The Glass Bead Game

Before you is a book without which all of postmodernism's culture in Europe is unthinkable — in literature, cinema, theater. What is it — a brilliant avant-garde novel styled as a philosophy of surrealism, or a brilliant philosophical essay styled as a surrealist novel? Perhaps, NOW that is no longer important. What matters is this — years and decades go by, but the exquisite, painful, and esoteric "game of the glass bead" has no end. For this is the game that the best of people play…