A friend loaned me her copy, so I decided to give Demian a go. Let me start by saying that I’ve read Hesse’s Siddhartha and found it interesting…. This one, not so much. I was completely underwhelmed by Demian, especially after seeing so many positive reviews online. I know this book is meant to be philosophical, but I just felt so disengaged the entire time. I found that the lack of real events surrounding the character’s self-discovery journey made the whole story boring; I don’t like reading 100+ pages of what’s essentially a diary when the person’s life really isn’t that interesting in the first place. It’s possible that this book is great and just wasn’t for me, but I’m not going to be actively recommending this story to anyone 🤷🏼‍♀️

It starts out very interestingly on the idea of the duality of good and evil in the world and paints a beautiful picture of morality that sadly dwindles and decays over the course of the book. Making me hope for the eventual return to morality. Alas my anticipation is denied as he instead delves ever deeper into the “other world”. Critically it is well written, it’s a shame that the path Sinclair takes is of questionable ethicality.

It makes soo muchh senseeeeeee