I once saw a hilarious comment on a book review website, which said that Hermann Hesse’s books are good in every way, except that every time he puts forward a point of view, he should beat it to death (I think the Northeastern dialect “Ke Jin Er Zao” is the best translation of this proverb). However, the words are rough but the truth is true. The reasoning part of Hesse’s novels is clear in narration, solid in logic, and of course long in length – ironically, it may be due to the scholastic education that suppressed human nature that the author received in his youth – which is difficult to achieve in other types of novels. Whether Hesse spent his entire life exploring an ultimate theme (binary opposition and unity) can be temporarily questioned. But between 1922 and 1930, all three works created by this writer – Siddhartha (1922), Steppenwolf (1927), and Narcissus and Goldmund (1930) – can very clearly explain and complement each other. The most obvious of these is how the text of Siddhartha explains the parts of Narcissus and Goldmund that the author intentionally or unintentionally did not elaborate on.
- Did Hesse ignore the general female psychology in the chapter about Goldmund’s travels?
In Narcissus and Goldmund, Hesse uses a very good technique to describe no less than 95% of the female characters: they all regard love as a game, their hearts are as hard as rocks; they come and go without cause or effect, and their passion comes and goes like smoke:
Ch.8 Not one had seriously begged Goldmund to stay, not one had asked him to take her along, had loved him enough to share the joys and hardships of his wandering life.
This made Goldmund, who “never missed the women of the previous night the next day”, doubt:
Ch.8 Did women desire him as they desired a pretty doll, to hug to their hearts, only to run back to their husbands afterwards, in spite of the beatings that awaited them?
The reason why I say this proportion is no less than 95% is that I can only find one character, Marie, who lost most of her female attraction, at least to Goldmund, because of her lameness. She does not meet the above characteristics:
Ch.16 Perhaps Marie was still sitting up, even now: poor Marie with the good loving eyes and hobbled gait, sitting and waiting, falling asleep in her kitchen and waking up again, but no Goldmund would ever come home.
Although Goldmund managed to escape from the disaster, he still failed to fulfill his promise to Marie that he would come back to see her later. This character, who has the psychological characteristics of ordinary women and I suspect is in line with the moral orientation of many people, has never been favored by the protagonist’s love.
Although Hesse adopted a God’s perspective in his creation and often carried out psychological descriptions of the two protagonists, he was often reluctant to write about the female characters he created, and only compared them collectively to secular mothers who stole the forbidden fruit:
Ch.11 Each new woman added to the image of the worldly mother, the Eve-mother, each new insight, each experience and event worked at it and fashioned its traits.
In contrast, “Siddhartha” gives a more vivid language and psychological description of Kamala, a character who is also strong, independent and has strong feminine charm. When Siddhartha warns Kamala that it is desire that drives his behavior, rather than pity, care, or consideration for her:
Part II Section “Kamala” “Oh, he’s strong, the Samana, and he isn’t afraid of anything. He could force you, beautiful girl. He could kidnap you. He could hurt you.”
Kamala compares the granting of love to the granting of thought:
Part II Section “Kamala” “No, Samana, I am not afraid of this. Did any Samana or Brahman ever fear, someone might come and grab him and steal his learning, and his religious devotion, and his depth of thought? No, for they are his very own, and he would only give away from those whatever he is willing to give and to whomever he is willing to give. Like this it is, precisely like this it is also with Kamala and with the pleasures of love.”
The author then uses Kamala’s mouth to continue to point out the autonomy and free spirit of this type of woman:
Part II Section “Kamala” “Beautiful and red is Kamala’s mouth, but just try to kiss it against Kamala’s will, and you will not obtain a single drop of sweetness from it, which knows how to give so many sweet things! You are learning easily, Siddhartha, thus you should also learn this: love can be obtained by begging, buying, receiving it as a gift, finding it in the street, but it cannot be stolen.”
Relying only on traditional female traits such as obedience, passivity, care, and gentleness, they still lack a key step towards becoming a guide. This is why the heroines in the three novels of Siddhartha, Steppenwolf, and Narcissus and Goldmund are all projections of Eve, a secular mother who once bravely took this step, which is different from other works such as Gertrude. - What is the struggle that Narcissus has never described in detail in his speculation and asceticism?
Narcissus, another protagonist of Narcissus and Goldmund, is a theologian who advocates logic and rationality from beginning to end. However, while he was gradually pushing Goldmund, who had an unrestrained artistic soul, out of the monastery that imprisoned humanity, he also began to practice asceticism, fasting, confession and admonition more frequently than before:
Ch.5 Narziss began to feel the need for seclusion; either because he had completed the novitiate or because of his experience with Goldmund, he felt drawn to fasting and long prayers, frequent confessions, voluntary penitence.
Even Goldmund himself, while enjoying the sensory world, often thought:
Ch.6 Narziss was bent down in front of the altar on tired knees, prepared and purified for a night of prayer and contemplation that permitted him no more than two hours’ sleep.
What is more unfortunate is that after more than ten years, Narziss did not gain peace and enlightenment from asceticism:
Ch.19 “You should not envy me, Goldmund. There is no peace of the sort you imagine. You don’t see me fight, you don’t know my struggles as Abbot, my struggles in the prayer cell. You only see that I am less subject to moods than you, and you take that for peace. But my life is struggle; it is struggle and sacrifice like every decent life; like yours, too.”
