In the beginning was the myth.
—1st sentence, Peter Camenzind
When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you truly love me more than these?” “Yes, Lord”, he said, “you know that I love you.” Jesus said, “Feed my lambs.”
—John 21: 15
The publication of Hesse`s Peter Camenzind in 1904 was, in many ways, Hesse`s breakthrough novel. Hesse had published a few minor works of poetry and literature before 1904, but with the publication of Peter Camenzind, Hesse became more widely recognized as an up and coming German writer.
Many know Hesse today, at a more sophisticated level, as the author of The Glass Bead Game (Siddharta being the primer for the larger tome that, in some ways, won him the Nobel Prize for literature in 1946). But, there are the many other compact novels that have held the attention of Hesse keeners: Demian, Steppenwolf, Narcissus and Goldmund, Under the Wheel, Wandering, Gertrude, Rosshalde and If the War Goes On… (to include his more political writings). There is also Hesse`s volumes of poetry, multiple paintings and thousands of letters. Hesse, like Thomas Mann, embodies the best and the highest of the German humanist way that has many a thick root going back to the layered soil of Goethe’s life and writings.
It is somewhat intriguing that Hesse engaged Nietzsche in many subtle and sensitive ways and yet Nietzsche is very much in the ascendant these days and waxing well, whereas Hesse (much wiser and more insightful) has waned. There has been, gratefully so, in the last decade plus, a revival and renaissance of Hesse, and, as such, a return to Hesse`s Peter Camenzind is a fine place to begin a journey with Hesse into the core of what animated and held his soul and mind, imagination and literary life.
Peter Camenzind is a short novel written in a most lyrical and poetic manner. It is the unfolding tale of Peter`s journey to what truly matters in his (and our) all too short trek through time. Many was the bypath and detour taken by Peter from his early years in an isolated Alpine village (where the scenery is described by Hesse in mesmerizing detail), death of a dear friend (Richard), failed relationships that once held much hope and promise (Rosi, Ermina & Elizabeth), tangled family upbringing, a substantive experience in a more aesthetic high culture of literature, painting and music—there is also an affinity with St. Francis, an ongoing attempt to parse the Nietzsche-Francis challenges, his attentive compassion to both Agnes (who died all too young), the hunchback and social outcast Boppi and a return to his alpine home village (Nimikon) as the there-and-back-again tale comes to a close. But, there is much more to the drama of sorts than this hasty overview. Let us ponder the beauty and allure of this timely life journey.
Why did Hesse choose the title he did for the poetic pilgrimage novel of sorts? Why Peter and why Camenzind? The Camenzind natural yarn and silk company was started in Switzerland (near the Rigi Mountain range) in 1730. There is a sense in which the life of Peter is like both the delicacy of fine silk and yarn being spun into the garment of his soul. The task of the human journey, being both like silk and a being knit into a literal and metaphorical garment, cannot be missed as a metaphor and portal into the novel? And, why Peter? The fact the missive is set within Germany, Switzerland and Italy speaks volumes, plus Peter’s interest in Roman Catholicism and St. Francis. Peter is a doorway into the journey similar to St. Peter (not necessarily in context, content and deed but certainly in principle), the vicar of Christ in Rome. The original Peter (disciple of Christ) made many a gaff and roundabout on his pathway to his final vocation and charism—the pilgrimage of Peter Camenzind is no different. So, this updated parable of sorts into how a meaningful life might be lived is already hinted at in the title of the book.
The presence of the warm yet powerful alpine wind (Fohn) broods over the initial chapter of the novel. The Fohn-Foehn confronts the snow and winter, mountains and rock hard ridges, stirring avalanches, heralding spring life in the mountains, communities and soul. It is this ongoing natural phenomenon that can also be found societies and the human journey. There is order and predictability, security and stability and such order can create a sort of closure to deeper changes and transformations that might occur in the life journey. The Fohn-Foehn brings a shift in the seasons, points to warmer weather and the vast array of alpine flowers---it is both greeted and feared, welcomed and opposed (as if fear and opposition will halt the life-giving winds). It does not take too much reflection to ponder the relationship of the alpine spring wind and the reality of the Spirit. It is such a wind that brings changes and Peter’s insulated life in Nimikon is about to be altered.
