If you are an artist, introvert, traveler, loner, or simply a deep thinker, this book is for you. Hesse articulates parts of my identity I never knew were there simply because I did not have his language to explain them to me. Wow. Penetrating.

A true classic and one that I have read several times, Steppenwolf is not light reading. But, for the thoughtful reader, it may take you places that you never knew existed. Read it.

To anyone who is awake in this sleeping world, to anyone ready to pull himself out of the matrix and look honestly at the duelistically craziness of our lives.. this book it for you. You must be ready to understand that we humans are in fleeting moments strangers in a strange Land and in this world but not of it.

For some reason I decided to read this decades after reading "Siddhartha" and "Demian." "Siddhartha" especially made a big impression on me at age 19 or so, and was important in sparking my life-long interest in Buddhism. I must have looked at "Steppenwolf," and probably didn't read it because it looked too dark.

It's a quick, easy read, and it includes many poetic passages, but it strikes me as philosophy or psychology lite. I recommend it to young intellectuals and artists. The insights to be found here are more likely to be deep and meaningful to those experiencing the crises of young adulthood than to those who have been around and "have been experienced," as Hendrix put it.

To anyone who grew up with the "live life with gusto" attitude of rock music, the message will be old hat.

I have always loved this story. Many do & many don't. I think people often miss the point that you can choose to be happier if you so choose. Many focus only on the gloom and doom. We all have many paths that come our way. We can be stubborn and be sad or make a change to find happiness. The choice is always there to take.

AS far as Amazon and their support on having this work on your computer, if I could rate I would give it zero stars. I will never buy another digital book. Trying to explain something to someone who can't comprehend is a total waste of time. iTunes is an apple application and unless I overlooked it somehow why is it only for windows. It was not made by windows. Windows music system is so bad they need iTunes by Macintosh to sound good. I have windows machines so I know the difference. I want it on my Mac not on Windows. This was my first and only digital book.

I have read Hesse's Siddartha three or four times, and when I saw this book recommended during a TV tour of Maulbronn Monastery(the main setting), I decided to read it. The book is relatively rare and unknown, thus I was forced to purchase it new rather than from my trusty, nearby used book store. It is one very enjoyable read. The story is relatively short, clean, and simple; and true to Hesse's style, the imagery, especially of nature, is clear and effective. The reader gains a good measure of insight into the mind of the main character. More narrative than symbolic, the writing is clean and very readable, but with plenty to say. Those of us who have recently raised and schooled children know full well of the educational rat-race that seems to be growing more frenetic than ever. The net result of the translation is superb, though I cannot say whether it is true - just that it is very "American" and highly readable in its presentation. I have observed that certain British translations of German often appear chopped and jerky, often with odd and excess punctuation. If you like Hesse, or classic fin de siecle literature, (I do) then this will please you.

I will admit I'm a bit biased. Hesse is my favorite author of all time. I was expecting the sort of ho-hum experience one gets when exploring an author's "juvenalia" with this novella. I was pleasantly surprised to find the same sort of beautifully articulated, troubled, brooding situation that the young protagonist finds himself in, as what we see in Hesse's later and greater works. Despite the conspicuous absence of a supernatural / fantasy element that is present in works like Steppenwolf, Demian and Journey to the East, then, Beneath the Wheel has a flavor to it that makes it of a piece with the aforementioned. The abiding theme of the book, to my mind, is the way in which unbridled, vain and worldly ambition can and will destroy the most sensitive and capable of individuals. This is certainly a theme that recurs in Hesse. As this book demonstrates, however, this destructive ambition is not necessarily something that is naturally ingrained in a given life, but is most commonly found (and destructive) in those who thoughtlessly impress it and its ilk upon the lives of the young and the gifted. The title "Beneath the Wheel" takes on a wide range of meanings in light of this reading, and also in light of the fact that it is stolen from a phrase uttered by the protagonist Hans' consummately vain schoolmaster. In this latter context, it takes the form of a caution against Hans' devoted affections to his piously defiant friend Herman Heilner. In regards to this friendship, the Schoolmaster warns Hans that he is risking "falling beneath the wheel." This is little more, as Hesse narrates, than an effort to squash out Hans need to have a private, inner life apart from his social duties, achievement, in short: the stuff the world, particularly Hans' envious and admiring elders and superiors expect of him. Herman Heilner, who is an obvious projection of Herman Hesse's persona into the world of the novella itself, is an avant-garde school mate who is constantly questioning everything that is common and banal about the education he and Hans share in an elite, German State run academy. Interestingly, Hesse does not overtly project himself into the protagonist in this novella, but the thinly veiled allusion to himself in the person of Heilner seems telling in this regard. It renders the book into a counterfactual autobiography, I believe, of what might have happened had Hesse himself not succeeded, in some sense, in his own revolt against the canons of conformism, as Heilner is essentially a more liberated, authentic and free-spirited double of Hans in some sense. As per usual, Hesse's brilliant phenomenological-poetic and psychological descriptions of the patterns of human experience saturate this book, particularly as it approaches its tragic ending. The problems dealt with, in this vein, range from the discovery of love and sexuality to maturation to the inherent impossibility of leading an authentic life, as well as the folly of refusing to at least make a good faith effort at doing so. Hesse's descriptions of these things are not abstract, but characteristically concrete and visceral, as his protagonist delves into the deliciously dark, poignant and penetrating account of his own decline and demise. On that note, the one thing that disappointed me was that little Hans did in fact die. For him to drown so suddenly, after starting on a path as a manual laborer that might have redeemed his life, seems a little forced, and almost an easy way out for the author. The poignant words and affections of the pious Mr. Flaig to Hans' bewildered and provincial father at the end, however, offer a pointed and satisfying closure to the tale. Even though Flaig is a backwards pietist, someone scorned as an ignoramus by his town for believing in the literal truth of Scripture, he is the only one who is human enough to console Hans' father. He is also the only one, strangely, who is enlightened enough to point out the charade that took place at the funeral. At the funeral, the most ambitious men who influenced Hans' life both presided and spoke their eloquent elegies. As Flaig comments, however, each of these men also walked away in what was perhaps a willful, horrific ignorance of their share in the responsibility for poor Hans' plight: his disgrace and dishonorment, his decline into shame, self-isolation, and ultimately, his untimely death.