The book wasn't that long, and i stayed home all day so i finished the book pretty quick. I had no idea that Hesse wrote the book in German, and was quite taken aback when i finally noticed (I was about 2 pgs into the book). It was disastrous, because I hate translated books. Translations can never do justice to its original. Never. No matter who the translator is, the work is bound to be an utter disaster. And to a novel, for christ's sake! For a novel, prose is everything. The flow, the subtlety, the entire atmosphere is all about the words that comprise the novel. These are words that have been carefully selected and knitted together by the author to complete a work. I mean, if books were simply about plot, or conveying straight-forward facts, it would be OK to translate them. And it would be perfectly satisfying to read translations. It wouldn't matter, because the original message would still be unscathed. But it is never that way with novels. It can never be so.

And so i hate translations. But i kept reading anyways, because a friend of mine recommended this book a while back. She was reading a translation (korean version), too. So i thought i'd give it a try. I did, and just as i'd expected, the book had its awkward parts--you know, the certain awkwardness one can feel on translated works. Still, i found the novel intriguing. I didn't have fun reading it, particularly--but it was interesting. It was interesting to read about someone like Emil Sinclair, and very appealing (I dont know why exactly) to witness he and Demian's friendship.

Nevertheless, the story didn't touch me that deep. You'd expect, from critics or simply from Hesse's manner of narrative, that reading the book would enlighten you or something like it. But to be perfectly honest, i have never been so serious about life as Sinclair. So the story doesn't ring to me that much. Or maybe i just don't get the message Hesse's trying to convey. I don't know. Maybe I'm just ignorant of life and its very substantial meaning. All i know is that i don't want to spend my life in agony or in seclusion. I want to cherish it with the people I love. That doesn't mean i want to dedicate my life to plain pleasure. But I want to enjoy it while it lasts, which i know isn't too long.

I know from past experiences that books like "demian" have different messages for one in different passages of life. Like with "the catcher in the rye". I had to stuff the words in my head the 1st, 2nd, 3rd time I read it (in my middle school years, when mom would yell at me to). But on my last take, I just flew through the book. It made much more sense, and i could relate to it. That was last year. So for "demian", I guess it could have more meaning when I come back to it a couple of years later.