The Journey to the East Author:Hermann Hesse Hermann Hesse is generally regarded as one of the great masters of the novel. A true innovator, Hesse whose roots are in the romantic tradition, developed a style of writing completely his own. — His novels are great mythic structures dealing with the ultimate questions of human life, and his work can be seen as a developing position, a kind of ... more »dialogue with himself. In his famous novel, Steppenwolf, he considers the problem of despair and degenration, but in the The Journey to the East despair is seen as merely an individual's lack of faith and vision.
The Journey to the East is the story of a pilgrimage which apparently fails. As the book opens, the hero finds himself engaged in writing the chronicle of this exciting adventure, which was the central experience of his youth. It is only as the chronicle unfolds that he learns tht it is he who failed and that the journey to the East continues all about him.« less