While Goldmund was a very promising and intelligent student, Narcissus sensed that he had other work to do in the world, that the religious/spiritual path was not where he would find fulfillment, and recommended that he indeed leave the monastery to find out who he really was meant to be. He is extremely intelligent, perceptive and disciplined, and he commits fully to becoming the best priest and teacher he can be in the monastery. Narcissus and Goldmund represent two approaches to life: Narcissus represents the life of the mind, of thinking, of dedication to the spirit, almost in denial of the body and one’s primal instincts. Goldmund and his “adventures” and efforts to find himself and understand where he fits in the world comprise the majority of the book. We don’t get inside Narcissus’s mind until the end of the book after their reunion, some 20 years after separating. The book includes a lot of Goldmund’s internal dialogue and soul searching, and his efforts to understand the world he wandered through. Their lives begin together, then they separate, and then come back together again to resolve the tension between the different paths they’d chosen. My Impressions: An interesting story, an adventure story of the soul, with two characters who represent two important aspects of human nature who pursue two very different paths in their lives. After many years and many hardships, he eventually returns to the monastery to find that his old mentor is now the Abbott, they reconnect on a new level with each admiring and envying the other. Goldmund has an epiphany, does indeed leave the monastery, and as a vagabond has many adventures for many years, roaming the countryside, meeting and seducing women, encountering various interesting characters, training as an artist and sculptor and finding himself in the middle of the devastation caused by the Black Plague in Europe.

Narcissus is a teacher under instruction, and Goldmund a new student, and while Narcissus serves as a somewhat older mentor to Goldmund, he encourages Goldmund to pursue his life in the world outside the monastery.

Summary in 4 sentences: Set in 14th century Germany, two young men meet as residents of a monastery, share much with each other and become very close friends. Considered by some to be his masterpiece. I’d read Hesse’s Siddhartha, Steppenwolf, and The Glass Bead Game before, but not this one. Why this book: Selected by my literature reading group for our bi-monthly selection – something different.

Narziss en Goldmund by Hermann Hesse