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The glass bead game (Magister Ludi)

by Hermann Hesse

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Info:	London, Cape, 1970.
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English (25) Spanish (1) Dutch (1) All languages (27)

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Magister Ludi by Hermann Hesse (1982)

leese | Nov 23, 2009 |

A Utopian fantasy of a world run as a game something like chess, something like fugue. Musicology is described as one of the few lasting contributions of our time. (Bob Copeland)

AMS_musicology | Aug 27, 2009 |

It has been decades since I last read this book. It pulled me in again. When I'm not actually reading I see a lot of problems with it - first and foremost, of course, that women aren't real people in it. The whole idea of the game is unrealistic ... But when you are reading, none of this matters. (

)

MarthaJeanne | Aug 8, 2009 |

Not Hesse's best work, but still thought-provoking. (

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Katya0133 | Jul 12, 2009 |

Glassperlenspiel - a Masterpiece by any meaning.
Difficult to read though, not an easy lecture for a sunny Sunday morning. Reading it is worth though... it's all about INITIATION, a fascinating game of becoming.
Very different of everything else Hesse created, a very complex work of a guy who's always fought against the common education. (

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Myhi | Jul 2, 2009 |

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Series (with order)

Canonical Title

The Glass Bead Game

Original publication date

1943 (Switzerland)

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Related movies

Awards and honors

Guardian 1000 (Science Fiction & Fantasy)

1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die (2006/2008 Edition)

Århundrets bibliotek

Borges' A Personal Library

Harenberg Buch der 1000 Bücher

(show all 6 items)

Epigraph

. . . For although in a certain sense and for light- minded persons non-existent things can be more easily and irresponsibly represented in words than existing things, for the serious and conscientious historian it is just the reverse. Nothing is harder, yet nothing is more necessary, than to speak of certain things whose existence is neither demonstrable nor probable. The very fact that serious and conscientious men treat them as existing things brings them a step closer to existence and to the possibility of being born. (From Joseph Knecht's holograph translation of Albertus Secundus tract. de cristall. spirit. ed. Clangor et Collof. lib. I, cap. 28).

Dedication

dedicated to the Journeyers to the East

First words

It is our intention to preserve in these pages what scant biographical material we have been able to collect concerning Joseph Knecht, or Ludi Magister Josephus III, as he is called in the Archives of the Glass Bead Game.

Quotations

But now for the first time I had heard the inner voice of the Game itself, its meaning. It had reached me and since that moment I have believed that our royal game is truly a lingua sacra, a sacred and divine language.

One who had experienced the ultimate meaning of the Game within himself would by that fact no longer be a player; he would no longer dwell in the delight in invention, construction and combination, since he would know altogether different joys and raptures. Because I think I have come close to the meaning of the Glass Bead Game, it will be better for me and for others if I do not make the Game my profession, but instead shift to music.

Last words

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Wikipedia in English (2)

Steppenwolf (novel)

The Glass Bead Game

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Book description

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Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0312278497, Paperback)

The final novel of Hermann Hesse, for which he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1946, The Glass Bead Game is a fascinating tale of the complexity of modern life as well as a classic of modern literature

Set in the 23rd century, The Glass Bead Game is the story of Joseph Knecht, who has been raised in Castalia, the remote place his society has provided for the intellectual elite to grow and flourish. Since childhood, Knecht has been consumed with mastering the Glass Bead Game, which requires a synthesis of aesthetics and scientific arts, such as mathematics, music, logic, and philosophy, which he achieves in adulthood, becoming a Magister Ludi (Master of the Game).

(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:57:57 -0400)

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