The Glass Bead Game:

✍ Scribed by Hermann Hesse; Richard; Clara Winston

• Book ID: 107913236
• Publisher: Picador
• Year: 2002
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 328 KB
• Series: The Glass Bead Game
• Category: Fiction
• ISBN: 0553119168

✦ Synopsis

The final novel of Hermann Hesse, for which he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1946,The Glass Bead Game is a fascinating tale of the complexity of modern life as well as a classic of modern literature

Set in the 23rd century, The Glass Bead Game is the story of Joseph Knecht, who has been raised in Castalia, the remote place his society has provided for the intellectual elite to grow and flourish. Since childhood, Knecht has been consumed with mastering the Glass Bead Game, which requires a synthesis of aesthetics and scientific arts, such as mathematics, music, logic, and philosophy, which he achieves in adulthood, becoming a Magister Ludi (Master of the Game).

From School Library Journal

Starred Review. Nobel prize winner Hesse's final novel, here available for the first time on audio, is set in a 23rd-century utopia in which the intellectual elite have distilled all available knowledge of math, music, science, and art into an elaborately coded game. Cleanly and precisely describing this complex and dense future is theater actor/director David Colacci, who has previously read titles by Greg Iles and Anne Perry. While the length may seem daunting, Colacci's voice remains fresh through the 17th CD of this captivating novel. For large public and academic libraries. [Audio clip available through www.bbcaudiobooksamerica.com.—Ed.]—J. Sara Paulk, Fitzgerald-Ben Hill Cty. Lib., GA
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Review

Final novel by Hermann Hesse, published in two volumes in 1943 in German as Das Glasperlenspiel, and sometimes translated as Magister Ludi. The book is an intricate bildungsroman about humanity's eternal quest for enlightenment and for synthesis of the intellectual and the participatory life. Set in the 23rd century, the novel purports to be a biography of Josef Knecht ("servant" in German), who has been reared in Castalia, the remote place his society has provided for the intellectual elite to grow and flourish. Since childhood, Knecht has been consumed with mastering the Glass Bead Game, which requires a synthesis of aesthetics and scientific arts, such as mathematics, music, logic, and philosophy. This he achieves in adulthood, becoming a Magister Ludi (Master of the Game). -- The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature