The Glass Bead Game, a masterpiece in 20th century, has had a marvelous influence for idealism as well as plays a vital role in the history of literature.
As the last novel by Hermann Hesse, it is not sophisticated compared to contemporary books like Lolita or Gravity’s Rainbow, just simply describing a virtual land in Europe called Castalia where people live in a monastery-style school studying philosophy and arts instead of technology. Joseph Knecht, the central character of the story, who is an orphan in Castalia since childhood, was an elite student in studying, he thus had eligibility to college. After graduated, he took part in the religional group and served for eduaction. Experiencing a hard studying in dozens of years, he eventually became the master of the glass bead game. He got tired and bored of reputation and power soon, however, he clearly recognized that Castalia can’t long live and he wanted to see the other world he had never seen before. Following the reason, he accepted the invitation to being a private teacher of the son of his childhood friend. Though it’s the end, he lastly drowned in a river due to a swimming competition with his student.
Based on the strong idealism from Hesse, the fictional game originates from music, regarded as a symbol of truth and logic. Hesse uses the game as a metaphor to lead a question whether a man should seek the truth though he don’t know what he turely want. The question throughout most of his publications such as Demian and Steppenwolf, inspire readers to pursue a spritual eternity owing to materials declining quickly.
It’s hard to say exactly what Hesse want to express, although one thing is certain that his thought is deeply affected by orient, according to appendixes at the end of the book, in which it has a yoga master.