DEMIAN and the outbreak of war

 

Finally we conclude our business with the Hesse novel.  It is quite short -- really a novella rather than a novel. So we do it no harm with this 'mere' three posts.

In the second of these posts we discussed Emil Sinclair's relationship with Pistorius. I'll move on here, as Sinclair did. 

In time, Sinclair learns Pistorius' limitations.  Pistorius deserves credit for understanding that the existing religions are inadequate, he fancies himself the priest of a new one but ... his mind and conversation keeps moving backward, not forward, so he is incapable of effectively being the harbinger of something new. 

"He knew too much of Egypt, of India, of Mithras, of Abraxas. His love was attached to ideas with which the world was already familiar."

They have a falling out.  Sinclair grows tired of Pistorius' "piecing together ... of religious forms which had been handed down." He tells Pistorius as much, and the two men part. 

Sinclair is now 18, it is perhaps 1913 and his family has him matriculate in a university. He moves to a new town for this purpose. But the new town is not far from that in which he grew up, and he spends his holidays back there, looking for Demian and indeed (due to a subplot I have omitted) for Demian's mother. 

He finds them both of course, and they seem now to be the center of a benevolent cult, doing what Pistorius couldn't. I will spare you the particulars. 

Demian spends much time with this cult quite blissfully, although with the growing understanding that Europe as it exists and has existed throughout his life cannot stand much longer. The group around Demian (unlabelled, but we might fittingly call them gnostics) hope to be among the survivors who can spread their new spirituality in whatever world emerges from the coming cataclysm. 

The cataclysm, of course, does come. Demian personally brings to Sinclair the news that Germany and Russia are mobilizing for war with one another, and both understand that this will be how their world ends. 

The final scene shows us the two young men, now German soldiers, in a military hospital. Demian knows that he is dying of his wounds and that Sinclair will survive his.  Final words are exchanged, and the gist is that Sinclair will survive the war and carry on...presumably taking his gnostic spirituality and understanding with him.