I finished Knulp (1915) by Hermann Hesse yesterday. It was a quick read (probably can finish in one sitting, but I finished in 2). It is available on Scribd - no audiobook, just need to read on-screen (not my favorite method).
It is a novella about an amiable vagabond named Knulp, separated into 3 sections: Early Spring, My Memory of Knulp, and The End. Knulp wanders from city to city, sometimes staying with friends that care for him, but mostly staying on the road (just like Goldmund). He refuses to commit himself to a relationship, a place, or a job throughout his life.
He wants full freedom to roam and be free. In the final chapter, he is dying, he begins to start a journey home to where he originally came from and he starts questioning whether his choices in life are worthless and immoral.
During his deranged dying phase, he questions God and God answers :
"See," said God, "I did not need you to be any other than you. In my name, you have wandered and have always brought the sedentary people a little homesickness for freedom. In my name you have done stupid things and made yourself a mockery; I am mocked in you and loved in you. You are my child and my brother and a piece of me, and you have tasted nothing and suffered nothing that I have not experienced with you." "Yes," Knulp said, nodding heavily. "Yes, it is so, I always knew it."
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I am surprised that Hesse wrote another story about a man that chooses freedom, much earlier before writing Narcissus & Goldmund. Perhaps he was toying with the idea of a man with complete freedom in life (choosing a life without any commitments) and even romanticizing the idea himself.
And personally, there is something that annoys me with Hesse's characters: the fact that these men feel like sex is the utmost fulfillment when having a relationship with women. That is the only thing that matters; sexual pleasure. That's it. The sexual pleasures of all the women in different cities, the seduction, the affairs, all these are giving bad taste to these characters. It feels weak.
They assume that they are liberated when they have multiple affairs and love, but I think it's just fear, fear of loving someone more than themselves. They are trapped in their own idea of freedom. Just like they fear everything else in the world: commitments, close relationships with other beings, and love.
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Questions :
1. So if Knulp wanted nothing of life but to look on, does that ask too much or too little from life?
2. Throughout Knulp's journey, he had a great fulfilling life. Everything starts to fall down when his health starts to deteriorate and he is getting older. He starts questioning whether he did the right choice in choosing a life as a wanderer and not having anyone else in his life. In the end, is it fair to ask whether everything is worth it?
“He had too much to think about. In the course of his long, useless marches he had sunk deeper and deeper into the tangle of his botched life as into a clump of brambles, and still he had found no meaning or consolation.”
3. If Knulp didn't fall sick or could avoid getting older, do you think he will question his choices or felt regret?
4. What are the differences between a homeless person and a vagabond?
For everyone that chooses a liberated life, may you make peace with your choice because there are hardships in everything, and we can't avoid them? I hope that the loneliness, the difficulties, and the sickness at the end of his life were all worth it. You can't win everything ♥
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