Hermann Hesse
Demian

Anyone familiar, even to a limited extent, with the work, poetics, and narrative of Hermann Hesse, one of the most esteemed authors of the last century and Nobel Prize winner for Literature in '46, will certainly recognize the indispensable influence of esotericism and oriental asceticism as well as substantial references to religion and Hindu philosophy. These influences, the inextricable core of the author, have forged a masterpiece like Siddhartha and also contributed to shaping half of the literary exoskeleton of what might be considered a masterpiece of late European decadence, Steppenwolf. Caught between the search for moral, spiritual, and poetic alternatives in the sacred waters of the Ganges and the horror of the abyss of totalitarian and belligerent Europe, Hesse pairs very well with illustrious colleagues promoting Decadentism flirting with the awarded crucible Nietzsche-Freud-psychoanalysis-modernism-man/inept, yet he is able to diverge - although without major upheavals - from the perfect orthodoxy of such corpus phylosophicum, fleeing the Old Continent in an original way and with a special disenchanted instrument.

As already specified, Hesse's magnificent contribution to twentieth-century literature is largely filled by the duopoly Siddhartha and Steppenwolf: the former represents the apex of abundant mystical-spiritual reflection in Indian land, the latter is its translation, albeit halfway, within the decadent desolation of the European context, a sort of spectral bewilderment along the murky and dark paths of the totalitarian Twenties awaiting the apocalypse of the last world conflict. Demian, published in 1919, a few years before the publication of Hesse’s summary works, can be framed within a hybrid limbo where the completion of the spiritual ascent of Siddhartha and the historical-decadent nemesis of Steppenwolf strategically intersect their respective anticipations, forging a delightful prequel to the roaring twenties. In the novel, in fact, the reader will perceive both the attempts at sacred elevation and the scent of darkness and storm poured out by the mortal prosaicness of the Wolf-Man.

Demian introduces the story of Emil Sinclair, the son of the German middle class who, already at a young age, perceives the seeds of the Frustration of Living, as well as a fair amount of alienation from the strict rigor and cold discipline of his time, yet managing to maintain an attitude conforming to the dictates and rules. His prematurely restless temperament cannot help but manifest itself when, driven by the threats and machinations of the wicked companion Franz Kromer, he is forced to abandon, albeit not entirely, bourgeois values oriented towards plastic and captivating mass benevolence. The providential arrival of Max Demian, the mysterious boy "with the mark," will put an end to the torment imposed by Kromer, but will forever disrupt Sinclair’s life, who, after tumultuous adolescent years and embarking on the arduous journey of adulthood at the University, will recognize his own distinctness from the undistinguished hotbed of Mediocre Men. Demian, a sort of demigod descended into the putrid swamp of abject and unredeemed humanity, will find in the young turbulent Sinclair the bearer of that "mark" designed to designate a true sect of Ubermenschen alienated from squalor and immersed in the divine aura of perfect spirituality.

Although less known than Siddhartha and Steppenwolf, Demian still maps out the strategic orbit linking the two masterpieces and represents their most effective summary. Demian is nevertheless much more than a pre-appendix to the two subsequent novels: the work is an authentic melting pot where all faiths, all religions, the entire spiritual-mystical baggage of major world confessions is revealed, compared, illustrated, and perhaps refuted. Alongside the Western domination of Christianity in all its facets stand the Eastern doctrines and Hindu heritage in a common denominator encompassing the ascetic-mystical secrets of various beliefs, even dating back to the Greco-classical period, paganism, and ancient sects. With the voice of Demian, the exegete sent by the Divine to unveil the mysteries of the Other to the bearers of the mark - and therefore to Sinclair, the entire encyclopedia of the Sacred convenes specifically to mold the idea of a God who is also Devil, an ideal metaphor of the inner conflict of bourgeois nonconformism. In a sort of Yin-Yang dialectic (perhaps a little overexposed by contemporary new-age trends), Sinclair recognizes within himself the duality between evil and good, light and dark, good and bad, white and black, light and darkness, day and night, in a lively yet graceful whirlwind of consciousness and knowledge, flesh and spirit, matter and morality. Demian, whom readers might glimpse as the incarnate God, the returned Christ, the Son come to Earth for the second time, is nothing more than the almost angelic emissary of this God-Devil proponent of the sect of the "marked." It is needless, then, to remark on the squalor of European society, the mass of those not worthy of the mark, ready for Total War, for clash and death, to the predominance of the diabolical side of the Divine.

Far more than a bland piece of lesser caliber, Demian is a complete, rich, dense, deep, and intense novel, an excellent summary of Hesse’s work, perhaps preluding the subsequent reading of the two masterpieces, a work to taste the sweetness of the Supreme having finished the bitter and the harsh of the Darkness.