So what is the confusion that causes this struggle? Hesse instead detailed it in “Siddhartha”:
Part II Section “By the River” Now Siddhartha also got some idea of why he had fought this self in vain as a Brahman, as a penitent. Too much knowledge had held him back, too many holy verses s, too many sacrificial rules, too much self-castigation, so much doing and striving for that goal! Full of arrogance, he had been, always the smartest, always working the most, always one step ahead of all others, always the knowing and spiritual one, always the priest or wise one. Narcissus’s speculation and asceticism correspond exactly to Siddhartha’s speculation and asceticism while he is still a Brahmin; Narcissus ‘s
only shortcoming – pride – is exactly the shortcoming of Siddhartha as a Brahmin that the author clearly points out, for which they willingly choose to punish themselves; they have achieved the ultimate in the monistic dimension, but it is still not helpful to understand a dualistic unified world, and realizing this has intensified their pain:
Part II Section “By the River” Now he saw that no teacher would ever have been able to bring about his salvation. Therefore, he had to go out into the world. - Can Goldmund’s motive for doing this be called love? Who did Goldmund love?
There are texts everywhere in “Narcissus and Goldmund” that suggest that Goldmund has hardly ever truly loved anyone in the usual sense:
Ch.8 When he questioned his heart, he knew that he cherished his freedom. He could not remember a single woman for whom he had not stopped longing in the arms of the next.
Ch.11 Some women tied him to them more strongly after three or ten nights of love; others were exhausted after the first time and forgotten.
Similar behavior is clearly labeled as “incapable of love” in “Siddhartha”:
Part II Section “The Son” Siddhartha suddenly had to think of a line which Kamala a long time ago, in the days of their youth, had once said to him. “You cannot love,” she had said to him, and he had agreed with her and also sensed an accusation in that line. Indeed, he had never been able to lose or devote himself completely to another person, to forget himself, to commit foolish acts for the love of another person; never had he been able to do this, and this was, as it had seemed to him at that time, the great distinction which set him apart from the childlike people.
With the help of this section, it becomes very simple to define Goldmund’s relationships with other women – none of them were “childlike love” because he never abandoned his “true self” while “loving”. He does what his desires drive him to:
Ch.8 How stupid of him; words were unnecessary in love; he should have kept silent.However
, there is indeed a love that truly meets the above definition in the whole novel. Goldmund did love and only loved one person. He did and only did very childish things that were far away from his “self” for this person. Don’t doubt it, it was Narziss:
Ch.2 Fervently Goldmund admired his beautiful, outstandingly intelligent teacher. But Goldmund was timid; the only way he knew to court Narziss was to exhaust himself in being an attentive, eager student.
Ch.20 “I have always loved you. Half of my life was spent courting you.”
Fourth, did Goldmund get redemption? In what sense is this redemption? Is the redemption waiting for Narziss also a redemption?
Did Goldmund achieve his own redemption at the end of the novel, that is, the unity of binary opposites? The only explicit description of the realization of the unity of dualities occurs in the Siddhartha:
Part II Section “Om” Slowly blossomed, slowly ripened in Siddhartha the realization, the knowledge, what wisdom actually was, what the goal of his long search was. It was nothing but a readiness of the soul, an ability, a secret art, to think every moment, while living his life, the thought of oneness, to be able to feel and inhale the oneness. Slowly this blossomed in him, was shining back at him from Vasudeva’s old, childlike face: harmony, knowledge of the eternal perfection of the world, smiling, oneness. Are
the “old but childish” and the earlier reference to his lack of ability in thought or speech all too familiar when used to describe the ferryman Vasudeva?
Ch.20 Narziss looked into Goldmund’s eyes. He too saw not only the exhaustion, the pitiful wilting of this face; he saw other things besides, strangely pleasing signs of acceptance, of detachment even, of surrender and old man’s good humor.Vasudeva, the ferryman,
is the counterpart of the elderly Goldmund in Siddhartha. They had long since quit the path of seeking truth through reason and speculation, and instead resorted to senses, emotions and experience. When they recognized the dual unity of the world, they did not need to make more explorations in the rational world, but could transcend time and space and leave an immortal legacy.
As for whether Narziss finally gained enlightenment and redemption, I personally think that is the only open question here. First, the book ends like this:
Ch.20 Goldmund’s last words burned like fire in his heart.
The last words Goldmund left for him were:
Ch.20 “But how will you die when your time comes, Narziss, since you have no mother? Without a mother, one cannot love. Without a mother, one cannot die.”
The character of Narziss can be roughly compared to Govinda in Siddhartha. Although the two have completely different personalities, their struggle to achieve the unity of binary opposites due to not “entering the world” is the same; another detail that is far from coincidental is that Siddhartha also ends with Govinda shedding tears after hearing Siddhartha’s words:
Part II Section “Govinda” Deeply, Govinda bowed; tears he knew nothing of, ran down his old face; like a fire burnt the feeling of the most intimate love, the humblest veneration in his heart. Deeply, he bowed, touching the ground, before him who was sitting motionlessly, whose smile reminded him of everything he had ever loved in his life, what had ever been valuable and holy to him in his life.
It is indisputable that Govinda made the final leap toward prajna through Siddhartha’s guidance. But I personally think that Govinda’s efforts toward prajna were different from those of Narcissus. If Narcissus’s practice in the monastery was the first step, Siddhartha’s “entering the world” was the second step, and Govinda’s being a disciple of the Buddha was somewhere in between. So, although Narcissus was gifted and far more gifted than Govinda, the fire burning in his heart was still one of touch rather than enlightenment; and the problem Goldmund raises is also real, because the only channel connecting Narcissus to the secular world is about to be severed. If you can’t enter this world, you can’t get complete salvation. This is the tragedy that is bound to happen under the confinement of the scholastic school.