I Love Books

One of the few good things about being in lockdown is that I will finally read some books that I have been postponing for years.

Today I started Hermann Hesse's 'The glass bead game'. I remember starting it in my early twenties, after being spellbound by Demian and Steppenwolf. But 'The glass bead game' was something different. Too dense. Too cold. Like a palace made of white ivory that you look in awe but you feel you cannot enter. I could not finish it, and I remember I thought 'maybe at some point later'. Well, that 'later' has finally come.

Anyone else going to read some long overdue book during lockdown?

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SW-User

I wondered about The Glass Bead Game, as you, deeply enjoyed Demian and Steppenwolf, had picked up Narcissus and Goldmund but didn't finish it .... few months ago started again The Man Without Qualities, i had gotten to around page 700 something, but was taking too many breaks, wanted to relive what i had read, it's such a genius work, full of ideas .... Leopardi's Zibaldone has proven to be quite the chore, much of it is just linguistics, nothing to chew on, i want Schopenhaurian gloom from Leopardi!! .... In the kitchen while cooking i got some Pablo Neruda poetry, very good, so many books in fact, i hardly ever finish them, they in that way never end ... but the best books to me are endlessly rereadable, Cioran and Nietzsche chiefly ..... i should pick one or just dip into some, not a novel for me, something with digestable parts, great paragraphs (Proust), overwhelming how much there is!!

I dip into Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit a bit, read it out loud, it almost makes sense if i read it with conviction as if i knew what it meant lol

Cierzo · M

@SW-User Vow, Hegel, that's really heavy. I know my limits, and Hegel is beyond them 😄.