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    The Journey to the East: A Novel
    The Journey to the East: A Novel
    The Journey to the East: A Novel
    Ebook77 pages1 hour

    The Journey to the East: A Novel

    By Hermann Hesse

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    About this ebook

    "A great writer . . . complex, subtle, allusive." - New York Times Book Review

    In simple, mesmerizing prose, Hermann Hesse's Journey to the East tells of a journey both geographic and spiritual. H.H., a German choirmaster, is invited on an expedition with the League, a secret society whose members include Paul Klee, Mozart, and Albertus Magnus. The participants traverse both space and time, encountering Noah's Ark in Zurich and Don Quixote at Bremgarten. The pilgrims' ultimate destination is the East, the "Home of the Light," where they expect to find spiritual renewal.

    Yet the harmony that ruled at the outset of the trip soon degenerates into open conflict. Each traveler finds the rest of the group intolerable and heads off in his own direction, with H.H. bitterly blaming the others for the failure of the journey. It is only long after the trip, while poring over records in the League archives, that H.H. discovers his own role in the dissolution of the group, and the ominous significance of the journey itself.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateJan 22, 2013
    ISBN9781466835092
    The Journey to the East: A Novel
    Author

    Hermann Hesse

    Hermann Hesse was born in 1877. His books include Siddhartha, Steppenwolf, Narcissus and Goldmund, and Magister Ludi. He died in 1962.

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    Reviews for The Journey to the East

    4/5

    19 ratings10 reviews

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    • 5/5
      What a powerful, spiritual, inquisitive journey speaking to the journey of the soul in each one of us. Hesse astounds me.
    • 3/5
      Promising start and as with Hesse's other works, some great prose. The reveal works dramatically as well as literally, but I can't say the end satisfied me. Yes it may be the inevitable conclusion, but it was a bit thick, i feel, hence 3 stars rather than the 4 that JttE was heading towards.

