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Strangers on the Shore and Hermann Hesse’s Journey of Self Discovery, and its Ultimate Expression in Narcissus and Goldmund. Michael Anthony Ivor White Bachelor of Science University of London This thesis is presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Creative Writing) of The University of Western Australia School of Humanities 1 2018 THESIS DECLARATION I, Michael White, certify that: This thesis has been substantially accomplished during enrolment in this degree. This thesis does not contain material which has been submitted for the award of any other degree or diploma in my name, in any university or other tertiary institution. In the future, no part of this thesis will be used in a submission in my name, for any other degree or diploma in any university or other tertiary institution without the prior approval of The University of Western Australia and where applicable, any partner institution responsible for the joint-award of this degree. This thesis does not contain any material previously published or written by another person, except where due reference has been made in the text and, where relevant, in the Authorship Declaration that follows. This thesis does not violate or infringe any copyright, trademark, patent, or other rights whatsoever of any person. Signature: Date: 2 ABSTRACT The novel Strangers on the Shore is concerned with the personal search for spiritual and intellectual enlightenment: these are venerable terms, but they have contemporary currency. It is also an exploration of friendship, of common ideas and enduring affinity, over both time and distance. The novel begins with the meeting of two eighteen-year-old mathematics prodigies, Simon Mailer and Ethan Langley, at Magdalene College, Oxford. They part under dramatic circumstances. Ethan stays at Oxford where his career burgeons. We follow Simon’s temporal journey, beginning with his flight from university and ending at the age of fifty-two when he unexpected re-enters the life of his friend, now Wallis Professor Ethan Langley. Ethan has led an intellectually focused existence, while Simon has lived the life of a libertine. Each sustains a deep concern with questions of the meaning of existence and the function of ostensibly inexplicable patterns including divergences and reunions in life. The accompanying exegesis, Hermann Hesse’s Journey of Self Discovery, and its Ultimate Expression in His Novel: ‘Narcissus and Goldmund, is an original reading of Hesse’s lifelong preoccupation with self-discovery. It demonstrates how, through his fiction, Hesse spent his life in self- analysis, perfecting a form of psychotherapy played out by the characters he created. Using Narcissus and Goldmund (a novel about the life journey of two men in the thirteenth century) as my central Hesse work, but also drawing upon the rest of the writer’s oeuvre, I show how the author’s vision of ‘self-discovery’ developed in both his thinking and his writing. I also consider the ingenious way in which Hesse worked with literature, philosophical and theological concepts. My own novel, Strangers on the Shore draws inspiration from the work of Hermann Hesse, making it, in some respects, a modern homage. I refer to my own work in the dissertation. 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS Strangers on the Shore …………………………………………………………………………………..1 Hermann Hesse’s Journey of Self Discovery, and its Ultimate Expression in His Novel: Narcissus and Goldmund………………………………………………………………….243 Bibliography………………………………………………………………………………………… 314 4 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This research was supported by an Australian Government Research Training Program (RTP) Scholarship. 5 STRANGERS ON THE SHORE. 6 “If not for the beast within us we would be castrated angels.” Hermann Hesse 7 PART ONE Simon Mailer 8 1. The shower is a very good place in which to cry, Ethan Langley thought, tugging open the glass door and stepping out onto the chill tiles. Dried and dressed, he walked into the bedroom. There, he picked up the pages he had printed out earlier and scanned them for perhaps the eighth or ninth time. He would not be reading this eulogy at Simon’s memorial service. He had not left his rooms for two weeks, so the thought of standing before a congregation, even if it were to speak about the most important person in his life, was utterly unconscionable. Simon’s daughter, Constance, would be doing the job for him. He read aloud the first line: ‘Simon Mailer possessed the greatest mind of his generation,’ looked up, and caught his reflection in the mirror, blurred with tears and condensation. On the table lay Simon’s hand-written memoir, completed the day he died. Ethan picked it up and began to read. ~ We met in a lecture