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...