      At just 93 short pages (in my edition), it is worth re4ading if you have liked any of Hesse's other books, and if you haven't, it's a good primer.
    • 2/5
      Hesse is usually one of my favored writers, but this one left me cold and unimpressed. I went through it quickly, having felt that the other books told his ideas better. It's not a bad book, though.
    • 2/5
      Substance: Almost non-existent. A man on a mysterious journey with a secret League fails to recognize that a popular servant of his group is actually the President (more like the High King). Possibly a Christian allegory, but just as easily Pagan.Style: Sophomoric philosophical rambling with a supposed core of wisdom, but basically a boring monologue of pretentious simplicity. Akin to the sort of New Age mysticism of the Seventies. CSM blurb says it "resembles Kafka", which is true.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Found the original receipt from when I bought this in the book when I took it off the shelf for something to read on a long plane ride. Bought it back in the summer of 2000! 8 years between purchase and read.What a beautiful book. A short metaphor for youth and idealism turning to disillusion turning to wisdom. Just beautiful. Hesse has always been one of my favorites, and now it is cemented. Will re-read this again soon.
    • 2/5
      Hermann Hesse is interesting as a person. He battled inner demons: like his father he suffered from depression, apparently as early as the first grade (!), and attempted suicide as a teen. He had unhappy marriages and of his wives had a psychotic breakdown. On the other hand, he searched for a higher truth and explored Buddhism and Hinduism, undoubtedly influenced by his parents having served in a missionary in India, and was well ahead of his time in embracing Eastern philosophy. And this is what “Journey to the East” references. The narrator “H.H.” is a member of a League of famous historical characters who go on a pilgrimage to the East in search of truth. Along the way a character who seems to be simply a servant disappears, causing the entire expedition to break down. As it turns out later, the servant is actually President of the League and his disappearance was a test of the others’ faith. A somewhat mediocre story and just this quote, on history: “I imagine that every historian is similarly affected when he begins to record the events of some period and wishes to portray them sincerely. Where is the center of events, the common standpoint around which they revolve and which gives them cohesion? In order that something like cohesion, something like causality, that some kind of meaning might ensue and that it can in some way be narrated, the historian must invent units, a hero, a nation, an idea, and he must allow to happen to this invented unit what has in reality happened to the nameless.It is so difficult to relate connectedly a number of events which have really taken place and have been attested, it is in my case much more difficult, for everything becomes questionable as soon as I consider it closely, everything slips away and dissolves, just as our community, the strongest in the world, has been able to dissolve. There is no unit, no center, no point around which the wheel revolves.…And now that I want to hold fast to and describe this most important thing, or at least something of it, everything is only a mass of separate fragmentary pictures which has been reflected in something, and this something is myself, and this self, this mirror, whenever I have gazed into it, has proved to be nothing but the uppermost surface of a glass plane.”
    • 4/5
      "Comes to understand that it was he who failed the Journey rather than the Journey which failed him"
    • 5/5
      I was intrigued reading other member reviews of Journey to the East, and that the average rating is 3-1/2.Like all of Hesse's novels, HH is reflecting on his interaction with religious philosophies, his experiences within different dogmas, and how this interaction and experience creates and re-creates his world. Journey is no different, however I think that a reader needs to have knowledge of HH's other writings and perhaps a little bit about the man himself to find meaning in Journey.It doesn't hurt to also have some self-directed philosophical or dogmatic questing or questioning.So I must preface my review with this information: my partner is a theological philosopher, well-versed in world religions and philosophies, and spending most of his reflection time (inadvertently) educating me on different religious principles. I, on the other hand, could be less interested. I feel that spirituality is a personal question and a personal endeavour, one that does not require the input or direction of others, but rather is not separate from my individual identity or daily values and practices. In fact, when someone presses me with any "god question" I generally say "this is not a question for me; it does not interest me. I know my belief system and that is enough."Journey was a harsh lesson in egoism for me. HH discovers for himself that just because he does not feel connected to the spiritual group that he ascribed to as a younger man does not mean that the group does not exist. In fact, the group has more cohesiveness and more meaning without him, if anything it is stronger. In the face of this knowledge, he truly finds his Journey completed..."I regarded myself as the chronicler...but it was weak and foolish of me to believe that the League could not exist if I was not a part of it."The lesson here, for me particularly, is that for one to think that a religious philosophy or belief system is not important cimply because I do not believe in it or care to discuss it does not make it less important or believable for the thousands of others who build their lives around it. This is not my universe to guide or "chronicle," rather it is my duty to share this space with others and recognize the wisdom of everyone rather than judge my own wisdom to be the end-all.A difficult lesson, true, as it requires of me that I take note of my own egotistical tendencies, my own "shadow side," and facing something about me that is not exactly what I wish it to be.Therefore I give this novel a high rating, because I learned a strong and poignant lesson from it, as I have from many of HH's novels. However I would suggest this novel to those who are themselves interested in spirituality, or perhaps entrenched in their own Journey to the East.
    • 4/5
      Hesse's most difficult novel. Worth rereading on occasion.
    • 4/5
      After reading The Glass Bead Game, I decided to dive into the other works of Hesse. Like The Glass Bead Game, I thought The Journey to the East was a little slow in the middle. However once I began to enter Hesse's "world" the deeper issues in the book became clear. If you like "books that make you think," you'll like this one.

