"Stories of Five Decades"

Hermann Hesse's Stories of Five Decades is a collection of twenty-three short stories originally written between 1899 and 1948. Many of the stories have as their subject a young man's learning about life and love. The town of Gerbersau is the location of many of the stories and is alternately a pleasant, or stultifying environment for the characters.

“The Latin Scholar” is a typical story in this collection. Karl Bauer, a sixteen-year-old student who is boarding in a large town, is at a formative age. Due to the meager portions he is given as a boarder he has taken to filching snacks from the larder and it seems clear that his honest character is in danger of deforming without some moral intervention. Luckily the housekeeper, Babette, becomes aware of Karl's need for both food and guidance and provides both. When Karl falls in love with a maid and must deal with unrequited love he learns more than he has during his academic studies.

“An Evening with Dr. Faust” is a short and humorous story of looking into the future. Dr. Eisenbart and Dr. Faust listen in on the future with the help of a specially modified gramophone. What they hear is both shocking and disturbing to them. Considering that Dr. Faust is such a willing disciple of the devil it is amusing that it is possible to shock him with “evil.”

“Walter Kömpff” is one of the lengthier stories (35pgs.) and follows Walter from cradle to grave. The story begins with a description of Walter's pious mother and shopkeeper father and the deathbed promise extracted from the twelve year old that he would take on the family business. Unfortunately, Walter neither wants to be a shopkeeper, nor has any other career in mind, and spends his life uselessly struggling without knowing what he does want.

The story which I found most appealing was “Tragic.” Johannes an elderly compositor (a typesetter) is meeting with the newspaper's editor-in-chief and when asked, rhetorically, if his work is going well, he launches into a mournful monologue concerning the devolution of grammar. Johannes says, “Just as in Borneo and all those other islands they have extirpated the bird of paradise, the elephant, and the king tiger, they have destroyed and abolished all the lovely sentences, all the inversions, all the delicate play and shading of our dear language” (p. 272). The complaint of Johannes is interesting not only because it is poetic in its form, but also because it shows that linguistic customs are constantly changing. Insisting that a language conforms to outmoded grammar rules is unrewarding, but seemingly unavoidable.

These stories are quite good and well worth reading. Some are too parable-like (“The Island Dream”), but most deal with psychological and emotional growth which are just as relevant now as when the stories were first written.