Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse

Steppenwolf
by
Herman Hesse
read by
Peter Weller

This is the book you get if you are are smoking crack while trying to use the library's reservation system. There is no Magic Carpet Ride here. However, it did present an opportunity to tackle a book I never would have thought of reading.
I have read many books and listened to many audiobooks. Very few of these, perhaps only a handful have prefaces by authors explaining how everyone seems to have misunderstood their work. Almost none of these books in my experience are works of fiction. This is one of those rare few, and you should really wonder when the author has to add a few pages to explain that the majority of the people who have read this book have found it a very depressing story, and that he contends that they miss the point. He says that not only his critics, but the fans of the book have all missed the point. I find this more than a bit daunting, especially because the narrator's forward spends 30 minutes setting up that the main character is very much the embodiment of Nietxche's philosophy.
If I had realized how prevalent a couple of words would be throughout this book, I might have been tempted to keep track from the beginning. It is hard to say which he used more - bourgeois or middle-class, Steppenwolf or lone-wolf - but it is a rare minute that goes by without one of these terms being uttered. It's really quite annoying, though I realize that he is using this to set and shape the character of the narrator and the main character. I am sure if these words were removed from the manuscript, it would be at least 10% shorter.
The structure of this book is interesting and a tad reminiscent of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. There is an outer shell that is the narrator, then the main character telling his story and then much time spent relating books he read, especially the Anarchist's Treatise about the Steppenwolf at a third level. This makes large chunks of the story very removed from the audience, which goes in tandem with the nature of the story.
I listened to this book with the author's note in mind and fully understand why he felt it necessary to add it. This is an extremely depressing book. The main character finds himself in a situation of his own creation where the only options are suffering, both physical and psychic, or suicide. Great sections, especially early on are spent on how one might come to accept suicide as an option and how that can actually make some stronger and deal with life longer. And did I mention that this is Hesse's attempt at putting Nietzche's philosophy into a character?
I've only read one other work by Hesse, that being Siddhartha. Interestingly, it is another book full of human suffering, but with the opposite conclusion. They do both have the same expository and over-explaining style.
If you've had to read Steppenwolf for some reason, I hope it was for a class which could then act as a support group (or maybe that you didn't actually read it but faked it). Otherwise, I couldn't imagine any reason why someone would put themselves through this. So much for card catalog happenstance finds.

Steppenwolf at Powell's Books
Steppenwolf Audiobook at Amazon.com