When i read this book i felt like someone had been living in my head for 27 years then popped out and wrote this novel. i connected so deeply to it. I immediately went out and bought everything by Hesse and while i've enjoyed his style and amazing ability to write precisely the human experience nothing has spoken so deeply to who i am as this book. i was in a very dark place when i read this and it gave me hope to know that someone else, in another time and place had been in the same darkness and made it through enough to write about it. hesse has an almost magical ability to hit the nail ont he head when it comes to complex human emotions.