Greetings, fellow book lovers! Here I'll discuss two books I read recently that I thought can fit well into one post. Although very different in narrative, they explore similar topics like marriage struggles and tragic destiny. So let's start.
Rosshalde
Given that he is one of my favorite authors, I am accustomed to never being disappointed by Hesse, and this story, one of his earliest, was no exception. It tells the tale of the ill-fated Veraguth family on the Rosshalde estate—Johann and his wife have grown completely estranged over time, and their cold relationship affects their two sons, creating an atmosphere of hostility and apathy in their home.
Johann is a painter who seeks an escape from reality through his art. He battles between the urge to free himself from the chains that bind him in place and his love for his younger son, whom he does not want to leave. He is a successful artist whose paintings are exhibited in major European galleries, but his inner life and family relationships, hidden from the outside world, slowly eat away at him. His wife Adele shares the same worries—they are simply different people and cannot find common ground, living as complete strangers on the estate.
What I appreciate most in Hesse's novels is the theme of the inner struggle of a seeker for meaning, a person unhappy in their life with a overwhelming need to escape towards spiritual freedom. Similarly, here, the sacrifice made to maintain the illusion that all is not lost leads to alienation within one's own home and a repressed desire to finally break free from mere existence and spend the rest of life authentically. But such choices are not always easy—do we have the right to make them if it will hurt the ones we love? Distraught by a painful fate, a person cannot appreciate even what is valuable right beside them until it is too late.
He longed much more for that distant and peaceful world where his sufferings, worries, struggles, and deprivations would have to become foreign, distant, and ultimately fade away; there, hundreds of small daily burdens would fall from his soul, and he would be embraced by a new, pure atmosphere without guilt and suffering.
(The quote is translated from Serbian cause I couldn't find it in English, so it might not sound perfect.)
It is noticeable through the writing style that this work is one of Hesse's early efforts, and it shows how he was gradually honing his craft. It is indeed a brilliant and heavy story that explores important questions of human existence and human relationships.
4.25/5
The Kreutzer Sonata
A long train journey sets the stage for a heated debate among a group of strangers in a compartment about the modern problems of the 19th century related to marriage and love. In an era when marriage was becoming more liberal and divorces more frequent, questions arose about its purpose and whether marriage for love was even possible. Spurred by some of the opinions voiced, one of the passengers, who had been silent and withdrawn until then, begins to tell his story—a story of a crime he committed and the unfortunate events that led to it.
This short novella, due to its explicit nature and provocative ideas, was banned until Tolstoy's own wife pleaded with the Tsar to allow its publication. It deals with jealousy, love, anger, and the struggle for control in male-female relationships.
Through the character of the vain protagonist, Tolstoy criticizes marriage as an institution that turns women into objects of male control, while also condemning sexuality as morally degrading. Marriage, he argues, should be the product of pure love and friendship, free from the destructive influence of lust.
“But when, as is most often the case, the husband and wife accept the external obligation to live together all their lives and have, by the second month, come to loathe the sight of each other, want to get divorced and yet go on living together, it usually ends in that terrible hell that drives them to drink, makes them shoot themselves, kill and poison each other”
"The Kreutzer Sonata", one of Tolstoy’s late works, is an expression of the author's search for spiritual redemption. Through the tragic story of the protagonist, Tolstoy advocates for a life of moral rigor and spiritual purity, free from the destructive impact of uncontrolled sexuality. By interweaving Beethoven's symphony from the title into the story, he illustrates how supreme art, which in suitable circumstances brings people together and inspires them, also has the power to change us and even lead us to evil.
4.5/5