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Summary: An existencial masterpiece
Review: I feel deeply bonded towards Hesse's books. However, I must say this one is one of my favorites (besides, maybe Demian). This book not only explores the two sides of everyones personality, desires and expectations, it also envolves the reader in an existencial aventure for the pursue of life's meaning. The author manages to divide two aspects of the personality into two different persons that find themselves firmly attached to each other because of the one thing they have in common: each one, in its own way, is a pure spirit, they live knowing and pursuing happiness within their posibilities and true desires. The reader will feel identified with both of the characters of this book, because I think everybody is a bit of a dreamer and a bit reflexive and analitic; we're all artists and phillosophers; we're all free spirits and at the same time devoted to our own values and believes. This book will make you question your purpose in life, your expectations and true desires, it will deffy you to search your true ideals and at the end you'll notice that beauty and happiness don't come in a specific way, they appear to us in the most insignifficant things and most of all in the pursue of our expectations, and not in the acomplishments we make.
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Summary: An overlooked masterpiece that belongs among the greats
Review: This is the third novel of Hesse's that I have had the joy of reading (Sidhartha and Demian are the other two). After finishing it, I wondered why as an educated man and student of literature I had not heard about it years ago. Of the three Hesse novels I have read, this is the best. Like the other two, it is a testament to searching for your own path in life and refusing to be lead by the status quo, but it is so much more.The story revolves around, as the title implies, Narcissus, a young monk who urges Goldmund, a cloister student, to find out who he really is rather than be bullied by his father's wishes into a life of religious servitude. The novel focuses on Goldmund's journies through the German Empire of the 1300s and his discovery of art, nature, and love. It reveals powerful scenes of plague-ridden Europe as well as introspective conversations between the two men on the nature of reason and imagination. Hesse carefully questions love, life, religion, god, education, and complacency without making his conclusions mere propaganda. This is one of those books that, when all is over, makes the reader wish there were more. I can't recommend it enough.
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Summary: Love in the time of King Death
Review: Everything Hermann Hesse ever wrote is deeply personal and very important to anyone who shares his philosophy or is open minded enough to address it. Narcissus and Goldmund is the best of his more literal works, although it is conceived in reference to the same thread of reason which pervades all his works-- the duality of human nature--which appears in his more symbolic and surreal novels. Although I identify deeply with all of Hesse's characters (somehow hesse's villians, and heroes (if there are such things in his books)-- protagonists and antagonists, all carry admirable and dispicable characteristics, making it almost impossible not to identify with every character in some way or another), Narcissus and Goldmund seem to be some of Hesse's most developed and accessable characters, and the medieval setting is a refreshing change of pace for those familiar with most of hesse's books. This is a deliberate but brisk, contemplative but active work. If you haven't read Hesse, i would suggest this as a fantastic and slightly less cerebral place to start getting intimate with one of the most inventive, personal, and moving writers of the twentieth, or any century. If you do know Hesse, then you know why you should already own this book.
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Summary: What can be possibly better than?
Review: You can buy Narcissus and Goldmund with your eyes closed, right now! It's a whole life that people in our times will never have. It's an amazing experience, of the body and soul through aging. One can actually feel the vivid touch of a gypsy, the love of a mother and the fear of death, radiating from the pages.
Be prepared for an emotional experience of tear shedding and longing heart.
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Summary: A Contrast in Characters
Review: Narcissus and Goldmund, by Hermann Hesse, is a contrast in the characters of a school boy, Goldmund, who abandons his scrict life to attempt to please himself, but winds up pleasing others; and Narcissus, the schoolmaster who believes that it was his fate to become a schoolteacher though truly he would be happier elsewhere.
As Goldmund 'hitch-hikes' through the middle ages, Narcissus stays where he is, routinely and repetitively teaching. Neither is truly happy. However, it seems that their characters require them to act as they do. This book is one that prompts you to ponder. I approve.
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Summary: rocking
Review: i love this book. hermann is the man for his time in place... i wont say hero cuz whats a hero....
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Summary: Images and ideas
Review: Hermann Hesse's "Narcissus and Goldmund" is, in Nietzschean terms, a study of the conflict between the Apollonian (form, order, restraint, the world of ideas) and the Dionysian (passion, frivolity, lust, the world of images), without favoring one or the other. In fact, it seems to suggest that the highest state of humanity is a result of the peaceful coexistence of ideas and images. The novel takes place in Germany, evidently some time in the late Middle Ages. Narcissus (the Apollonian) is a stoic young monk who teaches at a cloister called Mariabronn. One day a very handsome boy named Goldmund (the Dionysian) is dropped off at Mariabronn by his father to get a religious upbringing. Goldmund is artistic and takes his studies seriously enough, but he is obsessed with thoughts of his departed mother, an issue over which he and Narcissus become close friends. As he grows older, Goldmund realizes that he does not have much use for a monastic life, especially when he discovers the carnal pleasures of the opposite sex. With Narcissus's reluctant approval, he decides to run away from the cloister and blindly follow his passions. Goldmund wanders around the countryside for many years as a vagrant. A regular Lothario, he survives by pleasuring the various women and girls he meets in every village and homestead. Although living this way makes him tough, even enough to kill a man when provoked, he retains his religious and artistic sensibilities and a certain compassion for the defenseless and the innocent. Impressed by a wooden madonna he sees in a church one day, he seeks out the sculptor who created it and requests to study under him. Goldmund eventually develops into a skillful artist himself, and, eventually returning to Mariabronn, he uses his skill to create wonderful wood carvings and statues for the cloister. It would appear that Goldmund's life comes full circle by the end of the novel, but his years of wandering permanently alter the convictions he developed as a youth. He tells Narcissus that he can never take religious vows because, while he can accept poverty, he can't abide chastity or obedience. His belief that God has made the world "badly" stems from his experiences during the Black Plague that lays waste to the population: Stopping in a church once, he addresses God with a question that must have been on the minds of many people back then: "...Are you completely disgusted with your creation, do you want us all to perish?" More lucid and coherent than Hesse's more popular opus "Steppenwolf," "Narcissus and Goldmund" is a great soul-searching type of novel, one that allows a reader, especially a young one, to confront questions about his or her own life. If we consider that Narcissus and Goldmund represent the two extremes of humanity -- Narcissus, the "perfect" Apollonian, and Goldmund, the "perfect" Dionysian (although admittedly there are even more extreme forms of passion than what Goldmund exhibits) -- we might be able to recognize that most of us fall somewhere in the middle; our satisfaction in life lies in finding out where in the middle we are most comfortable.
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Summary: ATE IT UP LIKE CANDY
Review: Loved every minute reading this book. Makes me ache with joy. Happy with sadness. I am part Narcissus, part Goldmund - we all are. Loved their love for each other. HESSE is so wonderful. The complexity of life he describes - so real, so true.
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Summary: Amicus! Poignant and Brilliant
Review: Hesse, the darling of the 60's is not quite so fashionable nowdays. More's the pity. N&G (also published under the title Death and the Lover) is his best work. His most engaging, lyrical and heartfelt novel. I wonder if this qualifies as a 'historical novel'? Probably not, in the minds of most reviewers due to the fact that it's just too good!--I mean who mentions George Orwell's 1984 or Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged when they refer to 'science fiction'? Still, Hesse takes you back through time with a vividness that---Oh, just read it! A masterpiece.
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Summary: a beautiful book
Review: this is one of the most beautiful books I have ever read. It makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside, and makes my eyes well up with tears. It conjures up all the mystery I experience in my life and spreads it out through the life of (mostly) Goldmund. Ineplainably beautiful. You really should read it.
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