Rating: 
Summary: Peeling an onion (laugh, don't cry)
Review: Hesse is a genius -- go read his stuff! His writing is by no means light reading. Very deep and mysterious. This book, in particular -- magical and supernatural and profound. It was slow getting through the first third of the book, but after that I flew right threw it. The first part is a little boring -- but that's because the protagonist is boring at the beginning, and that's part of the point. (Don't give up!) The book then blossoms into a beautiful, vivid exploration of the senses and a visit to the strange and mysterious "magical theater" -- which contains some of the most beautiful and poignant scenes i've read in all of literature. Hesse has incredible insight into the complexity of mankind and has an amazing, profound wisdom of life and truth.The book is basically about a man who is trapped in the personality he has created for himself, in the small, confined, grey world he has created, and how he learns to break free from those, to free himself from the restriction of the illusion of a singular soul, as each person is comprised of many souls. ("Man is an onion made up of a hundred integuments, a texture made up of many threads"). Harry experiences many strange encounters, including his visit to the "magial theater" in which he relives all the possibilities of love, engages in war, and meets Mozart, who, laughing ridiculously (I wouldn't have him depicted any other way), shares with Harry some of his Immortal wisdom, teaches him to laugh instead of taking himself so seriously. Anyhow... go read this. You will never see the life the same way again.
Rating:
Summary: Insanity to the extreme.......
Review: I don't even know where to begin. "Steppenwolf" is so gut-wrenching and so powerful that no review could possibly do it justice. About twenty times in the book, I stopped to ask myself what drug Hesse had consumed (and in what tremendous quantities) when he wrote this book. Apparently, no drug; Hesse was savagely intoxicated on life. He was a steppenwolf, much like his doppelganger Harry Haller, the novel's narrator. Steppenwolf - a man who believes himself to be half human, half wolf. Harry Haller is a loner, drawn away from the banality of bourgeois life and wallowing in the desperation of existence. His only companions are the books that have taken him to the extremes of intellectual snobbery. At the outset of the novel, Harry is on the verge of suicide (the "Treatise" which chronicles his desire for death is one of the most depressing albeit formidable pieces of literature that I have ever read). But all is changed when Harry meets Hermine - she represents that part of himself that Harry has hidden somewhere in the recesseses of his yearning mind, she is a metaphor of the "lighter" side of life, that part of us all that craves pleasure and triviality and precisely the part that Harry needed to unravel. The novel goes on to explore Harry's journey towards self-discovery and his changing realisations about life and its meanings. It is a beautiful story, I was very moved by it's power and particulary by the events that take place in the novel's so-called "Magic Theatre".... whoa, talk about madness, this part of the story is incredible, Hesse's imagination really has no limits. Actually, when I think of Harry Haller, I am reminded of a certain expression from "Macbeth" - the "heat-oppressed mind." Read Steppenwolf, you'll know exactly what I mean.
Rating:
Summary: Great, but where are all the b#tchin' Johnnny Kay vocals?
Review: I sometimes worry about the kind of world we live in, especially when I see masterpieces like this one given anything less than five stars. I tried hard to give it six, and I think I broke my compooter.
Rating: 
Summary: Steppen it to the Wolf
Review: When I read the book Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse I was very puzzled throughout the whole book. The vivid and colorful language and speech lost my attetion for the first half of the book. Expecially when the Steppenwolf is discribing his bitter sadnesses/losses in life. I also was very confused when Harry Holla, aka Steppenwolf, was speaking in a regular vocabulary, difficult and some points but understandable for part of the time. I consider myself and average reader, and the novel was to complicated for me to understand. The staleness and lack of action of the book took my attion away. In most parts of Steppenwolf, there would be huge dialog scenes and little or no actuall action going on. I would recomend this book to the more advanced reader because the vocabulary is very difficult for and average reader, such as myself. All in all the novel was very challenging to read and to interpret. My advice for people that are going to read Steppenwolf is to study this book hard to understand it because the themes are confusing and frustrating at some points in the book.
