The world of "Hessa" is a vast forest, with its surroundings being peaceful... It is both enchanting and terrifying, mysterious and repulsive.... The trees are dense with their twisting branches and intertwined limbs. A slender ray of sunlight may filter through them... But it won't be enough for you to find your way there.... You will observe everything passively, as the forest is full of secrets, hidden worlds, and countless oddities. And you are wandering without a map, so be careful....

Here, one of them wanted to live according to the true instincts that stem from himself. So, he was torn between the two worlds of good and evil, of baseness and virtue, of purity and filth, of darkness and light....

It is impossible for a person to live completely adhering to either one of them. There must be some mixture of the opposite world for a person to realize his true self.... Otherwise, he claims a false or damned satanic ideal image... And the fate of either one is to fall into a real void of nothingness....

Here, he is striving hard to free himself from everything that binds him in the external world. He isolates himself inside his own cabin and creates a special diary, following its schedule on a path that leads to himself....

Dreams are woven in hazy, imaginary worlds that shatter against delusions and obsessions that will only be accepted by the real killing of their owner right before their eyes....

I was enjoying the company of the first third of the novel, and then I don't know which one of us let go of the other's hand. It's okay, the company of my dear friend "Dalya" in reading is enough for me.... ❤

Finally...

It is beautiful to realize that there is someone deep within us who knows everything.....

The first time I read this book in 1994, due to the great similarity of its character to myself, I was impressed and felt that its sentences and story adhered beautifully to my body, and it was the first book that I had such a feeling with.

However, with the rereading now, after 5 years, I felt that the magic it had was lost and it no longer had such an impact on me. I have changed and am no longer as similar to Sinclair and in pursuit of the meaning of my life.

But still, in my opinion, the story is strange and mind-engaging.

It's interesting how our perception of a book can change over time as we ourselves grow and evolve. What was once captivating may not hold the same allure, yet there is still something about the story that continues to fascinate.

Perhaps it's a reminder of a different time in our lives or a reflection of the journey we have taken.

In any case, this experience of rereading has taught me that books can have a different meaning and value depending on when and how we read them.

It makes me wonder what other books I will discover and how my relationship with them will change as I continue to explore the world of literature.

When we have an aversion to someone, something about their face repulses us that is within ourselves. What is not within us will not be able to stimulate us.

Amelia Sinclair, who lives a relatively prosperous life, sees two worlds around her. One is her family, which is in peace and has a clean and proper appearance, and the other is everywhere except home and family. Sinclair distances herself from the world of truth and righteousness by using a lie about a theft she committed for self-presentation. She gets involved in a fight and beating with a rather naughty boy, and this incident becomes a punishment for Sinclair. In this situation, a new student comes to the school. He is a bit strange, and the only information known about him is that his name is Max Damien. He lives with his mother and is relatively wealthy. Gradually, Damien and Sinclair become friends, and Damien alleviates the problem of Sinclair's naughty friend. In this way, Sinclair becomes indebted to Damien. The relationship continues until the end of the book, sometimes distant and sometimes close. Through reading, we learn about Sinclair's past, her friendship with Damien and Damien's mother, and the author's philosophy. Throughout the book, there is talk of the permissible and the prohibited, love, relationships, friendship, will, religion, and God. The story doesn't have many ups and downs and is quite calm, but it is definitely a moral and philosophical story. It has a good appeal and is not tiring, but this doesn't mean that I agree with the author's views or that it has enlightened me.

This short story is filled with the struggle and unity of opposites - the forces of light and darkness or the sides of a personality. The story of growing up gradually turns into the understanding of philosophical questions. The blackmail incident of the main hero, a 10-year-old boy from a wealthy family, Emil Sinclair, by a hooligan from the working-class district, Franz Kromer, is resolved by Max Demian, who explains to the boy the theory of a strong personality and that strong-willed people cause fear in ordinary people. This is similar to the mark of Cain. The unity and struggle of the forces of light and darkness are intertwined and intensified throughout the narrative, starting from the alternative story of Abel and Cain, and it continues in the theory of the dual beginning of God - God and Satan - in the divinity of the gnostics Abraxas.

In the novel, there is a great many symbols and the same number of psychoanalytic practices. "When we hate someone, we hate in his image what sits in ourselves. What is not in us does not touch us."

He interprets Jacob's struggle with the angel of God as that people themselves create gods and fight with them and they bless them. "It is wrong to desire new gods, completely wrong to desire to give something to the world! There is no, no, no obligation for the awakened people, except one: to seek oneself, to strengthen oneself within oneself, to grope for one's own path forward, wherever it may lead..."

