PETER CAMENZIND - Herman Hesse

Here is a book I finished on January 3rd 2001 at 10:05pm.

The idea to read this book came, as all the other Hesse books I've read, from a predisposed love of Hesse that started in my early 20's after finishing Siddhartha, which was the first Hesse book I was fortunate enough to read thanks to the advice a women I met in university named Jocelyn. 

Out of all the reviews I will have completed on Hesse, this one is by far the most 'uncomplicated'  Not for my lack of imagination or the lack of talent by the author - but only because the book, in my opinion, is not of the same caliber as most of the other books I have completed by Hesse.  I didn't realize until I did some research for this review that this was Hesse's first novel, which now does not surprise me.

Without giving to much away; the book reads a lot like a  'coming of age' story we are probably all very familiar with.  The main character Peter (no surprise) grows up in a Swiss mountain village, he leaves home as he begins to yearn for adventure.  On his travels he falls in love on 2 separate occasions resulting in heartache each time.  He travels throughout Italy and Paris and gets a variety of education along the way.  As he tastes life outside his home he grows bitter, spending time with the bottle....eventually finding more meaning in his life in the kind act of taking care of a man he meets named Boppi.   By the end of his journey Peter finds that there really is no place like home and he returns to take care of his father.

I recommend this book, of course, for all Hesse fans.  I find it is always nice to see where an author you have grown to love comes from, or truly what started them off in their careers.  This book DOES stand alone in the same way that Damien does, and I feel it is for a younger generation looking more for a book of 'coming of age' as mentioned above. And this does make for a good story, and quite a gripping one when you are looking for such a read.  But therein lies the problem; you truly have to be looking for this type of read, and it doesn't always find you, which is what I like books to do.

This book is 201 pages long and sadly I just can't remember how long it took me to read as I only put in the finish date on the inside cover, neglecting to record the start date as I normally do. On my sliding scale I give this book a solid 5/10 for being a project which represents the foothills of (in my humble and perhaps uneducated opinion) one of the greatest authors on the planet.  It might deserve more, but I just can't bring myself to find out why, and this says a lot.