Book Review: Demian: The Story of Emil Sinclair’s Youth, by Hermann Hesse

By Christopher Stokum

When Demian: The Story of Emil Sinclair’s Youth was released in 1919, literary and intellectual circles had just one question: who is Emil Sinclair? The novel is profound and passionate; the ideas expressed in it show the touch of a master in their elegance. Yet no one could seem to locate Sinclair, the supposed author. It seemed as if the genius had left the moment he arrived.

As it turns out, Demian was written by Hermann Hesse. Determined that the novel not be read in the context of his previous works, which the author believed he had written in a state of incomplete self-realization, Hesse adopted a pseudonym. If Hesse’s claim that he had attained some form of enlightenment by 1919 seems pretentious, one need only look to his novel for proof of his sincerity.

The novel begins with Sinclair’s early childhood in a middle-class German family. From these early years onward, Sinclair is acutely aware of two opposing worlds: the realm of light – which contains his family, Christianity and so on – and the realm of dark – a world of crime, temptations and unrestrained thought. An experience with a bully at school forces Sinclair to, for the first time, enter into the realm of dark. The tension between the two worlds is somewhat eased by Max Demian, a new boy at school. Demian is odd – he interacts with adults as if he is their superior and he seems to be able to read others’ minds. Demian advises that rather than choosing one world or the other, Sinclair find a way to embrace both light and dark, good and evil. This marks the beginning of Sinclair’s journey toward self-realization, which, guided by Demian, occupies Hesse for the rest of the novel.

Demian is, in some ways, a traditional Bildungsroman, a coming-of-age novel. In the course of the narrative, Sinclair loses his innocence, fights with his family, discovers love and heartbreak, and comes to terms with himself. But to say that this is all the novel is about would be to oversimplify Hesse’s work. The novel is a philosophy book, and it is a religious book. The careful reader will find hints of Schopenhauer, Hegel and Nietzsche (if Demian isn’t an übermensch, I’m not sure who is), and Carl Jung’s psychology makes a number of appearances. Sinclair’s movement between various mentors and his struggle to eliminate dichotomies mirrors ideas found in Zen Buddhism, and his distrust of the God of Christianity calls Gnosticism to mind. Even the divide Sinclair observes between the realms of light and dark refers to the Daoist notions of yin and yang.

In a different novel, such varied themes might become garbled and dense. Hesse does not attempt to merely weave together a number of distinct doctrines, however. He rather extracts the similarities, the common beliefs – the archetypes, as Jung would call them – from the philosophical and religious systems he refers to and constructs a wholly original system from them. At times, Demian seems shockingly irreverent, casting aside beliefs that many individuals hold dear. At other points, though, Hesse writes with unrivaled compassion and understanding. If the reader is willing, as Sinclair is, to struggle through the difficult passages, he will reach calm waters. And if he looks hard into these waters, he will undoubtedly find a deeper understanding of himself.