Demian

“Sometimes I awoke from this dream with a feeling of profound ecstasy, at others in mortal fear and with a racked conscience as though I had committed some terrible crime.”

– Emil Sinclair, main character of Hermann Hesse’s Demian

Straddling the boundaries of childhood and the adult world, I discovered Hermann Hesse’s Demian quite by accident. Visiting Downtown Books with my boyfriend, we’d come to uncover great forgotten literary classics. I was searching for something profound to shove into my back pocket, something that would show the English teacher that I was awake and aware of the legacy of great writers before me.

We’d heard of Hesse’s depiction of the Buddha in Siddhartha, but wanted something more challenging. We were our own tortured philosophers, less like enlightened easterners but more like Emil Sinclair, main character of the coming of age novel of which I speak.

Demian glared out at me from the massive stack of dusty classics in the fiction section. The slim volume intrigued me; I picked it up to marvel at the delicate illustration, to smell the yellowing pages. Satisfying my voracious reading appetite, I took the book home. This was the beginning of a longstanding affair between myself and Hesse’s novels.

Crammed into a doorway waiting for my first driver’s ed class to begin, I read until I’d missed the sound of the instructor’s final words. I was enraptured in the mysterious tale of intellectual awakening, spiritual and sexual longing.

Demian is the story of Emil Sinclair, a boy who finds his world turned upside down by a little white lie. The lie grows, pushing him further away from the protection of family life and into the darkness of insecurity. In this darkness, Sinclair finds comfort in a friendship with schoolmate Max Demian and his alluring mother, Frau Eva.

Over the course of the novel, Sinclair undergoes the great transformation of self-doubt followed by self-discovery. Heavy with symbolism and Jungian philosophy, Hesse takes readers on a frightening quest of growth through a non-traditional Bildungsroman tale. Rather than finding answers in teachers or books, Sinclair discovers himself through his own subconscious awakening, forcing him to find the answers he seeks within.

Demian is the perfect  read for those interested in tapping into the mystic. Though the book is hardly more than a few hour commitment, the questions remain long after the last page is read. Hesse’s language is profoundly accessible, offering striking prose littered with thought-provoking suppositions that bring the reader back to linger over key passages.

Adults will be drawn back into their own memory, touching on hazy nostalgia of individuals long gone or personal experiences nearly forgotten. Young people will appreciate Demian for other reasons, namely recognizing the transition from innocence to awareness that comes as a rite of passage into adulthood.

If you find yourself searching for something different this summer, consider spending some time on Hermann Hesse’s Demian. Your inner self will thank you for the challenge.