Peter’s youthful yet somewhat protected life in Nimikon takes him out of all he has known into the larger world of schooling, education, cities and a more bohemian artistic ethos and lifestyle. He is introduced via his friend, Richard, to a vast array of artists who see themselves on the cutting edge of the inner and outer life pilgrimage. Needless to say, Peter feels quite intimidated by such a tribe, given his more rural and mountain upbringing in which no real sense of higher culture, literature and education were seen as of minimal importance. The simple tasks of mountain survival were the alpha and omega of village life in the high alpine.
A significant part of Peter Camenzind deals with this journey from shire life of sorts into the larger world of thinking and the arts, culture and the cultivation of the more refined and sophisticated life. Peter is, initially, drawn into the wonder and appeal, allure and possibilities of such a way of being. Increasingly so, he comes to see such a way of being as somewhat higher and more significant than the herd in the valley and villages of life. Such a way of seeing makes him separate himself from the common life. This leads, in time, to isolation and loneliness and too much drinking. There is a sense in which Peter had been quite taken by the challenge of Nietzsche and was attempting to live forth such a philosophy. There was also the world of Nature and St. Francis and, also, the more communal intellectual life and soirees in Basel that Peter was drawn to (in some ways the Jacob Burkhardtian (1818-1897) challenge to Nietzsche (1844-1900, Richard Wagner(1813-1883) being an anathema to both.).
The larger and more urbane intellectual life that Peter attempted to parse (trying this, trying that) was offset by his many rambles and longer treks in the mountains, along old mountain trails, resting in such places, body and soul more at peace and rest. The views and vistas seen, the body exercise, the peasants met on the pathways also spoke to the groping Peter about something deeper, hardier, more at one with Nature and community life. Again and again, the exquisite description of mountain scenes by Hesse border on the musical and poetic. There comes a place in the journey for Peter when Nature becomes the antidote and healing balm to an overly intellectualized urban life. But, Nature cannot answer the deeper need for human friendships, community and relationships and Peter becomes acutely aware of this nagging dilemma.
The more Peter ponders more fully his inner and unfulfilled longings and desires (Nature not being an adequate answer and antidote to loneliness and isolation), the more he is drawn to Italy and the Umbrian countryside (where St. Francis was active). Peter temporarily settles into an Italian village where he befriends many children, the larger community and an adoring lady. There is a growing sense in which Peter, at this point in his journey, is much more committed to a Franciscan life of sorts: simplicity, community, brother sun, sister moon, children. But, this Umbrian community is not his home although his experience in it alerts him to a more meaningful path worth the taking.
Peter makes a difficult decision to return to his home village to see how his aging father is doing. There are multiple touching scenes in this part of the book—his father’s weakening state, his attempts to support his father even though father and son are quite different—there is also the village he grew up in not truly knowing the nature of his journey and his many returning memories of relationships that never truly matured into desired hopes and dreams. Life does go on but memories of what might have been ever linger and haunt.
The final chapter in this beauty of an instructive primer on the deeper and more committed life comes as an affront to our highly mobile, transient and individualist liberal culture and ethos. Peter has traveled much terrain (in an inner and outer manner) in the novel. He has come to see that a simple lifestyle, close to nature, in community (vow of stability of sorts) nourished his soul in places the other options simply did not. The novel ends with Peter returning to his home village and parish of Nimikon in the high alps, not regretting what he has seen or been, but aware through experience that life in an older and time tried parish does more to connect and knit together than idealistic wandering in search of meaning or a naïve thinking that the aesthetic and artistic life can slake the thirst and hunger for deeper meaning or purpose. Peter has come to see, by novel’s end, as did St. Benedict centuries earlier, that faithfulness to community (never easy when tensions and clashes emerge) and commitment to place and people will do more to deepen and transform the soul than many of the alluring alternates.
