Review: The Glass Bead Game by Hermann Hesse

I have to admit that I don’t really understand the hype around this book. I found the exploration of academia, scholarship, monasteries, the “ivory tower,” and the trade-offs between focusing on pure learning and knowledge vs making an impact in the “real world” to be interesting; there’s a clear undercurrent of the search for enlightenment and nirvana (in the Buddhist sense) and the different paths to get there, though it feels a bit heavy-handed; the glass bead game as something that can bridge multiple disciplines (e.g., establishing links between math, philosophy, music, etc) itself is an interesting concept, but never fully explored; and… that’s it?

Other than that, not much else seems to happen, despite the fact that this is a long book. Every thought that could be expressed in 5 words is drawn out to 50 words; every idea that could be reduced to one sentence instead fills an entire page. And then, out of nowhere, the book abruptly ends. And I frankly wasn’t sure what the point was?

What are you all getting from this story? What am I missing? Were my expectations wrong? Am I not “spiritual” enough to benefit from this?

Rating: 3 stars