Beneath the wheel

Summary: "Herman Hesse's spiritual biography, 'Beneath the Wheel,' is a touchstone in 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 intelledt and ambition at the expense of emotion, soul and instinct. 'Beneath the Wheel' tells with compassion and tenderness a sstory 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." *** "A gifted German boy hounded by years of pressure and guilt from his schoolmasters and pastor receives a long-overdue taste of freedom, loses interest in his studies, and finds his life spiraling out of control, faced with an 'average' future."