“The game of beads” Hesse in brief
The action takes place in the distant future. The infallible Master of the Games and the hero of Castalia, Josef Knecht, having reached the limits of formal and substantial perfection in the game of the spirit, feels frustrated and then disappointed and leaves Kastalia in a harsh world beyond to serve a specific and imperfect person. The Order of Castile, whose master is a hero, is the society of the keepers of truth. Members of the Order refuse from the family, from property, from participation in politics, so that no self-interested interests could influence the process of the mysterious “bead game” to which they indulge – “games with all meanings and cultural values” as an expression of truth. Members of the Order live in Castalia, an amazing country over which time does not dominate.
The novel is written on behalf of the Castalian historian from the distant future and consists of three unequal parts: the opening treatise on the history of Castalia
Most of the uninitiated readers took everything at face value. Others after heavy work spent their leisure time on guessing crossword puzzles, bending over squares and crosses from empty cells. However, the chronicler admits that playing in these children’s games-riddles or reading satirical articles can not be called naive people, keen on senseless childishness. They lived in perpetual fear of political and economic turmoil, and they had a strong need to close their eyes and escape from reality in an innocuous world of cheap sensationalism and children’s mysteries, for “the church did not give them comfort and the spirit – advice.” People who read endless feuilletons, listen to reports and guess the crossword puzzles, did not have the time and energy to overcome fear, understand the problems, understand what is happening around them, and get rid of the “feuilleton” hypnosis, they lived “convulsively and did not believe in the future.” The historian of Castalia, behind whom the author stands, comes to the conviction that such a civilization has exhausted itself and stands on the verge of collapse.
In this situation, when many thinking people lost their heads, the best representatives of the intellectual elite united to preserve the traditions of spirituality and created a state in the state – Kastalia, where the elect are given to playing beads. Kastalia becomes an abode of contemplative spirituality, existing with the consent of a technocratic society, permeated with the spirit of profit and consumerism. Contests for the game in beads are broadcasted by radio to the whole country, in the very same of Castalia, whose landscapes resemble South Germany, time has stopped – there they ride horses. Its main purpose is pedagogical: the education of intellectuals, free from the spirit of conjuncture and bourgeois practicality. In a certain sense, Kastalia is an opposition to the state of Plato, where power belongs to scientists, the ruling world. In Castalia, on the contrary, scientists and philosophers are free and independent of any power, but it is achieved by the price of detachment from reality. Kastalia has no firm roots in life, and therefore her destiny depends too much on those who have real power in society, from generals who can find that the abode of wisdom is an excessive luxury for a country preparing, for example, for war.
The Kastali people belong to the Order of the servants of the spirit and are completely cut off from life practice. The Order was built according to the medieval principle – twelve Magisters, Supreme, Educational and other Colleges. To replenish their ranks, the Castalians throughout the country select talented boys and train them in their schools, develop their abilities for music, philosophy, mathematics, learn to meditate and enjoy the games of the spirit. Then the young men go to universities, and then devote themselves to pursuing the sciences and the arts, teaching activities or playing beads. The game of beads, or the game of glass beads, is a synthesis of religion, philosophy and art. Once upon a time a certain Perrault from the city of Calva used on his music lessons a device invented by him with glass beads. Then it was improved – a unique language was created, based on various combinations of beads, through which you can infinitely compare different meanings and categories. These lessons are fruitless, their result is not the creation of something new, only the variation and reinterpretation of known combinations and motives for the sake of harmony, balance and perfection.
About 2200, Josef Knecht became the master, passing all the way that the Kastalians pass. His name means “servant”, and he is ready to serve the truth and harmony in Kastalia. However, the hero only acquires harmony for a while in the game of glass beads, for he increasingly senses the contradictions of the Kastali reality, intuitively tries to avoid the Kastali limitation. He is far from scientists such as Tegulyarius – a single genius, fenced off from the world in his passion for sophistication and formal virtuosity. Staying outside of Castalia in the Benedictine monastery of Mariaphers and meeting with the father of Jacob exert a great influence on Knecht. He thinks about the ways of history, about the relationship between the history of the state and the history of culture and understands what the true place of Kastalia is in the real world: while the Kastals play in their games, from which they go farther, may find Castalia a useless luxury. The task is, says Knecht, to educate the young not behind the walls of libraries, but in the “world” with its harsh laws. He leaves Castalia and becomes the tutor of the son of his friend Desiognori. Bathed with him in the mountain lake, the hero dies in the icy water – so says the legend, as the chronicler, the leading narrator, maintains. It is not known, Knecht would have succeeded on his way, one thing is clear: one can not hide from life in the world of ideas and books. the hero dies in the icy water – so says the legend, as the chronicler, the leading narrator, maintains. It is not known, Knecht would have succeeded on his way, one thing is clear: one can not hide from life in the world of ideas and books. the hero dies in the icy water – so says the legend, as the chronicler, the leading narrator, maintains. It is not known, Knecht would have succeeded on his way, one thing is clear: one can not hide from life in the world of ideas and books.
This same idea is confirmed by three biographies that enclose the book and give the key to understanding the work. The hero of the first Servant, the bearer of the spirituality of the primitive tribe among obscurantism, does not humble himself and sacrifices himself so that the spark of truth does not fade away. The second, early Christian hermit Joseph Famulus, is disappointed in his role as a comforter of sinners, but, having met an older confessor, he still continues to serve with him. The third hero – Dasa does not sacrifice himself and does not continue serving, but runs to the forest to the old yoga, ie, leaves in his Kastalia. It was from such a path that he found the strength to abandon the hero of Hesse, Joseph Knecht, although it cost him his life.
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