Rating:
Summary: I've put off writing a review for this book....
Review: ....because it meant so very much to me during a dark time in my life. I never realized how much of what we learn to see in ourselves as odd, strange, unacceptable, mentally ill, or whatnot makes perfect poetic-daimonic sense to an underground but vital chunk of fellow human beings like Hermann Hesse. What's the book about? About one man's journey into the hell of his own being, paralleled only by the hell of a world he finds no home in; words from Hesse's DEMIAN come to mind: "My story is not a pleasant one....It is a story of nonsense and chaos, madness and dreams--like the lives of all men who stop deceiving themselves." It's been years since I first came across this remarkable novel of the archetypally lonely man aptly named the Steppenwolf, and yet I still recall so much of it, especially the Author's Note which Hesse wrote when he felt the book was being misunderstood: pointing out that Harry Haller's (Hermann Hesse's) sufferings were opposed by a "positive, serene, superpersonal and timeless world of faith," Hesse adds, "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 the Steppenwolf pictures a disease and crisis--but not one leading to death and destruction, on the contrary: to healing."
Rating:
Summary: complexity at its finest
Review: This book was a philosophical rollercoaster, if you liked Siddartha alot as i did then maybe this book isnt for you. Steppenwolf is definitly a step up on the complexity compared to Siddartha. Where as Siddartha had glimpses of philosophical insight, steppenwolf fully consisted of just that. If you are ready for a challenge then i would recommend that you dive in. I personally found myself gettin dizzy and lost in all the run-one sentences.
Rating:
Summary: Judged by its cover
Review: I have not read the book, but judging by its cover it is a book about a half-man half-wolf. That subject has been a favorite with horror writers through out history.
Rating:
Summary: Among the best books I have ever read
Review: Outstanding. One of the best books I have ever read. An interesting examination of existentisal philosophy ( more specifically nietzsche), that really creates a sence of the isolation and alienation that is a fact of life in the modern world.
So back in the 27' Tyler Durden would have been named Hermine, the story is just as compelling and indicates that the difficulties that face those who can't just be cogs in the machine are not something new to our generation. ( Perhaps when Yam child has become Yam woman she will realize this, too ).
This story is not exciting, there is little action, it can be dull. Rather, it is a meditation on the world, the problems it creates for one who wants to maintain his individuality in the face of modernity, and the problems furthur raised by any atempt to circumvent those conditions.
This is not a book to give you answers to your journey to selfhood. It is a book to show you A way, and to give you hope that such a journey is possible. Enjoy
Rating:
Summary: My Review on Steppenwolf
Review: This novel was very well written, but I think it was too complicated for me. I consider myself a pretty good reader, but I was blown away by his far superior and obviously honed vocabulary skills but writing skills also. There was a lot of run-on sentences and it was hard to understand most of the time. This book is not for people who love lots of action, but someone who likes to analyze every bit and piece. That is why this book would be perfect for school reading material or an advanced reader unlike myself. I would never read this book for the shear fun of it and I don't think I will ever read it again. Don't get me wrong by thinking that I didn't enjoy this book because I enjoyed it! If it was more understandable for me, I probably would have enjoyed it a lot more.
Rating:
Summary: Not bad.
Review: Steppenwolf is the first of Herman Hesse's works I have read, and it won't be the last. Although the first 80 pages are fairly hard to get through, the rest of the book makes the trek well worth it. The "Magic Theatre" scene is one of the most imaginative pieces of literature I've ever read. However, as I said before, the first third of the book is very slow and boring, as most of those pages are just Harry Haller (the main character) reading the mysterious "treatise," a strange type of analysis of Harry, which was given to him by an unknown person. The treatise is boring and hard to follow. The rest of the book is a fairly easy read and you will find yourself tearing through to the end. I would recommend this book to anyone who's into stories with a surreal edge to them. The only reason I didn't give Steppenwolf more than 3 stars was because of it's slow beginning.
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