Knulp

Germany, at the turn of the century. Knulp, an ageing vagrant just out of hospital, returns to the village of his childhood: he is ill, weakened, worn out by his years of wandering. Homeless, he goes from house to house, settling in with one person or another as the fancy takes him. But the welcome he receives is falsely warm. Suspicion and resentment are in people's minds. His old companions reproach him for having wasted the gifts he possessed and for having given himself over to the emptiness of a bohemian life… With Knulp, Hermann Hesse painted one of his finest literary portraits: that of a free being who, to guide his existence, chose dreams over social conventions. A complex and endearing character, Knulp forms a fascinating figure of a gifted dilettante whose most secret thoughts the reader gradually comes to penetrate… A magical novel, an apologia for freedom, nonchalance and disinterestedness, Knulp is also a superb meditation on secret wounds, solitude and failure.