The Glass Bead Game

Ends abruptly, but it's a magical journey through a meditative world.

The Glass Bead Game is about a future society called Castalia in which the most highly regarded cultural institution, almost a religion, is the game of the title, in which players relate ideas to one another in a sort of cabalistic exercise but encompassing every field of human knowledge (but especially mathematics and music) rather than just scripture. The Game, however, has little connection to real life but operates in a sort of Platonic world of Forms, as the relations between ideas it establishes are generally superficial rather than based on real, essential or fundamental similarities.The story follows one past (to the narrator) Magister Ludi, or Master of the Game, and tells of his eventual disillusionment as he learns more of history and the outside world. "I regarded it as my mission," as he puts it, "to expand Castalian life and thought"---but ultimately, he resigns his post and leaves Castalia altogether.His resignation ties the story, which seems a bit disjointed up to that point, together: "But I must also tell you the meaning that the word 'transcend' has had for me since my student years and my 'awakening.' It came to me, I think, while reading a philosopher of the Enlightenment...and ever since then it has been a veritable magic word for me, like 'awakening,' an impetus, a consolation, and a promise. My life, I resolved, ought to be a perpetual transcending, a progression from stage to stage; I wanted it to pass through one area after the next, leaving each behind, as music moves on from theme to theme, from tempo to tempo, playing each out to the end, completing each and leaving it behind, never tiring, never sleeping, forever wakeful, forever in the present."The Glass Bead Game is a great novel and probably Hesse's masterpiece, certainly better than Demian or Siddhartha, though personally I probably enjoyed Narcissus and Goldmund more. It starts off a bit slowly, but builds and builds and is ultimately fascinating and quite satisfying. Definitely worth a read.If you enjoyed The Glass Bead Game, you might want to check out James Beckel's Pulitzer-prize nominated horn concerto of the same title, inspired by and loosely based on the novel (all the more appropriate given the important role of music in the story).

Excellent writer, one of reagent influences on my life

Wasted 12 hours waiting for anything to happen. Nothing ever did. Finally gave up.