Demian

Demian is a book by Herman Hesse. It is a Bildungsroman which is a literary genre which focuses on the moral and psychological growth of the protagonist from childhood to adulthood.

This book doesn’t have much of a plot except that the young boy Emil Sinclair is highly influenced by his mysterious and charismatic classmate Max Demian.

Sinclair’s own growth happens motivated by the discussion that he and Max Demian had over a period of many years.

It is a riveting account of the though process that Sinclair had in childhood and how he developed over it as the years passed by.

He found himself dabbling with the concepts of illusory world (called Maya in Sanatan Dharma) and the real world, the world of spiritual truth.

Through the influence of his friend Max Demian, he separates from and rebels against the shallow ideals of the world of appearances and eventually awakens into self-realization.

I loved the book for its philosophical grounding and the apt stance it posed on the theme of good and evil.