lunar eclipse
[ Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Narcissus/Goldmund, Big Gay Love Story, Opposites Attract, Unrequited Love, (but it really isn’t narcissus is just oblivious), Mutual Pining, Narcissus is Bad at Feelings, Goldmund is Bad at Feelings, Bisexual Goldmund, Adventure & Romance, Travel, Original Female Characters, Smut, Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud Make an Appearance, they’re everywhere between the lines, Angst, Sad Ending ]
i have no idea how literary critics can be so delusional. the two characters meet and almost immediately notice each other’s handsomeness, “great figure”, and become the sense of life for each other—sure they’re just “archetypes”, “the two sides of the same phenomenon”, don’t you think so? narcissus quite literally daydreams about being close and affectionate with goldmund and harbours his love for him, thinking that goldmund doesn’t feel the same. goldmund might want women, sure, but he never forgets narcissus. on the contrary, he spends quite a long amount of time trying to get narcissus to like him. definitely not gay, huh?
i do see how this was inspired by jung’s and freud’s theories. it’s the the ideas of finding your true purpose, bridging the conscious and unconscious, and the recurring theme of character’s dreams reflecting their feelings. freud and jung are literally everywhere here, and it would probably be safe to say that a whole novel is a tribute to psychoanalysis—a personification of hesse’s reflections. but wouldn’t it be possible to mention this without actively avoiding the fact that the two said archetypes were whipped for each other? that beyond the psychoanalytical metaphor, this is also an incredibly touching and tragic love story? oh boy, i can’t with these old white men.
i cannot put into words how i felt when i finished this book. i may have been a little bored in the middle, since the main character was basically hooking up his way across germany for about ten years. but the last one hundred pages were absolutely worth it. they were so emotional, they brought the whole story together and pushed it to its natural end so seamlessly that i refused to believe that i have to part with this story. i spent more than two weeks with it, living it through, and it may have not seemed like it during the drawn-out parts about goldmund’s travels, but, but. the ending is so melancholic, and it traumatized me (beware of in-depth discussions about death if it triggers you), but it left an impression that i would probably be thinking of for a long time now.
more than that, i can’t stress enough how pleasantly surprising hesse’s beliefs are considering the time. just like in “demian”, he criticises the church’s ultimate dream about a “pure”, “sin-free” life—because it simply doesn’t work like that in reality. but here, he goes even further. through narcissus’s reflections in the end, he shows that there is no better and superior path, whether it’s thinking and learning in a monastery or art and physical love. even though it might have seemed that narcissus thought himself to be smarter, he ends up realising that through his art, goldmund can capture the very essence of life, its whole entity that’s impossible to describe in words and concepts.
and well, it might be worth mentioning that “narcissus and goldmund” follows a template quite similar to “demian”. that’s why i’m not jumping into hesse’s other novels straight away, but walk away instead to let it sink in. and that’s why i wasn’t that impressed with the book about halfway through. nevertheless, it managed to truly surprise me.
(oh, and you probably didn’t ask for my opinion on this, but. hesse’s sex scenes are ones the best i’ve ever read. they’re incredibly beautiful.)
[ Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Narcissus/Goldmund, Big Gay Love Story, Opposites Attract, Unrequited Love, (but it really isn’t narcissus is just oblivious), Mutual Pining, Narcissus is Bad at Feelings, Goldmund is Bad at Feelings, Bisexual Goldmund, Adventure & Romance, Travel, Original Female Characters, Smut, Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud Make an Appearance, they’re everywhere between the lines, Angst, Sad Ending ]
i have no idea how literary critics can be so delusional. the two characters meet and almost immediately notice each other’s handsomeness, “great figure”, and become the sense of life for each other—sure they’re just “archetypes”, “the two sides of the same phenomenon”, don’t you think so? narcissus quite literally daydreams about being close and affectionate with goldmund and harbours his love for him, thinking that goldmund doesn’t feel the same. goldmund might want women, sure, but he never forgets narcissus. on the contrary, he spends quite a long amount of time trying to get narcissus to like him. definitely not gay, huh?
i do see how this was inspired by jung’s and freud’s theories. it’s the the ideas of finding your true purpose, bridging the conscious and unconscious, and the recurring theme of character’s dreams reflecting their feelings. freud and jung are literally everywhere here, and it would probably be safe to say that a whole novel is a tribute to psychoanalysis—a personification of hesse’s reflections. but wouldn’t it be possible to mention this without actively avoiding the fact that the two said archetypes were whipped for each other? that beyond the psychoanalytical metaphor, this is also an incredibly touching and tragic love story? oh boy, i can’t with these old white men.
i cannot put into words how i felt when i finished this book. i may have been a little bored in the middle, since the main character was basically hooking up his way across germany for about ten years. but the last one hundred pages were absolutely worth it. they were so emotional, they brought the whole story together and pushed it to its natural end so seamlessly that i refused to believe that i have to part with this story. i spent more than two weeks with it, living it through, and it may have not seemed like it during the drawn-out parts about goldmund’s travels, but, but. the ending is so melancholic, and it traumatized me (beware of in-depth discussions about death if it triggers you), but it left an impression that i would probably be thinking of for a long time now.
more than that, i can’t stress enough how pleasantly surprising hesse’s beliefs are considering the time. just like in “demian”, he criticises the church’s ultimate dream about a “pure”, “sin-free” life—because it simply doesn’t work like that in reality. but here, he goes even further. through narcissus’s reflections in the end, he shows that there is no better and superior path, whether it’s thinking and learning in a monastery or art and physical love. even though it might have seemed that narcissus thought himself to be smarter, he ends up realising that through his art, goldmund can capture the very essence of life, its whole entity that’s impossible to describe in words and concepts.
and well, it might be worth mentioning that “narcissus and goldmund” follows a template quite similar to “demian”. that’s why i’m not jumping into hesse’s other novels straight away, but walk away instead to let it sink in. and that’s why i wasn’t that impressed with the book about halfway through. nevertheless, it managed to truly surprise me.
(oh, and you probably didn’t ask for my opinion on this, but. hesse’s sex scenes are ones the best i’ve ever read. they’re incredibly beautiful.)