Strange News from Another Star (Twentieth Century Classics) - Hesse, Hermann

The war is nobodys fault. It occurs by itself, like thunder and lightning. All of us who must fight wars are not the perpetrators. We are only their victims. Strange News from Another Star is a short fairy tale written by Hermann Hesse in April 1915, one year after the start of the 1st World War. In the fairy tale, two stars are juxtaposed. On one star, life is valued, beauty is appreciated, reason is respected, humane traditions are cultivated, love and happiness are experienced and peace prevails. On the other star, jealousy, hatred and despair are cultivated, wars are waged incessantly, battlefield murder is officially condoned, the countryside is left strewn with unattended cadavers and fear prevails. The latter is clearly our world as Hesse saw it, rendered mythical, and the former is an idealized world that ours could be. Unlike his earlier works, the story does not lend itself to rational interpretation.

Softcover. English. Penguin. 1990. ISBN: 9780140181036. 128 pp. Fair. Book No: 80409