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annasbookjournal's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
I find that the kinds of books that don’t have a defined plot and don’t necessarily pertain to a specific genre are the ones that stay in your heart (e.g. The Count of Monte Cristo).
This is one of those books that, if someone asked me to describe what it’s about, I wouldn’t be able to tell them in one sentence. Of course, I could attempt to and say that Narcissus and Goldmund is a book about finding your own true nature and leaning into it in order to be truly happy, instead of comparing yourself to how someone else goes about life. But it truly deals with hundreds of aspects of being a human being, and it’s now become my favourite book after it has delved into my soul and put into place all of the confusing bits about me.
The features of the characters’ personalities and their natures are the main focus for the story (when, usually, their characteristics are just an addition to an already-written plot): they are introduced right at the beginning in a general way and no set plot is shown to the reader. With any other book, I would have left the story, uninterested. But here, because the true natures of Narcissus and Goldmund (and, really, the true, raw, and mysterious natures that we can find in all people) have just been alluded to, you find yourself wanting to read the story and find out how each character and their general description would act in the real world if something happened to them. You are given such a specific description of their personalities that you’d be able to logically guess how they would react if they found out that their dead mother was alive, for example. So, it’s naturally a book about following what you are in life, paying attention to your nature and leaning into it, even though it might be different from the people that are surrounding you at that moment. And even though the path may be very very hard, you have to follow it because only that way will you truly be happy in life.
But this book is not only about two men with very different paths and very different goals in life; it is also about the feeling that everyone has to want to make this fleeting life and these fleeting experiences, relationships, friendships, discoveries, sentiments LAST. It’s about how everyone wants to immortalise everything that has had an impact on them and that has shaped them and their soul. So, one of the questions that the book poses is: How do you do that? How do you immortalise it? And it gives us its answer.
What I found extremely interesting was seeing how many events in the book could be (potentially) linked to Hermann Hesse’s life. Firstly, how he found his religious school to be too strict and ran away just like Goldmund did. His attempted suicide at a very young age and his troubled teens and adult life reflected into Goldmund’s psychological uncertainty. His open criticism of Hitler’s antisemitism shown in Goldmund’s encounter with a young Jewish girl, whose family had been killed because of their religion. Finally, Hesse’s negative experience in World War I being expressed by a disheartened Goldmund, seeing death and heartless human actions take place.
But, arguably, more than “logic vs art” being the main topic, it is “father vs mother”. The latter topic further explains the former, and adds another layer to it. My explanation doesn’t even compare to Hesse’s, but here is gist of it. On the one hand, Narcissus likes to stay in the logical and spiritual world, where reason lies, and he has a fatherly pull towards which he thrives to go to. Goldmund, on the other hand, is more material; he prefers for spiritual things, souls, and sentiments to be represented in art (such as sculptures or drawings).
And this book is definitely also about the relationship between Narcissus and Goldmund. Their love story and their friendship truly break my heart. They have been points of reference for each other all of their lives but only get a couple of years together; they change each other and help the other find out their truest self and be happy in this life. And it breaks me that in his years of wandering, Goldmund only wanted to talk to Narcissus about all of the difficult situations that he had to face alone. We see Goldmund’s life from 18 years old to up to his thirties, whose changes, events, trauma, and solitude we have to witness without being able to do anything. We see how, even though his suffering would go away if he just came back to Narcissus, he wouldn’t be able to find himself, his art and his nature and be truly satisfied.
Lastly, the title deserves a paragraph of analysis. I wasn’t sure what the meaning of it was; sure, Goldmund (meaning “mouth of gold” in English) might be related to him being able to convince anyone to help him or, in most cases, to spend the night with him. But I couldn’t understand the relation between our Narcissus and the character from Greek mythology. After asking the advice of a friend, I understood that maybe what the author is trying to communicate to us is, just like the mythological person who is focused only on himself and doesn’t see the rest of the world, our Narcissus, being the abbot circling reason and spirit, is so focused on his own spirituality that he almost doesn’t need to know what happens in the world.
Needless to say, I’ve never written so much for a book, and it will forever stay in my heart and make me silently cry whenever I remember the love story between Narcissus and Goldmund.
P.S. This is also one of those books that make your heart ache because of all of the things that the main character has to go through just to find themselves.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Child death, Death, Gore, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Antisemitism, Grief, Death of parent, and Murder