“Glass beads, as the saying goes, are thought equal to pearls,” we read in one of the epistles of St. Jerome. Jerome makes frequent use of this image (which in fact derives from Tertullian) to convey the idea of value — not least the value of one’s life, and of the choices made during it. In turn, the notion of value is one of the central ideas in Hesse’s novel about glass beads, and about a strange game one can play using them — the Glass Bead Game.

Hesse began work on Das Glasperlenspiel in February 1932, shortly before he left Zurich and moved to Montagnola. Although fragments of the novel, particularly some of the poems, were published in literary journals in the intervening years, it did not appear in its entirety until 1943, when it was published in two volumes by Fretz & Wasmuth in Zurich, after the National Socialist government had forbidden Hesse’s previous publisher, S. Fischer Verlag, from publishing it in Germany. The novel is thus a product of over ten years’ work and reflection, representing the culmination of his literary career: it is widely regarded as his greatest novel. Its long genesis is reflected in the complexities of structure and its narrative perspectives, not to mention its distinctive narrative style.

The book has a peculiar tone, due not least to this narrative style, which is characterized by a mixture of narrative voices, all of which display a remarkable, even uncanny similarity. The novel purports to be the work of an anonymous narrator who has assembled various manuscripts (10) concerning Josef Knecht, who becomes the Master of the Glass Bead Game, and whose life is narrated in the novel (from his childhood in Berolfingen and his training in the Game at Waldzell to his appointment as Ludi Magister). From certain comments it seems that the narrator is himself a former pupil of Knecht and a player of the Glass Bead Game (262–63). Das Glasperlenspiel bears the subtitle “Versuch einer Lebensbeschreibung des Magister Ludi Josef Knecht samt Knechts hinterlassenen Schriften” (A Tentative Sketch of the Life of Magister Ludi Joseph Knecht Together with Knecht’s Posthumous Writings), and in addition to the twelve chapters that constitute the “Lebensbeschreibung” (one of which contains “Das Schreiben des Magister Ludi an die Erziehungsbehörde” [Magister Ludi’s Letter to the Educational Authorities] and their reply), it consists of the introductory section, “Das Glasperlenspiel: Versuch einer allgemeinverständlichen Einführung in seine Geschichte”.