There are also mystical views in the novel, for example, the idea of a person, the direction of a concentration of thoughts on him and the return of the spiritual power invested in the question in the form of an answer. Perhaps, to illustrate this idea, the following plot twist occurs - the platonic love for Max's mother, Mrs. Eve, who turned out to be the woman from Emil's visions, and on the one hand, she and her son were those people marked with the mark of Cain, who were called to drive the then humanity "from the idyllic world into the dangerous distances."

Hesse could not remain indifferent to the horrors of the First World War. He characterizes the pre-war moods of the era as the universal reign of cohesion and herd mentality, but not of freedom and love. The explanation for the herd mentality lies in fear - the gentlemen run to the gentlemen, the workers to the workers, the scientists to the scientists. Why does fear arise? He believes that the one who does not have an agreement with himself is afraid. This was the unity of those who were afraid of the unknown in themselves. His understanding of the driving forces of the historical process is as follows: "These people, who unite so fearfully, are full of fear and full of anger, no one trusts the other. They cling to ideals that have ceased to be such, and will stone anyone who proclaims any new ideal. I feel that there will be collisions. They will begin, believe me, they will begin soon! Of course, they will not "improve" the world. Whether the workers will kill their factory owners, whether Russia and Germany will shoot at each other - only the owners will change. But still, this will not be in vain. This will show the worthlessness of the current ideals, will overthrow the gods of the stone age. This world in its present form wants to die, wants to perish, and so it will be."

"Nowhere is it so simple and easy, as in this exercise, to show us in what an enormous measure we ourselves are the creators, in what an enormous measure our soul always participates in the incessant creation of the world. Moreover, in us and in nature, the same indivisible divinity acts, and if the external world perished, someone among us would be able to create it anew, for the mountain and the river, the tree and the leaf, the root and the flower - everything built in nature is already built in us in advance, has its beginning from the soul, whose essence is eternity, whose essence is unknown to us, but is felt by us mostly as the power of love and the power of creativity."

A book for those who desire self-knowledge.

A book for those who think that in order to take action or move towards a goal, there must be someone to help them. However, this is not the case.... It was one of the good books and the first book that I read from him. The story of this book is that a person named Sinclair, when he is away from his family, faces a different world that is very different from the clean and virtuous environment of his family. As a result, he gradually realizes that he is still unknown to himself and tries to go inside himself with the help of his classmate named Demian, who helps and guides him a lot until he gets to know himself, can deal with conflicts and his environment, and gets to know more of his inner self. And in the end, he also realizes that only a person can save himself and lead himself, provided that he goes inside and knows himself.

The book has a very interesting story like other mystery novels, but it is the author's style that makes it impossible for anyone to interpret most of his book.

The book also has some good sentences, some of which I will underline below:

"We talk a lot. The baseness of speaking has no value at all. Man moves further away from himself than ever before, and this is a sin. Man should be able to, just like a snail, slowly and gradually penetrate into himself."

"Only that part of your being that makes up your life can understand what purpose you have in drinking a glass of wine. There is someone hidden within us who knows everything about us. It is he who desires to do everything much better than us."

"When we hate someone from the heart, in fact, we are disgusted with something that is within us and is a picture of him. Nothing can disturb us except that which is within and deep within us."

"If you do not find the way to get to the inside of yourself, I am sure that you will not find any meaning either."

I read this book and the book "Khrams" during my military training days in Padgan Jawadnia in 2017 :)

Capable, the superior human

They have known the essence of human within.

I spent my childhood and youth with "Sankara" in the same pursuit of wisdom, and it seemed as if the thoughts of a ten-year-old angel were read in another line; but with the latter part, my expectations were unfulfilled. The impact I got from "Siddhartha" of "Hesse" was not repeated this time, and it was disappointing. I wish it was written more and more precisely.

I became aware of the general content of the book, but I was very far from the details of the initial chapters.

But still, I love the inside because I saw my childhood and youthful mind: the same admiration, anxiety, and curiosity.

And thus, weaving dreams and attaching importance to it created an interesting perception of life for me.

Certain parts of the book:

Poets, when they start a story like that of a caravanserai, behave as if they are gods, with the power to look into the past and think about every human story and event, and they process it in such a way that it seems as if the Almighty God, who is present and watches everywhere, tells them pure, skinless, and with a completely clear and obvious truth.

