Review by Choice Review
Libraries can never have too much work in English on a recipient of the Nobel prize for literature. This is certainly true for Hesse (1877-1962, Nobel prize 1946), regardless of the opinion one may have of this controversial writer. His pacifism, his critique of technology and of the West's naive belief in progress and faith in civilization, his glorification of the self in opposition to society, and his openness to the wisdom of all the world's religions made Hesse the US counterculture's most popular German author in the 1960s and 1970s. Since that time, however, few works by Hesse have been translated. This collection makes several stories available for the first time in English. Although these tales, written between 1904 and 1918, are not Hesse's best work, they simplify access to Hesse's world and deepen the reader's understanding of his themes. Zipes's excellent brief introduction summarizes Hesse's life and the major concerns of his oeuvre. Zipes acknowledges that these tales are not "fairy tales" in the normal sense of the word, but he characterizes them as such because each contains a fantastic element. One of America's foremost authorities on fairy tales, Zipes has produced a large body of work on the Brothers Grimm. Especially because of its excellent rendering of Hesse's German into English, this book will enhance his reputation as both critic and translator. Recommended for all collections. R. C. Conard; University of Dayton
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
Fairy tales fascinated Hesse. Translator Zipes analyzes this attraction and places it within the context of Hesse's emotionally turbulent life in his illuminating introduction. Zipes also describes the progression of Hesse's aesthetics from his early self-absorption and belief in the artist as hero to a more worldly perspective embracing social and political issues and emphasizing the artist's role as witness and critic. This outlook greatly elevated his writing, an evolution evident in this remarkable collection, the first published English translation of Hesse's fairy tales. Written between 1900 and 1933, Hesse's lucid, captivating, and unusual interpretations of the genre often feature heroes in search of self-knowledge and inner peace. Old-fashioned tales such as "The Dwarf" (1904) give way to such modern fables as "The City" (1910) and "The European" (1918). As Zipes astutely points out, the ogres and obstacles in Hesse's tales are what he considered to be the banes of modern existence: "science, materialism, war, alienation, and philistinism." A boon for Hesse fans, this is an important addition to Hesse's ever-popular English-language oeuvre. --Donna SeamanAdult Books
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Merging Eastern mysticism with the motifs of the European fairy tale, the stories translated for this volume, many for the first time, offer insight into Hesse's development as an artist during the first two decades of this century. Sometimes lush and lyrical, sometimes in the simple language of the parable, these tales elaborate Hesse's concerns with mortality, the unity of life and the isolation of the artist. Characters renounce human society to become poets, vegetarians or, as in the fantastic story ``Faldum,'' a mountain. The artist as ascetic, observer and loner, misunderstood by his audience, is a recurring theme. Several of the stories reflect Hesse's pacifist stance during WWI, covering great spans of time to drive home the devastation of war and transience of civilization. Whether evoking the rise and fall of a nation or an individual, Hesse is preoccupied with the need for both to rediscover their ``undestroyed essence'' and begin anew. A refreshing lack of narrative closure distinguishes Hesse's tales, which mitigates an irritating tendency to equate self-knowledge with the return home to an eternal, spiritual mother. Quirky and evocative, Hesse's fairy tales stand alone, but also amplify the ideas and utopian longings of such counterculture avatars as Siddhartha and Steppenwolf. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Hesse unerringly creates the feel of a fairy tale in the first paragraph of all these works but then proceeds to alter their development in an unmistakably 20th-century way. The title character of "Augustus," for example, loses everything and passes through a series of tribulations, like the traditional fairy-tale hero, but attains happiness without regaining his fortune, looks, health, or the love and affection of his friends. Slightly more than half these tales were written during World War I and consequently deal with the great themes of war and peace, life, suffering, and death. Particularly poignant is "A Dream of the Gods," which depicts the enthusiasm that greeted the outbreak of war while subtly exposing its folly. Lay readers will enjoy this as much as literary specialists.Michael T. O'Pecko, Towson State Univ., Md. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Some pleasant surprises are displayedalong with some dreary redundanciesin this nevertheless welcome first English translation of the German writer's fables and parables. Hesse (18771962) was, of course, the Nobel Prizewinning author of such complex and intellectually challenging novels as Steppenwolf (1927) and Magister Ludi (1943). But many readers prize him most as a Western interpreter of Eastern wisdom, especially as transmitted in such equally famous ``fictions'' (discursive as they are) as Siddhartha (1922) and The Journey to the East (1956). Even Wordsworth fainting at the sheepfold seems robust compared with the lachrymose romanticism of Hesse's little prose sermons on the fragility of the artist's temperament (``The Poet,'' ``Flute Dream''), the evils of progress and technology (``The City''), or the superiority of pacifist introversion (``The European,'' ``The Empire''). Too many of these stories trail off into inconclusiveness, and there's a fulsome excess of sentences like ``The mountain lived on silently in his greatness.'' That said, there's also much to admire in this superbly edited and vigorously translated gathering of 22 such tales, all written and published between 1904 and 1918. ``Augustus'' and ``Iris'' are interesting complementary explorations of the ironies of mingled romantic failure and artistic success. ``The Dwarf'' contrives a Poe-like story of revenge in a solidly realized Italian Renaissance setting. ``The Forest Dweller'' radiates some of the confident animism, and also the vivid specificity, of Kipling's best tales in this vein. And ``A Man by the Name of Ziegler'' is magically gifted with understanding the language of animalsonly to discover these ``noble'' creatures are no better than their human counterparts. Unfortunately, the later pieces are weaker, so the volume ends with a distinct whimper. No matter: Zipes's English versions, which lucidly convey both Hesse's vapid generalizations and his athletic lyricism, often manage to show this very uneven writer to best advantage. Minor work from a more-or-less major writer, and a lot more fun than much of Hesse's major fiction.
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