Beneath the Wheel

Hermann Hesse’s spiritual autobiography, Beneath the Wheel, is a touchstone of the Nobel prize-winning author’s lifelong examination of the conflict between self-affirmation and self-destruction. Based on his own experience, his second novel attacks an educational system that fosters intellect and ambition at the expense of emotion, soul, and instinct. Beneath the Wheel tells with compassion and tenderness a story that is true for our own age, with all the poetic and lyrical qualities that have made Hesse an outstanding literary figure of the twentieth century. It is the key to all his later works.