The Glass Bead Game

What I love about HH's books is that I feel as if I've lived the lives of his characters vicariously, passing through their struggles with them and coming out with hard-won wisdom and character. I feel like a better, wiser person for those books, with the kind of perspective on life that otherwise would have taken me a lifetime to achieve.

on HN, 2020

what I found most appealing about it is the idea that all knowledge is related. Once players study for years, they realize mathematics and music theory are related. Architecture and geometry are related. By analogy all knowledge is related and one can glide from one concept to another (in a Glass Bead Game) and tell interesting stories. Very influential to me on universality of learning and knowledge.

on HN, 2022

SPOLIER ALERT: then, slowly, awkwardly, painfully, a realization creeps over you - GBG is life. Really a tremendous literary achievement.

on HN, 2024

The Glass Bead Games is a revelation for anyone who feels there is something just a little bit ill with the mind and motion of our modern age.

on HN, 2009

The Glass Bead Game is one of the best books I've read, and I think palpably changed how I think about some things even though I read it as an adult.

on HN, 2020

The Glass Bead Game by Herman Hesse, it shows this life lived for pure intellectual values and compares it to living for the world via two individuals and an academic institution partly isolated from the rest of society.

on HN, 2022