I'vd been a fan of Herman Hesse since I was a kid. I was recently suprised to read about how Miguel Serranno, a Chilean diplomat who was a longtime admirer of Hitler-- almost a Hitler-worshipper- wrote a book about a personal correspondence with Hesse. Anybody got a vendor? Was this ever translated into English?

I'd like to explore Hesse's links to the Conservative Revolutionary movement in Germany. Unfortunately, I'm not as well educated on this as I would like.
anybody else?

I'vd been a fan of Herman Hesse since I was a kid. I was recently suprised to read about how Miguel Serranno, a Chilean diplomat who was a longtime admirer of Hitler-- almost a Hitler-worshipper- wrote a book about a personal correspondence with Hesse. Anybody got a vendor? Was this ever translated into English?

I'd like to explore Hesse's links to the Conservative Revolutionary movement in Germany. Unfortunately, I'm not as well educated on this as I would like.
anybody else?

I liked his novels when I was a kid too. Then I went to college and one of my English professors - who was a Filipino who could barely speak English - ragged on Hesse all the time (it was a nightmare class on the 20th Century Novel or something like that). He had - my English teacher - nothing but contempt for Hesse. And why? Because of some aspect of the syntax, structure or the use of language? Oh no, not at all. It was because Hesse had sat out the war in Switzerland instead of planting a bomb in Hitler's boudoir while waving the red flag of revolution. Cuz, you see, my English professor was an avowed 'Filipino Revolutionary', waging the revolution from a tenured position at an American University.
He was, easily, the most terrible of a flock of terrible teachers I had. I was fairly polite, but he was so bad that other kids would be sprawled across their desks literally snoring during his lectures. And he was such a geek that he either really didn't see them as he droned on and on, or pretended to not see them.
Yet, really odd - because of the shame I felt then when he laughed at me for having the really bad taste to like Hesse, I have never read a Hesse book since! Teachers have an awesome power over the most impressionable members of society.
He never even mentioned Celine (my favorite 20th Century novelist), or if he did, the curses and sneerings were so extreme that I blotted the whole thing out and had to find his absolutely fucking fantastic books on my own. Do you like Celine's stuff?

I read Celine's "Journey to the End of the Night." I've read parts of Death on an Installment plan but havent finished it.

I think I've read every novel by Hesse except I could never finish Magister Ludi.

I didnt think Siddhartha was individualistic. I know what you mean about Steppenwolf, or even Demian, but Siddhartha no. You like Siddhartha, you might like Evola's "Doctrine of Awakening."

I read Celine's "Journey to the End of the Night." I've read parts of Death on an Installment plan but havent finished it.

I think I've read every novel by Hesse except I could never finish Magister Ludi.

I didnt think Siddhartha was individualistic. I know what you mean about Steppenwolf, or even Demian, but Siddhartha no. You like Siddhartha, you might like Evola's "Doctrine of Awakening."

Read Castle to Castle and North (the English translation titles, of course) - the ones he wrote about his time in Germany during the last days of the Reich. The most incredible imagery of a country being fire bombed into the stone age. Unforgettable, awe inspiring, and amazingly bawdy/filthy too. Horny German soldiers running around yelling 'Lieb, Lieb', mad debauches in the Berlin Chancellery at the very end when nothing mattered anymore, and such... Really funny, and what a picture of the end of the world. They are not masterpieces for the ages like Journey and Death, but they are punchier and the setting is probably unique and of particular interest for all who love Germany during the Reich. He didn't like the German's much more than he liked anyone else, but his vignettes of Berlin, Ulm (for a big wig NSDAP functionary funeral, right after Dresden had been incinerated so that Ulm was deserted), etc...really unforgettable.

hey if I could read em auf deutsche I would.

havent read that one. I'll have to pull that from the university library. havent been able to get his stuff off the web as well as I have liked.

see what VNN can do for you folks? now I've got a good recommendation for a book to read by an author I already like, where I thought I'd read it all already.

of course my wife says I'm arrogant so maybe that's more a reflection on me

Read Castle to Castle and North (the English translation titles, of course) - the ones he wrote about his time in Germany during the last days of the Reich. The most incredible imagery of a country being fire bombed into the stone age. Unforgettable, awe inspiring, and amazingly bawdy/filthy too. Horny German soldiers running around yelling 'Lieb, Lieb', mad debauches in the Berlin Chancellery at the very end when nothing mattered anymore, and such... Really funny, and what a picture of the end of the world. They are not masterpieces for the ages like Journey and Death, but they are punchier and the setting is probably unique and of particular interest for all who love Germany during the Reich. He didn't like the German's much more than he liked anyone else, but his vignettes of Berlin, Ulm (for a big wig NSDAP functionary funeral, right after Dresden had been incinerated so that Ulm was deserted), etc...really unforgettable.

I don't know if Celine's book "Bagatelle pour un massacre" (see, http://www.abbc.com/solus/baga.pdf) has been translated to English, but in the said book he openly advocates the total, physical annihilation of Jewry.

I remember reading that in a letter to a friend he described himself as the greatest enemy of international jewry.

I don't know if Celine's book "Bagatelle pour un massacre" (see, http://www.abbc.com/solus/baga.pdf) has been translated to English, but in the said book he openly advocates the total, physical annihilation of Jewry.

I remember reading that in a letter to a friend he described himself as the greatest enemy of international jewry.

That pamphlet (and two others like it) is why there was a price on his head - offered by the left/jew resistance, and why he had to flee to Germany with the collapsing Vichy regime. They were housed in a Hohenzollern castle in Baden, just over the French border, and that is where much of Castle to Castle is set - amid the murderous and crazy intrigues of the dying Vichy government (Celine was a medical doctor, so a lot of his best stories come out of his treating the Vichy big wigs). Then it moves to a farm in East Prussia, I think (it has been a while) for more surreal intrigues and incredible story telling. Nord tells different parts of Celine's wanderings in Germany in late 44 and 45 - some in Berlin, some in Ulm, and some on a just incredible train trip made in the dead of winter for a state funeral in the middle of nowhere in a blizzard - until he escaped over the border into Denmark, where they promptly threw him in the slammer for a few years. Both books (Castle to Castle and Nord), and his last book Rigadoon, are about that year in Germany and in all three, he, his wife and some friends and his cat Bebert are the characters - it's surreal fiction merging with almost photo-realistic documentary - and they are really bawdy too. I really recommend the first two of them for anyone who is interested in this period of history. He wasn't pro German, but at the same time he wasn't anti-German either and it's very refreshing to get his pretty objective take on a subject that has been so constantly propagandized into such a parody of evil by our jew Hollywood guys.

The English translations of Celine's books are exceptionally good - really faithful to his street slang style and very idiomatic.

I think my two Celine books, Installment Plan and Journey, were translated by one "Kaufmann." Is this the same guy who did that most popular translation of Thus Spake Zarathustra? Anybody know? Some of you guys are academics I can feel it.

I think my two Celine books, Installment Plan and Journey, were translated by one "Kaufmann." Is this the same guy who did that most popular translation of Thus Spake Zarathustra? Anybody know? Some of you guys are academics I can feel it.

The last three were translated by a Ralph Manheim, Journey by John H. P. Marks.

The last three were translated by a Ralph Manheim, Journey by John H. P. Marks.

YES! Mannheim. That is what I meant not Kaufmann. Kaufmann did do Zarathustra, but what I meant was that didnt Ralph Mannheim do a translation of Mein Kampf? This has to be the same guy. Wonder about him. A list of his translations:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/index=books&field-author=Ralph%20Manheim/103-3401917-6431803