A damning indictment of the Prussian Education System

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	• Beneath the Wheel Hermann Hesse Picador, 2003 - 192 pages average customer review:based on 23 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Think of the wheel as cyclical. 1906 or 2006?

As an educator, I just had two of my gifted students read this novel, and am pleased that I can now read it with multiple lenses. I re-read it recalling my own experiences of high pressure and one-up-manship from an affluent Catholic suburban high school. But now, as a teacher, I see all the dangers in creating gateways and irreversible standards for present day students where colorless logic and linguistics have sadly replaced the need for creativity, independence, and integrity.

Set in pre-World War Germany of the early 1900s, it's also a remarkable read when you compare it to the state of affairs of modern America. These timeless themes have surprisingly remained the same: social status over spiritual discovery, labels and test scores over substance and meaning, product over process. One must ask, are we headed in the same direction as early 20th century Germany?

How many Hans Giebenrath's will we neglect in our lifetime? How many times will we set up an education system where genius is stifled? It makes you wonder how many great minds are lost in the rat race of modernity.

This classic is a great way to generate discussion between teacher and student, especially the student who strives for excellence yet struggles to maintain sanity and identity in a world that has unfortunately favored high SAT's and social rank over family, honor, friendship, and art for art's sake.

It's a beautiful contrast of the real and the ideal; the simple life and the complexity of adolescence.

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A damning indictment of the Prussian Education System

This is a brilliantly written critique - of the Prussian Education System - in the form of a novel. Herman Hesse intended to show how a natural genius(or any child) is stiffled under an educational system that does not care for the needs and desires of the children. A system that is designed for the benefit of the status quo social structure, but ignores the freedom of the children to grow up in accordance with their own dreams.

The central character in this book is Hans Giebernath, a brilliant student in school, but a miserable failure in college after a short while. He is burned out - studying, studying, studying - matters irrelevant to him. He is not able to enjoy and cherish the joys of life. This is the story of his tragedy. His attempts to find a different path for himself in life, his desire to break out of the cage of the academy.

Many will be able to relate to the story; I especially felt a strong similarity between Hans' lifestory and my own. I was a brilliant student in high school, went to an elite college carrying high hopes placed upon me by everybody that knew me, but burned out by the sheer boredom and irrelevance of the 'ivory towers'. However, unlike Hans Giebernath, I managed to put myself through four years, but not without much frustration similar to that felt by him. That is why I loved this story, finally a book that understands and sympathizes with young men like me.

Hans' story continues after the college, has a few surprise twists and an ending that many can see coming. But that is not a shortcoming of the book, the author has built it up so that many a readers will not feel surprised by how the book ends.

What can be said about the writing itself? It's brilliant and choke full of great imagery. Even without a florid prose, Herman Hess has created a work that is great pleasure to read for it's quality of writing and deep thoughts contained therein.

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1906 is not far from 2008

For anyone being crushed and canned within the (mostly) incompetant and self-serving system of American Educational Faculty personnel, this book is a fair warning to any prospective college student (of any age) as to what they are really signing up for. I would suggest it as required reading prior to completing applications for any US institution of "higher learning". I completed a BA, MBA, and PhD...and found two professors in all that time who even vaguely gave an idle damn about the students they were supposedly educating. I have since found that comparative discussions with peers have proven my experience to be anything but unique...indeed, my observations have met commonplace agreement, and therefore are all the more disappointing as a result. Hesse called it fairly and true way in advance of current times.

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Not a German "Catcher in the Rye"

Although I have seen this Hesse novel called "a Black Forest 'Catcher in the Rye'," I see little similarity beyond a young male protagonist who drops out of school. Otherwise, both the book's tone and the protagonist's personality are wildly different from Salinger's. Hesse's book is more steeped in academia than Salinger's, which only briefly treats Holden Caulfield's disillusionment with school early on in that book. Here the criticism of the academic grind are more focused and take up more than half the book. Also, "Beneath the Wheel" contains Hesse's trademark Romanticism and obsession with nature, and though we can consider Salinger's young hero a frustrated Romantic of sorts, sarcasm and cynicism are the preferred vehicles used and there's little in the way of paeans to nature as seen in the German tale.

Fans of Hesse will find this book of interest, but might consider it "Hesse Light" compared to the author's more heavyweight entries. There's a touch of "Little Lord Fauntleroy-itis" to our young hero, Hans Giebermath, and some of his Werther-like sufferings are staples of adolescent tales we've read before. In his rebellion, Hans will sample blue-collar work and the siren calls of beer and cigars, but it is his forays into nature that lend the story its appeal. Hesse is at his best when describing forest streams with silent fish rising to dimple the surface, autumn valleys with milk-white mist rising from their crevices, and the torches of October trees turned bright red and orange before the approach of winter. If you love description, "Under the Wheel" will not disappoint. As a bildungsroman of a young man in school, however, it is very good, if not the strongest example of its kind.

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work of a great writer before he became great

This book tells a meaningful story about a young boy struggling with an academic system that stifles freedom and creativity. He finds great success academically until he is awakened by a rebellious and free-spirited friend, who makes him rethink his drive to succeed on someone else's terms. This story seems to be going somewhere- as the boy falls out of the academic system he ultimately finds some new satisfaction in manual labor and finds a second chance to experience childhood. However, the story ends in a melodramatically tragic way, without exploring the boy's conflict in any real depth.

Hesse makes some insightfully cutting remarks about academia's taming of young genius "like a jungle... cleared and its growth thwarted," and manipulation of students as vessels to store teachers' ideas. However, Hesse just as often gets distracted in irrelevant details and overly brief development of flat characters.

This is certainly not near at the level of Hesse's best works, though this is still early in his career (1906). Also, though there are thematic comparisons to Catcher in the Rye, this is an otherwise very reserved and repressed writing style typical of its time.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Hans Giebernath lives among the dull and respectable townsfolk of a sleepy Black Forest village. When he is discovered to be an exceptionally gifted student, the entire community presses him onto a path of serious scholarship. Hans dutifully follows the regimen of study and endless examinations, his success rewarded only with more crushing assignments. When Hans befriends a rebellious young poet, he begins to imagine other possibilities outside the narrowly circumscribed world of the academy. Finally sent home after a nervous breakdown, Hans is revived by nature and romance, and vows never to return to the gray conformity of the academic system.

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