theatre at Magdalen College, Oxford on Monday 6th October 1986, which, also rather appropriately, happened to be the day the Chess Grandmasters Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov convened to compete in Moscow. I arrived ten minutes late and received a frosty stare from Professor Lionel Grossman. Ethan Langley heard the door open just enough to allow me to slip into the room as unobtrusively as possible, but unlike most of the class, he was not sufficiently interested to turn his head to see who the late arrival might be. I found a space in the back row and kept my head down, rummaging for a pen in the inside pocket of my jacket. Professor Grossman was not the most inspiring lecturer and I gazed, almost without listening, at the blackboard, and absorbed the equations without effort. The subject of the lecture was group theory, not very challenging, boring even. I pulled a folder from my bag and opened it on the bench. On the right lay The Times crossword, on the left Rodet’s Book of Advanced Puzzles. With one ear to the lecture, I started filling out the crossword, occasionally flitting to the puzzle 9 book to answer Questions 60-80 in the ‘Genius’ section. I was not a genius, I knew that, but I also knew I was very, very bright. ‘So, our late arrival at the back. What would you do faced with this conundrum?’ Grossman’s voice drifted across the lecture theatre as he tapped the blackboard. Everyone heard him but me. Grossman cleared his throat. Struck by the silence, I completed the last line of the crossword then pulled back from my reverie to see that all eyes save Ethan Langley’s were upon me. I glanced at the board. ‘The conventional method would be Pouret’s theorem, making x the subject of the group inversion,’ I said. ‘But I think Delanovich’s method would be faster.’ That’s when Ethan first acknowledged my existence. He turned slowly to consider who had made the suggestion. ‘And what exactly is Delanovich’s method?’ Grossman asked. A few students smiled indulgently. ‘Delanovich was a Croatian genius, professor. Sadly dead now. He was perhaps the greatest unrecognised group theorist who has ever lived and wrote a paper on the subject: Inversion Without Sublimation of x.’ ‘Never heard of him, nor it.’ ‘Few have, professor. But in his method, he dealt with quasi-terms such as that,’ and I flicked a finger at the equations, ‘the answer may be derived by deleting all functions other than the quotient on the left.’ Grossman stared at me then slowly turned back to the board, followed my proposition, deleted the required terms and rearranged the equation to obtain the solution in half the time it would have required normally. In the hush I saw Ethan Langley studying me, his face blank. ~ Before I visited Oxford for my entrance interview back in April, all I had seen of the city was Inspector Morse on TV. The interview itself had been a strange affair, but I had been told to expect it to be anything but ordinary. That was all part of the game, was it not? I took an instant dislike to the self-important Professor 10 Basil Stokes who had actually used the word ‘amusing’ to describe the skeletal facts concerning my first eighteen years of life. There and then, I resolved that between school and university I would spend time and effort on elocution, ridding myself completely of my Estuary accent. No, I had not skied at Courchevel or Zermatt, had not read Zola in the original French, nor had I been fortunate enough to sample the simply divine pleasure of Bitto storico in San Gimignano or anywhere else come to that. In fact, I had no notion Bitto storico was even a cheese. For me the only light relief had come when the interviewer, resplendent in his professorial gown over a tweed jacket, brown Oxford bags, beige waistcoat and paisley bow tie, had decided to put this prospective candidate from a (clearing of throat) grammar school through his paces. I answered every mathematics and logic problem Stokes could quote from his crib sheet and when he decided to go off piste and to improvise a few puzzles of his own, it was the same story; which for the professor proved to be something of a humiliation, but for me it was, well - amusing. My family hailed from Essex and I was born in a council house in Shoeburyness, a part of coastal England with all the charm of a tapeworm. It was though, a land of mudflats, cigarette butts and brine the colour of Heinz Oxtail Soup. My father, Albert. had been a coalman until that particular career path had gone the way of the telegram delivery boy and the Zeppelin-maker. His hands were rough and soot had become so ingrained in the whorls of his fingers and in the lines of his palms that they were a permanent feature, immovable and soap-resistant.

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