Glass Bead Game: (Magister Ludi)
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Fair
Jacket: No dust jacket
Pages: Good
Markings: Previous owner
Condition remarks: Condition as shown in image
In a distant, utopian future, the intellectual élite of Castalia dedicate their lives to The Glass Bead Game — an infinitely complex synthesis of music, mathematics, and all human knowledge — and it is within this rarified world that Hermann Hesse's final masterpiece chronicles the life of Joseph Knecht, a man who rises to become the supreme Game Master, only to question the very institution he has devoted himself to. A novel of ideas in the grandest tradition, it presents a profound meditation on the tension between contemplative withdrawal and active engagement with the world, between the life of the mind and the claims of ordinary humanity. Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1946, The Glass Bead Game stands as the crowning achievement of Hesse's career and one of the defining works of 20th-century German literature. Hesse's prose, rendered into elegant English by Richard and Clara Winston, carries a serene yet urgent authority, weaving together biography, philosophy, and allegory into a tapestry of rare intellectual beauty. It is a book that argues, with quiet but devastating force, that no system of thought — however perfect — can substitute for a fully lived life, leaving the reader to wonder long after the final page what price they themselves might pay for perfection.
Author: Hermann Hesse
Format: Paperback
Genre: Classic fiction
Condition remarks:
Book: Fair
Jacket: No dust jacket
Pages: Good
Markings: Previous owner
Condition remarks: Condition as shown in image
In a distant, utopian future, the intellectual élite of Castalia dedicate their lives to The Glass Bead Game — an infinitely complex synthesis of music, mathematics, and all human knowledge — and it is within this rarified world that Hermann Hesse's final masterpiece chronicles the life of Joseph Knecht, a man who rises to become the supreme Game Master, only to question the very institution he has devoted himself to. A novel of ideas in the grandest tradition, it presents a profound meditation on the tension between contemplative withdrawal and active engagement with the world, between the life of the mind and the claims of ordinary humanity. Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1946, The Glass Bead Game stands as the crowning achievement of Hesse's career and one of the defining works of 20th-century German literature. Hesse's prose, rendered into elegant English by Richard and Clara Winston, carries a serene yet urgent authority, weaving together biography, philosophy, and allegory into a tapestry of rare intellectual beauty. It is a book that argues, with quiet but devastating force, that no system of thought — however perfect — can substitute for a fully lived life, leaving the reader to wonder long after the final page what price they themselves might pay for perfection.