Demian. Gertrude

“Demian” is a philosophical novel, gloomy and mystical. It can also be considered autobiographical - Hesse declares this in the preface. A landmark work, which had a huge impact on the future work of the writer, and the great Thomas Mann compared this book with the suffering of the young Werther.
This is the story of growing up and the formation of a young man who departs from hypocritical norms of social morality and discovers a deep, dark I, not subject to virtuous Pharisees, reigning around. In this, the mysterious friend of Demian helps him - the bearer of the “seal of Cain”, or the devil, or the mysterious deity, or just the product of the hero’s imagination ...
the novel “Gertrude” belongs to the early period of German Hesse"s work. A story that Nietzsche was repeatedly called the artistic embodiment of the motives of the “birth of the tragedy”, is dedicated to the drama of the young composer, forced to choose between the “rational” and “spontaneous” beginning in work. The real details of Hesse’s life and the features characteristic of him, “donated” to various characters, give the book a special, deep meaning.
What is art? Self -denial - or spiritual permissiveness? Why is a man of art doomed to eternal loneliness? Each of the heroes of Roman Hesse answers these questions in his own way