I don't read for distraction. There are plenty of other things to distract me. I read to gain some new insight, to feel alive, to stay alive. And so I launched myself into a second reading of Hermann Hesse's offbeat little novel "Steppenwolf", in which reality and fantasy are unobtrusively fused into one another.
As much as I enjoyed his other masterpiece, "Siddhartha", which is philosophically reminiscent of "Steppenwolf", this is no easy read. As Hermann Hesse suggests in his 'Author's Notes', "I neither can nor intend to tell my readers how they ought to understand my tale. May everyone find in it what strikes a chord in him and is of some use to him! But I would be happy if many of them were to realize that the story of Steppenwolf pictures a disease and crisis - but not one leading to death and destruction, on the contrary: to healing."
So here we go then: God is in His Heaven, the possum in his possum penthouse, and I am lying on the old sofa on the verandah, launching myself into a second reading of "Steppenwolf". FOR MADMEN ONLY!
