“Nobody gets me, i hate authority but like the comforts of civil society! Look how everyone else finds joy in simple routines and i live in a messy room before running off and doing it again! I thought being alone made me cool and independent when i was young but now that im 50 maybe i was wrong??”

I mean it feels like this is a book about a guy with undiagnosed ADHD, or someone who just took decades to get out from his teenage existentialist phase. Tell me this book is more than just “nobody gets me” over and over again. All i can picture is that Harry Haller in 2023 would be the neckbeard wearing the 3-wolves-howling-at-the-moon tshirt. This shit is mediocre crap!

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GraniteGeekNH t1_jdnh5lo wrote on March 25, 2023 at 6:42 PM

Never. Give up and read something else.

I think this is a case of a book that hit the culture very hard at the time but its attitude has become so integrated that it is now a tired cliche.

This is pretty common: a work (fiction, painting, dance, music etc) takes the world by storm which changes the world so that it comes to seem obvious and predictable. Who is shocked by Stavinsky's Rite of Spring any more?

Interesting to study in terms of cultural trends at the time in central Europe, perhaps - not interesting to read.

GraniteGeekNH t1_jdnhco9 wrote on March 25, 2023 at 6:43 PM

I do wonder whether it invented every teenage boy's favorite fantasy - "I scorn all society and therefore women want to fuck me" - or whether that was already a thing.

HeySlimIJustDrankA5 t1_jdodfh1 wrote on March 25, 2023 at 10:41 PM

“Born to be Wild” is iconic but, “The Pusher” is underrated. Everything else is very meh. If you’re looking for a group similar with a better discography, MC5, Blue Cheer and Vanilla Fudge will do that.

Edit: I’m lost. Anybody know what direction r/LetsTalkMusic is in?

boxer_dogs_dance t1_jdoeqwv wrote on March 25, 2023 at 10:51 PM

So sarcasm, or r/lostredditors?

HeySlimIJustDrankA5 t1_jdoh0mo wrote on March 25, 2023 at 11:08 PM

Jesus I definitely did not read the sub’s names I was in…..

CherryLeigh86 t1_jdnkl8i wrote on March 25, 2023 at 7:06 PM

It does not

Unusual-Wash4227 t1_jdnzul2 wrote on March 25, 2023 at 8:58 PM

That's not the point of the novel or of any of Hesse's works, really. Try to finish the novel. If you still don't understand it, look up an anaylsis of the work.

potnia_theron OP t1_jdor0hm wrote on March 26, 2023 at 12:23 AM

Can you give me the TLDR? Cuz i feel like 100 pages is more than i’d give most books.

Edit: lol at the fanboys downvoting this because they can’t articulate a defense that doesn’t sound cliche’d and ridiculous

whoisyourwormguy_ t1_jdo4tus wrote on March 25, 2023 at 9:35 PM

That sounds very similar to notes from underground which people seem to compliment a lot

KosherNazi t1_jdnf79h wrote on March 25, 2023 at 6:28 PM

😂

100% overrated. Harry Haller is a teenager that never grew up. He read the first paragraph of a few wikipedia philosophy articles and decided he was a genius.