Designori, the scion of a rich family. At the end of their school days, Knecht, representing aestheticism and the Life of the Mind, joins the order, while Designori returns to the world. He embodies a failed reconciliation between mind and world.
In his introduction to Demian, Thomas Mann likened his relation with Hesse to that of Knecht to Jacobus, adding that their knowledge of each other was not possible without much ceremony. Mann extrapolates on Hesse's observance of Oriental customs in the novel. The Glass Bead Game manifests Hesse's enduring dream of combining East with West. For example, the discipline of the imaginary monastic community includes breathing and meditation techniques of clear Oriental inspiration.
Castalia is an Ivory Tower, an ethereal protected community within a larger nation, devoted to pure intellectual pursuits, and oblivious to the problems posed by life outside its boundaries. Knecht gradually comes to doubt whether the intellectually gifted have a right to withdraw from life's big problems. He eventually concludes that they do not, and that conclusion precipitates a sort of midlife crisis. Accordingly, he does the unthinkable: he resigns as Magister Ludi and asks to leave the order, ostensibly to become of value and service, in some way, to the larger culture. A few days later, he drowns in a mountain lake, while attempting a swim for which he was not fit. Tragically, living in Castalia made Knecht unfit for life in the world. Hesse also makes an existentialist point: faced with a dilemma, Knecht opts for the world and not the ivory tower.
Many characters in the novel have names that are allusive word games. For example, Knecht's predecessor as Magister Ludi was Thomas van der Trave, a veiled reference to Thomas Mann who was born in Lubeck, situated on the Trave River. Father Jacobus is based on the Swiss historian Jakob Burckhardt. The character of Carlo Ferromonte is a punning reference to Hesse's nephew Karl Isenberg.
Central characters
- Joseph Knecht: The central character of the book. The Magister Ludi for most of the book.
- The Music Master: Knecht's spiritual mentor who when Knecht is a child examines him for entrance into the elite schools of Castalia.
- Plinio Designori: Knecht's antithesis in the world outside.
- Father Jacobus: Knecht's antithesis in faith.
- Elder Brother: A former Castalian and student of Chinese.
- Thomas van der Trave: Joseph Knecht's predecessor as Magister Ludi.
- Fritz Tegularius: A friend of Knecht's but a portent of what Castalians might become if they remain insular.
Hesse's Glass Bead Game
At the center of the monastic order lies the (fictitious) glass bead game, whose exact nature remains elusive. The precise rules of the game are only alluded to, and are so sophisticated that they are not easy to imagine. Suffice it to say that playing the Game well requires years of hard study of music, mathematics, and cultural history. Essentially the game is an abstract synthesis of all arts and scholarship. It proceeds by players making deep connections between seemingly unrelated topics. For example, a Bach concerto may be related to a mathematical formula. One description says:
“Theoretically,” writes the Narrator Archivist, “this instrument is capable of producing in the Game the entire intellectual content of the universe. The manuals, pedal, and stops are now fixed. Changes in their number and order and attempts at perfecting them, are actually no longer feasible except in theory.” And with this statement, he reveals the limitations of the game: its elitism, its hubris, its stagnation, and its sterility.In its infancy, the Game was played with delicate glass beads, which have since been discarded as too . . . real? They connected the Game with the spiritual beads played by religious believers worldwide, as the robes, and secret language, and ceremonial trappings of the game form a mock religious experience in the time of the Narrator Archivist. Without them, the game flies into the ether without a tether to reality. In our world, prayer beads and the repetition of simple phrases serve as keys to transcendence. In Castalia, they are discarded and the key is lost. The Narrator Archivist makes no reference to the ecstatic states that might be achieved by Glass Bead Game players. The games as he describes them in Knecht’s time (the twenty-second century) and his own (the twenty-fourth century) apparently fall short of what seems the obvious goal.
The Game derives its name from the fact that it was originally played with tokens, perhaps analogous to those of an abacus or the game Go. At the time that the novel takes place, such props had become obsolete and the game is played only with abstract, spoken formulas. The audience's appreciation of a good game draws on its appreciation of both music and mathematical elegance.
The Glass Bead Game also brings to mind Leibniz's notion of a universal calculus and his dream of a Mathesis universalis. Douglas Hofstadter's Gödel, Escher, Bach, even though it does not mention Hesse's novel, is an intellectual exercise very much in the spirit of the Game.
However rather as being seen as a purely intellectual or rational notion it is more likely the glass bead game includes more Existential elements. As Hesse's other works (such as Steppenwolf for example) draw strongly on Existential themes it is likely that the glass bead game refers to the way in which people construct their realities. That is to say that the glass bead game is in fact life or existence and it illustrates the ways that people position not just themselves material but how they construct their entire perception of reality. As one needs to understand reality before one can deliberately allocate it this is the reference to the years of study.
Allusions/references from other works
- The Yugoslav band Igra Staklenih Perli, and their homonymous record, was named after the book.[1]
See also
References
- Hermann Hesse. The Glass Bead Game. Vintage Classics. ISBN 0-09-928362-X
External links
- Glass Bead Game Wiki. Links to efforts at developing a Glass Bead Game.
- Glasperlenspiel Festival.
- Details of Dunbar Aitkens' "conversation in the trappings of a board game."
- On the hipbone metaphor.
- The most complex of the attempts to create a real-life Glass Bead Game.
- http://kennexions.ludism.org/ A link to Ron Hale-Evans' Kennexions game.
- http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/%7Etas3/wtc/ii21.html Timothy A. Smith's Shockwave movie analyzing a Bach fugue with visual symbols.
- http://log24.com/theory/kal/ Kaleidoscope Puzzle with symbols like those in Smith's movie.
- http://www.spookybug.com/bgirls/pif.html The Gospel of Pif: A playable variation on the glass bead game
- http://www.island.org/ive/1/leary1.html Huxley, Hesse and The Cybernetic Society