There is a sense in which Hesse through the character of Peter is suggesting that quiet service (a feeding of the sheep) in community is the more significant myth worth the internalizing and living forth in a world that is divided, fragmented and often shallow and superficial, chasing one distraction and amusement after another, ever restless but never at peace or ease.
The theme of kindly and faithful service as embodied in Peter can be found in many other of Hesse’s later novels: Siddharta, The Journey to the East and the mature The Glass Bead Game, the finale of the mythic vision. Jesus had to ask Peter 3X if he loved him, given Peter’s erratic and questionable behaviour. It was natural that Peter questioned his faithfulness to Jesus, but Jesus affirmed, again and again, Peter’s potential. The test, by day’s end, was whether Peter could overcome his doubts and fears, his sense of betrayal and inadequacies, and simply and faithfully, feed and nourish the community. Such was the education of Peter Camenzind. Such was the place that the Fohn-Foehn wind unfroze and softened in him such was the nature of both the delicate silk and natural yarn woven as a garment onto Peter soul.
Appendix:I: Hesse, Nietzsche and Hesse Renaissance
I mentioned above the impact of Nietzsche on Hesse. Hesse throughout all of his life was held by and engaged in a sort of inner dialogue with Nietzsche. The way Hesse separated the wheat and chaff, gold from dross in Nietzsche is worthy of much reflection. A fine introduction to Hesse on Nietzsche is the excellent 1972 primer by Herbert W. Reichert, The Impact of Nietzsche on Hermann Hesse. There is an annual event held at Sils Maria (just south of St. Moritiz in Switzerland) in which Hesse is featured. I have spent some lovely and life-changing time both at Nietzsche’s home in Sils and Hesse’s home in the canton of Ticino in Switzerland in the village of Montagnola.
I also suggested that there has been renaissance and renewal in Hesse in the last decade plus. The 2009 publication of A Companion to the Works of Hermann Hesse reflects and embodies such a needful turning, a turning that goes much deeper into the perennial themes of Hesse’s literary and artistic journey that cannot be reduced to the seasonal and fleeting popularity of Hesse from the 1950s-1970s. Hopefully, these deeper probes will, in time, the wiser Hesse that though dead yet can still live.
Appendix: II: Hesse and Politics
There are those who suggest that Hesse became somewhat irrelevant for many German and European writers after WWII for the simple reason he seemed to disappear into an introverted cocoon, not truly addressing divided Germany and the Cold War. In short, there was a decided hunger for more political writers of whom Gunter Grass (1927-2015), Henrich Boll (1917-1985) and Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) seemed to be more in tune with the political times. It should be noted that throughout most of Hesse’s life he addressed the political through a variety of means, and, after WWII, he was as concerned about Soviet Communism as he was about American imperialism. Hesse was certainly aware, in the 1920s-1930s (earlier than most), of the rise of the Nazis (and the implications of not staring them down), but, in the 1950s (Hesse died in 1962), his energy and strength was certainly not on par with Grass’, Boll’s or Brecht’s. The larger issues Hesse addressed, throughout his life, though, were definitely political and, when understood how Hesse thought and was active politically, he remains perennially relevant. The notion that Hesse retreated from the political fray into a pietistic walled garden of sorts does not match nor meet the facts of his life or prolific literary output. I think it can be argued that Hesse engaged the larger public world in a more nuanced and subtle way than did Grass, Boll and Brecht.
The fact that many of Hesse’s writings were used, in a political way, in the counterculture of the 1960s-1970s must not be ignored. There were many who misread Hesse to justify narcissistic behavior, but most significant writers are misread to serve the interests of lesser people. A reading of If the War Goes On…..(essays on war and peace) and a few of Hesse’s political fairy tales such as “A Dream About the Gods”(1914), “Strange News from Another Planet”(1915), “If the war Continues” (1917), “The European”(1918) and “The Empire”(1918) make it obvious that Hesse took public responsibility with much seriousness.
It is true, of course, that Peter Camenzind, is not as explicitly political as many other of Hesse’s writings, but it was the younger Hesse still finding his way, politics and culture often in collision, given his earlier attention to Burckhardt and Nietzsche.
montani semper liberi
Ron Dart
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