Rating: 
Summary: The Wolf of the Steppes
Review: For the most part I liked the book but there were many times where I got really confused because the narration would jump from the nephew to Harry himself. Also random things would happen like finding the Magic Theater and the man handing him the book about himself. But things like that did keep me intersted. I didn't really like the whole section about him wanting to commit suicide either. I did find it intersting when the Steppenwolf would talk to the nephew about personal experiences. However the nephew seemed a little obsessed with the Steppenwolf because he would stay up late and listen or watch him in his room. Overall I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to read a weird book and I would read it again.
Rating: 
Summary: steppenwolf=steppenstrange
Review: Steppenwolf, by Hermann Hesse, is a captivating, but sometimes confusing novel. It deals with the inner conflicts of Harry Haller and his split personality, the Steppenwolf. The preface is long and drawn out, but take your time and carefully read it. You will find that it is extremely important to the development of the book. After you finish the arduous task of completing the first 25 pages, you get to take a stroll in the life of the Steppenwolf. It is a distorted look on the "bourgeois society" that Harry lives in, a post war Germany. Haller deals with ex-girlfriends, gramophones, Mozart, and a Magical Theatre that is for Madmen only. The end of the book is worth its weight in pages. If you're not a mad man by the time you get there, you will be when you're finished. I was extremely satisfied when I completed this novel. It was hard to get through at times, but well worth getting through. Everyone that can handle a little self-analysis should definitely read Steppenwolf.
Rating: 
Summary: Well worth the read
Review: Tie this in with Wittgenstein (I am thinking of Ray Monk's book here) and others -- like Theodore Adorno (Can one live after Auschwitz?) to try to build a picture of what was happening in the minds of intellectuals in Europe from WWI through and after WWII. I would also tie this in with the mindset of Kierkegaard and others post-Hegel to see how they are dealing with the unhappy consciousness. Was no one besides Hegel able to see what Hegel meant? This is well worth still considering since the task -- overcoming negativity after becoming a self-consciousness aware of self-consciousness aware of itself and what this means -- is still a tragic fight for many of us. Perhaps only more tragic for those who never get to fight it. But what about those of us that do? Today instead of Jung we have folks like Yalom. Then compare these to folks like C.S. Lewis. What makes the difference so stark? Quotations:
"True humor begins when a man ceases to take himself seriously." p. 177
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful and mysterious
Review: At one point in the seventies, you'd see just about every other person on campus toting a worn-out copy of this book. It was a cult classic. Now, I am not sure who is reading it, but it is just as poignant as it was back then. Henry Haller is a gray, German sort of non-person, who unearths his inner being when he meets the mysterious Hermine. Is she really a "he", another side of Haller, or is she the love of his life? The duality of man, the inner landscape are the themes of Hesse's brilliant work.
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Summary: This book is a Classic.
Review: This would probably classify as the most favourite of all my books. As a past Literature major, I have read much, and I find an affinity with both Hesse and his Steppenwolf. For those who would like to know what exactly the book is about, it's about a man who does not relate to society, in general. An outcast, because of his high sensitivity and talents. He doesn't relate to most people, and doesn't care to. He is a rebel. He is a genius. It's about the Artist, the True Genius, attempting to live in a world where mediocrity reigns supreme, like the United States of America, a country where a University or Graduate education depends on making money off of students and lowering standards as a result, not true intelligence or ability; in a country where human beings worship the tv set; in a country where the President had a C- average in school. This book is still applicable in many ways to the current mediocre mentality, which is alive and well, and how the above average or superior human being cannot bear to live within such an atmosphere of stupidity, and yet must come to terms somehow.
