Under the influence of Jung's theories, his own psychoanalytic experience, and later, with a profound understanding of Eastern thought, Hesse developed an extraordinary body of work as a poet and novelist, which today ranks among the pinnacles of world literature. This novel, published in 1919 after the First World War, offered the best of German youth a refuge in the possibility of inner perfection. "By striking with mysterious precision at a nerve center," says Thomas Mann, "the work awakened the grateful enthusiasm of an entire generation who believed they saw in it the revelation of their deepest vital essence." The drama of man's inevitable solitude constitutes the leitmotif in the work of this brilliant writer. In his writings, the eternal contradiction between desire, dreams, and real life emerges; this opposition imbues his entire work with immense melancholy.
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