Le Jeu des perles de verre

“What would happen if, one day, science, the sense of beauty and the sense of goodness were to merge into a harmonious concert? What would happen if this synthesis became a marvellous working instrument, a new algebra, a spiritual chemistry that would allow one to combine, for example, astronomical laws with a phrase of Bach and a verse of the Bible, in order to derive new notions that would in turn serve as a springboard for other operations of the mind?”

This extraordinary mathematics is that of the glass bead game, perfectly mastered by Joseph Knecht, a fascinating hero and ludi magister who juggles with every element of human culture. A tale of anticipation, a novel of intellectual and religious education, a pessimistic utopia, The Glass Bead Game is one of Hermann Hesse's broadest and most erudite literary constructions.