But the longing to get on the other side of everything already settled, this makes me, and everybody like, a road sign to the future.         

– Hermann Hesse Wandering: Farmhouse

There is another side of Kanchengunga and of every mountain—the side that has never been photographed and turned into postcards. That is the only side worth seeing.                                              

– Thomas Merton, Nov. 19, 1968              

I

It is rather surprising, given the fact that Hermann Hesse and Thomas Merton are two of the pre-eminent countercultural ikons of the latter half of the 20th century, that few are the articles, books or essays that have brought them together and pondered their obvious affinities. John Collins has, in a suggestive way, pointed to affinities between Hesse and Merton by reflecting on Merton’s readings of Hesse’s      

Journey to the East, Steppenwolf and Siddhartha, but beyond Collins’ two articles, there is nothing of substance and significance that examines the countercultural affinities between Hesse and Merton (and there are many). Hopefully, this missive will correct such a lack and omission.  

Hesse was a generation older than Merton, being born in 1877, Merton being born in 1915, but both men were acutely sensitive to the pressing issues of western culture and many of the dominant dangers that threatened to undermine and negate the deeper longings that make for a more meaningful life journey. I have, since the 1970s, read most of Merton’s books and written a few books and articles on Merton and

Hesse has been a fellow pilgrim of sorts for many a decade. I have spent some lovely time at Hesse’s home on the upper rock knoll in Montagnola in Switzerland, imbibing the landscape, air, site and scenery that so held Hesse and from which most of his writings were birthed. So, in some ways, Hesse and Merton have been mentors of sorts for me on my journey. This essay is my way of repaying them for all they have taught me and passed my way.