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Translated from the German by W.J. Strachan
Peter Camenzind is the novel that ensured Hermann Hesse’s
early literary reputation. Its semi-autobiographical basis
betrays an important glimpse into the development of his beliefs
and concerns, in particular the struggle of an artist to achieve
a personal aesthetic ideal within a materialist and uncomprehending
society.
Born into a Swiss village, Peter Camenzind is a introverted
peasant boy who becomes a student at Zurich University where
he is soon destined for some minor academic post. Yet he does
not choose this path; perturbed by what he perceives to be
the thankless and turbulent unrest of human nature, Peter
Camenzind instead seeks his salvation through self-knowledge
in the manner of a Romantic hero. But salvation is elusive;
frequenting the bars and literary salons of European cities,
his love affairs end as merely ‘amusing’ episodes,
his drinking is escapist and he is further shocked by the
death of the one friend whose life seemed to have some meaning.
Finally he turns to St Francis of Assisi in a last attempt
at self-discovery, but personal sublimation after the example
of the nature-lovng saint still does not give his mind rest.
It is not until he returns to his own village to care for
his dying father that he can find the path that leads back
to himself.
Written with a profound intellectual clarity and insight when
the author was only twenty-seven, Peter Camenzind illuminates
the very foundations of the deep humanity and searching philosophy
which are the hallmarks of Hesse’s later novels.
‘One of the most penetrating accounts of a young man
trying to discover the nature of his creative talent.’
— Times Literary Supplement
‘Explores in frequently moving terms the early manhood
of a genius.’ — Daily Telegraph
‘Liberating, fiercely undated, inimitable. Hesse should
be read in chunks.’ — Guardian
‘A masterpiece.’ — London Evening Standard
Counted among the leading thinkers of the twentieth century,
HERMANN HESSE was born in 1877. Rebelling against a stern
monastic education, he worked as a locksmith and a bookseller
before embarking on a 65-year writing career. Having travelled
as far as India, he settled in Switzerland in 1911 in opposition
to German militarism. Awarded the Nobel Prize in 1946, he
died in 1963 aged eighty-five. |
