Peter Camenzind. Under the Wheel. Gertrude. Rosshalde

This collection includes several emblematic works that had a tremendous influence on Hesse's later creativity. Peter Camenzind 1904 tells about the years of wandering and learning of the main character – an ordinary peasant boy. Youth, studies, first love and... loyal friendship, the search for oneself and a better fate, the first bitter disappointments and the gradual acquisition of life experience – this is what constitutes the content of this very lyrical, partly autobiographical novella. The theme of education and the race for elusive school successes is also raised in the novella Under the Wheel 1906. All his free time, gifted and fragile boy Hans Giebenrat dedicates to studying, voluntarily giving up his beloved fishing and walks with friends for one goal – to enter the seminary. And so the bar is set, the exam is passed brilliantly, but now Hans is increasingly afraid of falling behind and finds himself under the wheel of the soulless machine of education… The novel Gertrude 1910 is a story that has been repeatedly called an artistic embodiment of the motifs of Nietzsche's Birth of Tragedy. It is dedicated to the drama of a young composer forced to choose between the rational and the spontaneous in creativity. Real details of Hesse's life and characteristics inherent to him, given to various characters, give the book a special, profound meaning. What is art? Self-denial or spiritual permissiveness? Why is a person of art doomed to eternal loneliness? Each of the heroes of Hesse's novel answers these questions in their own way… The collection also includes the novel Rosshalde 1914.