    Book preview

    The Journey to the East - Hermann Hesse

    I

    It was my destiny to join in a great experience. Having had the good fortune to belong to the League, I was permitted to be a participant in a unique journey. What wonder it had at the time! How radiant and comet-like it seemed, and how quickly it has been forgotten and allowed to fall into disrespute. For this reason, I have decided to attempt a short description of this fabulous journey, a journey the like of which had not been attempted since the days of Hugo and mad Roland. Ours have been remarkable times, this period since the World War, troubled and confused, yet, despite this, fertile. I do not think that I am under any illusion about the difficulties of my attempt; they are very great and are not only of a subjective nature, although these alone would be considerable. For not only do I no longer possess the tokens, mementos, documents and diaries relating to the journey, but in the difficult years of misfortune, sickness and deep affliction which have elapsed since then, a large number of my recollections have also vanished. As a result of the buffets of Fate and because of the continual discouragement, my memory as well as my confidence in these earlier vivid recollections have become impaired. But apart from these purely personal notes, I am handicapped because of my former vow to the League; for although this vow permits unrestricted communication of my personal experiences, it forbids any disclosures about the League itself. And even though the League seems to have had no visible existence for a long time and I have not seen any of its members again, no allurement or threat in the world would induce me to break my vow. On the contrary, if today or tomorrow I had to appear before a court-martial and was given the option of dying or divulging the secret of the League, I would joyously seal my vow to the League with death.

    It can be noted here that since the travel diary of Count Keyserling, several books have appeared in which the authors, partly unconsciously, but also partly deliberately, have given the impression that they are brothers of the League and had taken part in the Journey to the East. Incidentally, even the adventurous travel accounts of Ossendowski come under this justifiable suspicion. But they all have nothing to do with the League and our Journey to the East, or at any rate, no more than ministers of a small sanctimonious sect have to do with the Saviour, the Apostles and the Holy Ghost to whom they refer for special favor and membership. Even if Count Keryserling really sailed round the world with ease, and if Ossendowski actually traversed the countries he described, yet their journeys were not remarkable and they discovered no new territory, whereas at certain stages of our Journey to the East, although the commonplace aids of modern travel such as railways, steamers, telegraph, automobiles, airplanes, etc., were renounced, we penetrated into the heroic and magical. It was shortly after the World War, and the beliefs of the conquered nations were in an extraordinary state of unreality. There was a readiness to believe in things beyond reality even though only a few barriers were actually overcome and few advances made into the realm of a future psychiatry. Our journey at that time across the Moon Ocean to Famagusta under the leadership of Albert the Great, or say, the discovery of the Butterfly Island, twelve leagues beyond Zipangu, or the inspiring league ceremony at Rudiger’s grave—those were deeds and experiences which were allotted once only to people of our time and zone.

    I see that I am already coming up against one of the greatest obstacles in my account. The heights to which our deeds rose, the spiritual plane of experience to which they belong might be made proportionately more comprehensible to the reader if I were permitted to disclose to him the essence of the League’s secret. But a great deal, perhaps everything, will remain incredible and incomprehensible. One paradox, however, must be accepted and this is that it is necessary to continually attempt the seemingly impossible. I agree with Siddhartha, our wise friend from the East, who once said: Words do not express thoughts very well; everything immediately becomes a little different, a little distorted, a little foolish. And yet it also pleases me and seems right that what is of value and wisdom to one man seems nonsense to another. Even centuries ago the members and historians of our League recognized and courageously faced up to this difficulty. One of the greatest of them gave expression to it in an immortal verse:

    "He who travels far will often see things

    Far removed from what he believed was Truth.

    When he talks about it in the fields at home,

    He is often accused of lying,

    For the obdurate people will not believe

    What they do not see and distinctly feel.

    Inexperience, I believe,

    Will give little credence to my song."

    This inexperience has also created the position where, now that publicity is being given to our journey which once roused thousands to ecstasy, it is not only forgotten but a real taboo is imposed upon its recollection. History is rich in examples of a similar kind. The whole of world history often seems to me nothing more than a picture book which portrays humanity’s most powerful and senseless desire—the desire to forget. Does not each generation, by means of suppression, concealment and ridicule, efface what the previous generation considered most important? Have we not just had the experience that a long, horrible, monstrous war has been forgotten, gainsaid, distorted and dismissed by all nations? And now that they have had a short respite, are not the same nations trying to recall by means of exciting war novels what they themselves caused and endured a few years ago? In the same way, the day of rediscovery will come for the deeds and sorrows of our League, which are now either forgotten or are a laughingstock in the world, and my notes should make a small contribution towards

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