MAGISTER LUDI (THE GLASS BEAD GAME) BY HERMAN HESSE

Magister Ludi (The Glass Bead Game) takes us to heart of fictional Castalia, an intellectual and secular utopia where a special group exist for pure intellectual inquiry through the study and meditation, as embodied in the Glass Bead Game. The Glass Bead Game is dedicated to discovering truths through the intense study of music, mathematics, philosophy and science. The Glass Bead Game is the pride of the province, its main export to the rest of Europe. Castalia is in itself the literary embodiment of Plato's World of Ideas, kept in check by a strict hierarchy called the Order, and isolated from "worldly" concerns such as economy, history and politics. The Order is an intellectual priestly caste of sorts; its members, the Elite among others, remove themselves from the world to exist purely for the mind and the Game.

The novel's heart and soul is Joseph Knecht, a brilliant, humble and near saintly man (were it not for the secular nature of Castalia) who is removed from his humble origins to join the world of the elite. Of the Castalians, he is also the one with a greater degree of contact with the outside world, having dispatched "political" missions for the Order's benefit. He eventually rises to the highest position of Glass Bead Game Master (or the honorific title Magister Ludi) where, in the highest attainment of his goals he finds the austere, isolated life of an intellectual (priest) wanting. Disillusioned with the empty, high walls of intellectual utopia isolated from the problems and needs of the world, Knecht makes the irreversible decision of leaving the order to teach ordinary schoolchildren.

In his attempts to leave the Order and pursue a simple, "worldly" life in the service of the children and "unenlightened", he comes up against the institution he serves. Of course, his decision is unheard of, and he fights for his freedom - something, the Order defines as serving one's place in the hierarchy for the continued existence of Castalia. He eventually succeeds in leaving, but his break is a bittersweet one. En route to a new life as the tutor of his friend's bright but obstinate son, he goes swimming with the child but is ill-equipped to confront the strong currents.

Perhaps one could say that Knecht's sudden death and the abrupt end of the novel, is a metaphor, a cautionary tale to those who seek escape from the social order within an institution but are far less likely to survive out of it.

Knecht, in a nutshell, literally came down from the ivory tower to confront the realities of his time. The perfect embodiment of the Castalian spirit becomes its strongest dissenter, and in doing so, transcends his privileged but empty life.

The beautifully written, philosophical novel is Herman Hesse's last work, his magnum opus which earned him the Nobel Prize for Literature. His favorite themes are here: Eastern meditation, the perpetual struggle between the mind and the spirit, the struggle of the individual against social order. There are more questions about the implications of the novel - if anything, Knecht's death is not a vindication of Castalia and its way of life, but leaves unresolved its fate.