But every human being is not only himself but also the unique, always supreme and outstanding, and worthy of attention place or center or goal where the phenomena of the world meet each other only once, no more. And this is why the story or narration of each person's past gains importance, permanence, dignity, and sanctity; and this is why every person, as long as he lives and fulfills the will and desire of nature, is a wonderful creation and an infinitely worthy object of attention. In every individual, the soul is transformed into flesh and blood (or in fact, into the body), and in every body, the whole creation suffers, and in every human being, a Redeemer or Christ is crucified.

We can understand each other; but each person can only introduce and know himself to himself.

In this world, a human being never really takes a more wrong path than the one that his own self leads him to.

Perhaps one day it was possible, but could I be sure? Perhaps I would be forced to continue the search for many long years and still not reach anywhere; perhaps I would reach a goal, but a pale and diabolical, dangerous and terrifying one.

The only thing I wanted was to try and become aware of the present within me. Why was this so difficult?

The things we see are the same things that exist within us. There is no reality outside of what exists within us. This is why many people have an unreal life. They consider the images outside of themselves as real and as a result, they cannot speak about their own world. Of course, you can live happily and contentedly in those conditions. But as soon as you become aware of other conditions, you can no longer follow the way or method of the majority. Oh, Sankara, the way or method of the majority is very easy, but our own way or method is very difficult.

But when we love or respect someone not out of habit but out of our own will and free from any restriction and bond, and when we have been a child and a friend from the bottom of our hearts, because suddenly we find that a current or flow of our inner desire distances us from those we love, the hardest and bitterest hours of our lives come. And it is precisely at that moment that poisonous thoughts take hold in our heads, which make us strangers to our friends and teachers. Then any kind of defensive blow lands on a person's head, and words like (disloyalty) and (injustice) strike like twin cries with shame and a special iron on the heart and soul of someone who has previously been proud of his healthy moral behavior, and the scared and cowardly hearts return to the deep, sad valleys of the tender childhood; while it is impossible to believe that such a separation or departure should occur, and this restriction and bond is also severe and absolute.

The story begins with an opening that says: "I only wanted to live in accordance with the impulses that sprang from my true self. So why was it so difficult?!"

And from here, the journey of the ten-year-old boy, Sinclair, begins. He lives a simple, comfortable, and peaceful life, but the protective wall that separates his pure world from the other side of the world, the outside world with all its evils, corruption, greed, and brutality, collapses. This happens after he is bullied by a boy because of a story he told to gain his admiration. That boy uses the story brutally to turn Sinclair's life into a hell. And during this, "Demian" appears, that strange young man whom Sinclair describes as "strangely, an animal, a rock, beautiful, cold, dead,

but secretly full of a fantastic life, and there is nothing around him but this dormant desire, this influence, the cosmic void, the brutal death!" to help him escape from the slavery of that boy

and search for his own identity, his existence...

The journey of Demian and Sinclair begins as a search for the existence of humanity, through Demian's explanation of a perspective towards a capable and worthy myth, and the eternal struggle between good and evil.

You will find that this story shatters the dualistic, sacred ideas of God and the devil... good and evil... to show us the idea that man is created colored between this and that, and it is he who determines his direction and choices, so there is no absolute good or absolute evil.

And it also takes us to another myth, that of Abraxas, a god who combines the divine and the satanic, who combines the world of light and the world of darkness, a symbolic myth that embodies Sinclair's attempt to break his bonds and free himself from his own self. "The bird struggles to be free from the egg. The egg is the world. Whoever is born must destroy a world. The bird flies to God. The name of that God is (Abraxas)."

Hesse presents in this story a very revolutionary and bold philosophy that may not reach many. But in reality, it is a very different story from the psychological analysis of the unconscious, from the universe, nature, and the human self, from the journey of a human who tries to reach his own self through his journey and his very difficult experiences between doubt, loneliness, pain, and faith, perhaps to finally reach the shore of peace.

This story was not created for those who do not try to live according to the impulses that come from within themselves, for those who do not try to search for their own identity and essence,

for those who do not try to listen to their own thoughts and questions that may raise many doubts within them that may not find any answers, but be sure that after finishing this story, you will feel that you are not the same person who entered it.

It is the world of Demian and Sinclair...