Rating:
Summary: Hold this mirror up to yourself and see
Review: While we like to view ourselves as polarized beings composed of both good and evil --and hopefully coexist in some healthy realm in between,--we are really composed of the myriad of all things universal. Steppenwolf is a mirror into the soul of each and every sensitive human being trying to avoid becoming a wreck alongside a super-highway called egomaniacal nihilism. Hesse reveals in startling detail the conflict within our hearts, the struggle for the survival of the Self, the utter beauty of love, prose, poetry, music; and the rest of the earthly riches that we recieve when we are born unto this world. He even prophesizes the armored struggle that becomes the second world war a decade before it transpired. The palates of this tome run the gamut from contemplated suicide, deep depression, and substance abuse; to the joys of meaningful relationships and the revelry of re-discovering a rewarding life. This is not a book to be read in a casual manner; put on some gentle music and read it slowly like a prayer or a meditation, you will emerge all the better for it, God bless.
Rating:
Summary: Carl Jung vs the Steppenwolf
Review: Hermann Hesse was in bad shape at this point in his life. Death of a beloved child; a turbulant marriage to a mentally deteriorating woman ending in a painful separation; his devout humanitarianism and pacifism causing him to be scorned and ostracized by a population increasingly obsessed with a very jingoistic form of German nationalism. His ensuing severe depression compell him to undergo analysis by a Jungian and to open a dialogue with Carl himself. They recommend he use his incredible narrative talents, in the framework of Jung's theory of personality, to purge himself of his demons. Steppenwolf is the result. Since narrative flow and reader accessibility were not a top priority for Hesse in this attempt at self-therapy, one has to understand Jungs ideas of the evolution of self-discovery (the road to the Immortals)and the mechanics of ego, anima, self through which this evolution takes place. Hesse, true to form, takes these psychological abstractions and breathes life into them, as Harry (ego), Hermine (anima) and Pablo/Mozart (self) compete, instruct and eventually synthesize to allow Harry (Hesse) to look past his own self-imposed limitations of father, husband, respected citizen and yes, even steppenwolf, to the rarified air of the Immortals where life's foibles produce one cosmic belly-laugh after another and give us the ability to see that "our past was not a shattering of ruins, but fragments of the divine and that our life turned not on trifles, but on stars".
One of the most powerful blueprints of the human experience ever written; mainly because it's a true story, written by one with the courage to go down this road and the skill to put what he finds on paper.
Rating:
Summary: Different Hesse
Review: This is one of Hesse's most well-known works that differs stylistically from his other works like Siddartha, Narcissus and Goldmund, etc. Steppenwolf is written in a more complex manner, sometimes requiring the reader to reread passages or read very closely throughout the whole book. The story and the themes are typical of Hesse; human exploration, psychology, self-discovery are all important ideas. A wonderful book, well written. Great for fans of Hesse, not necessarily the best book of Hesse's to read, if you have not read any of his other works.
Rating:
Summary: Steppenwolf
Review: The psychological journey that Herman Hesse leads you through in Steppenwolf is worth the read, yet, his various diversions and unorthodox writing style sometimes makes it a painful journey.
Rating:
Summary: We are all steppenwolves.
Review: What Herman Hesse presents us as his literary books, are actually his gifts to the humankind. His depictions reflect a mirror to us. Be it his 'Siddartha', be it Josef Knecht in 'The Glass Bead Game', or be it 'Steppenwolf'... It is absolutely essential, that we look at ourselves in these 'mirrors'. Steppenwolf represents 'the search for a balance' in life. 'It is the striving after a mean between the countless extremes and opposites that arise in human conduct'. 'Life and resoluton, action and reaction, impulse and impetus' make up the total gathering he and we are seeking. Joy of life encapsulates one strangely, just at the time one's thinking of the eternal after-life. It is the conflict, it is the war between love and hatred, in and beyond things. It is the 'balance' we're seeking, indeed. Steppenwolf 'will never surrender himself either to lust or to asceticism.' Instead, he will be a 'Steppenwolf'. World is a 'magic theater'; and the entrance is, indeed, not for everybody. One must be a wolf; and a man at times. Acting is a personal pleasure. Reading this book is a further pleasure. 'Steppenwolf' is an enchantment that awaits you...
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