Narcissus and Goldmund

Reading Narcissus and Goldmund is like being on a journey to discover oneself: emotionally torrid and tortuous, yet immensely rewarding and enlightening. No doubt a difficult read, as the translator, Leila Vennewitz, offers a vivid, rich prose that befits the backdrop of a medieval Germany, and Hermann Hesse's erudite lyricism.

Narcissus is a young teacher at a monastery, learnt in philosophy and destined for an ascetic life and scholarship; these he has known all his life, though nothing is told of his childhood.

Goldmund comes into his life as a new student, an admirer and a lifelong friendship blossoms between them. It’s true, what they say about opposite attracts, for Goldmund belongs to the sensual world, possesses a wayfarer’s heart and a veiled aversion towards the spiritual.

It is Narcissus who sets him off on an arduous life of self-discovery; for being an astute observer of man, he knows Goldmund’s destiny is not with the monastery.

Life works in its own mysterious way. Other than being a born lover – for all his heartbreaking affairs - Goldmund, moves by a statue of Madonna in a church, goes in search of its master and becomes a talented sculptor himself: Narcissus depicts as St George being his masterpiece. Yet, he is never satisfied, and leaves everything behind once again. And I wasn’t much surprised.

What followed had my spirit leaden. From fleeting loves to the atrocities of man in face of plague, of death and hunger, Goldmund sees them all in his wilful wandering, becomes part of them, with deep sorrows and images engrave in his soul. For him, life itself is a monumental book of wisdom in suffering, though it seemed he has squandered his youth away, I had the inkling that this is his only way to live, to breathe.

The two are to meet again in the most unlikely of circumstances. And having found who he is deep inside, Goldmund is made to feel an equal. Yet, in contrary, more than equal he is, as Narcissus is to realise at one point, having lived in the monastery all his life. The novel ends in brittle sombreness, as like his sculptures, Goldmund is to live far beyond his years, in my heart, in Narcissus’s memory, and hopefully, in the minds of many more readers, to touch their lives, for generations…