ArtiFact #26: Hermann Hesse’s ”Steppenwolf” | Joel Parrish, Alex Sheremet

In Herman Hesse’s “Steppenwolf”, we get a dense text which draws on various philosophical traditions in service of richly characterizing its protagonist, Harry Haller. What does Haller think and why? Are his flights of fancy a mere defense mechanism, or is there genuine depth behind his observations? How do the book’s less obvious (but no less important) moving parts all cohere? How can modern authors use some of the same tactics without leaning into what, a century later, might veer a bit too close to cliché? In this discussion, Alex Sheremet and Joel Parrish cover these and other questions. You can also watch this conversation on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPwCpSDEcnk

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Timestamps:

0:24 – introduction to Herman Hesse’s life, work, and our top-down view of Steppenwolf

9:28 – why books touching upon Eastern philosophy need extra care in character development; how Hermann Hesse opens Steppenwolf for a pessimistic or ambivalent reading of the novel’s ending

16:04 – explaining the faux introduction to Steppenwolf’s “inner” text; how Herman Hesse taps Nietzsche; is the introduction’s final set of claims universally applicable?; meta-issues in Steppenwolf

33:00 – appraising the book’s opening paragraph; Jack Kerouac’s negative critique of Steppenwolf; Redditors in confusion once again

47:20 – Siddhartha, Steppenwolf, and Charles Johnson’s Oxherding Tale; contentment vs. struggle as a clue to Harry Haller’s psyche; his hatred for, and wallowing within, the bourgeois world; more examples of great lines/paragraphs

58:40 – the book’s action & temporal reality; Steppenwolf’s “magic” as a glimpse into Harry Haller’s mental break; the “Steppenwolf treatise” within the “inner text” and its function; humor vs. tragedy as artistic expression; how and why to laugh at oneself; the “multiple selves” posit of Steppenwolf & Siddhartha; why those with mental turmoil often believe their problems are unique, & how Hesse leverages this for the text

01:36:19 – Harry Haller meets an old university colleague; Haller’s self-serving critique of a Goethe painting; Haller given positive & even prophetic traits for being anti-war, seeing the germs of the next conflict

01:51:31 – Harry meets Hermine; some samples of great dialogue, as well as Haller’s growing realization how “rich” his life has been, irrespective of his current state; Alex & Joel argue that there is some critique to be made of Herman Hesse’s use and writing of female characters; Alex gets very controversial on the subject of old-man sex

02:13:20 –Hermine’s notion of permanence and eternity; the conflict of accumulating knowledge for its own sake; the Magic Theatre & beyond; Harry Haller’s gatekeeping as a psychological tactic; are some of the writerly strategies in Siddhartha, Steppenwolf, and Oxherding Tale done with those books, and now at risk of becoming clichéd tactics and tropes?

Video thumbnail © Joel Parrish

Joel’s website: https://poeticimport.com

Read the latest from the automachination universe: https://automachination.com

Read Alex’s (archived) essays: https://alexsheremet.com

Tags: #Steppenwolf, #HermanHesse, #GermanLiterature, #ArtiFactPodcast

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPwCpSDEcnk