Beneath the Wheel
192 pages
|Published: 1 Jan 1906
|Editions
|Details
This edition
ISBN: 9780312422301
Format: Paperback
Language: English
Publisher: Picador
Publication date: 1 July 2003
Description
In Hermann Hesse's Beneath the Wheel or The Prodigy, Hans Giebenrath lives among the dull and respectable townsfolk of a sleepy Black Forest village. When he is discovered to be an exceptionally gifted student, the entire community presses him onto a path of serious scholarship. Hans dutifully follows the regimen of tireless study and endless examinations, his success rewarded only with more crushing assignments. When Hans befriends a rebellious young poet, he begins to imagine other possibilities outside the narrowly circumscribed world of the academy. Finally sent home after a nervous breakdown, Hans is revived by nature and romance, and vows never to return to the gray conformity of the academic system.