And the journey of searching for their existence... our existence

This book is so brilliantly written that it immediately caught my attention and became one of my favorite books of all time. The author's use of language is truly remarkable, painting vivid pictures in my mind and making me feel as if I was right there in the story. The characters are well-developed and complex, each with their own unique personalities and motives. The plot is engaging and full of twists and turns, keeping me on the edge of my seat from beginning to end. I can't recommend this book highly enough. It's a must-read for anyone who loves a good story.

I had to explain this book to someone the other day. What I thought was the best way of doing that was to say that it is a bit like Holden Caulfield had read Nietzsche, rather than being interested in cocktails.

I’ve often thought that there was something very ‘young man’ about Nietzsche’s philosophy – or many interpretations of it. You know, the superman who knows and who wants to make the world bend to his will as a grand statement of art.

It is also hard to know if the main character is the most interesting character in this book. Or rather, if the narrator is the most interesting character. This is obviously hinted at by the fact the title of the novel is the name of someone other than the narrator. But this isn’t quite like a Holmes novel where you need the narrator as audience member to allow for the proper oohs and ahhs that are meant to be part of the story. In many ways Emil is the person coming of age here, and so it is important we see the world through his eyes.

Nietzsche is only one influence here – Jung being the other. So, in part this is a game of follow the symbols and the interplay of oppositions. Some Gnostics used to believe (perhaps they still do) that Jehovah was a lesser God, and that the other Gods let him think he was the only one. And then, despite having made a bit of a botched job of creating the universe, He believed, and his creation believed, that he was the one, true God. I’ve always loved the idea of us being the creation of a second rate God. These Gnostics then believed that we needed to somehow bypass Jehovah, to speak with the real managers. All a bit Kafkaesque, if played on an even larger stage.

This could all sound like I really didn’t like the novel – and that wouldn’t be right. It has more to say than Catcher in the Rye, but it certainly reminded me of that. Perhaps it would make a better novel to give to a young person – it is hard to say. As I said before, I struggle with a lot of philosophy that references Nietzsche quite as fulsomely as this one does – but that really is just me.

In conclusion, this book is a complex and thought-provoking work that combines elements of Nietzschean philosophy and Jungian psychology. While it may not be everyone's cup of tea, it offers a unique perspective on the human condition and the search for meaning in life. Whether it is the most interesting or the best novel for a young person is a matter of personal opinion, but it certainly has the potential to spark interesting discussions and debates.

The bird bravely fights its way out of the egg. The egg, in this context, represents the world. And those who wish to be born must first have the courage to destroy a world. The bird then takes flight towards God, whose name is Abraxas.

For a book that is rich in philosophical meanings, Demian is surprisingly quite understandable. The author has done an excellent job in presenting the character's thoughts and feelings, as well as the transition from a boy to a man. Indeed, Demian is a book about growing up, about finding oneself and one's place and role in society. The young boy in the book is initially confined only to his family's world. However, he feels the urge to rebel and reach out to the world of darkness that exists outside his house and beyond his family's morals. He gets this opportunity from Demian, an older schoolmate, who guides him through life and helps him understand the dreams he is having, which ultimately lead to his true destiny.

Apart from the profound meanings this book conveys, the story itself is very engaging, with a fast-paced plot and relatable characters. One can easily identify with Sinclair, as he expresses the anxieties and confusion that everyone experiences while growing up and transitioning from childhood to adulthood. The writing is also very good, being both understandable and not tiring for the reader. Overall, it is a great book, deserving of a 4 out of 5 rating.

P.S. Okay, I confess that I read this one to help me figure out BTS's MVs. I mean, look at this: [image]. Now I'm even more confused...

It is so difficult to rate this book. Because the truth is that, being my first read, it didn't dazzle me. However, I can say with certainty that the book is by no means bad. But I feel that there is something that eludes me, I don't really know what. So it is complicated for me to evaluate the book because I have mixed feelings. I liked the development of Emil, and how enigmatic Demian could be. I liked the concepts presented, and the way that each thing makes you think a lot about what is being narrated, and about life in general. Despite everything, I will let my thoughts about this book rest a bit and then I will read it again (and review it) more calmly before the end of the year, in order to rate it correctly.

This book has left me with a sense of mystery and a desire to understand more. The characters are complex and the story is engaging, but there is still something that I can't quite put my finger on. I hope that upon a second reading, I will be able to解开 this mystery and give a more accurate assessment of the book.

Overall, I would say that this is a book that is worth reading, especially if you are interested in exploring the human psyche and the meaning of life. It may not be a perfect book, but it definitely has its strengths and will leave you with a lot to think about.