Pilgrim of Crisis is a comprehensive insight into one of the 20th centuries most significant authors. ( )

1506 Hermann Hesse: Pilgrim of Crisis A Biography, by Ralph Freedman (read 10 Mar 1979) I remember when Herman Hesse in 1946 won the Nobel prize; at the time I don't think I had ever heard of him. I have read seven of his books, and do not particularly admire him. I do not pretend to get his more obscure meanings. Why have I read so much by him? and why have I now read a new biography of him? I have no ready answer. I do know I rather liked this biography, it being a good chronological one, telling me much that the previous one I read did not. He was born in Calw on the river Nagold, which is always described in this book as being in Swabia--which the dictionary defines as "a historic region of southwestern Germany" and "a duchy of southern Germany from the 10th to the mid-13th century." Hesse was born 2 July 1877 and died 9 Aug 1962 in Switzerland, where he had lived for many years. The book has been worthwhile, even if I will never be a Hesse scholar. ( )