rolef

That was great! It has been many years since I read the book and I did not remember much. I had not thought to search wikepedia, but reading the summary brought back good memories of when I read this wonderful novel. Perhaps, some time I shall read it again. Read at an older age, I suspect, will impart different feelings. It is like reading something I wrote many years before--looking into yourself at a previous age, it's you and it isn't you. Perhaps Hesse's earlier thoughts to write different versions of the story exploring different lives and his interest in reincarnation are at least in part reflections on the pleasure of immortality which allows such viewing of the past in one's present persona.

Thank you so much for the reference.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Glass_Bead_Game

Hi

It is called the Magister Ludi  Great book

I have heard of the book, not read it though. The name of the game was/is called Master Mind, a very strange game for the intellect that sold in the millions, I think it goes back to the 70's. I certainly remember having one back then.

Really. I wonder what the game was like. It must have been interesting. The pre-internet games seem so static to the interactive graphic games of today, and yet they were sometimes creative in their own way, with little pieces that marched across squares, land on a square and you draw a card from a stack that rewards or punishes you or perhaps asks you a question you must answer. Much imagination to fill in the fantasy a flat board and conceptual pieces imply compared to the 3-d graphics of moving pictures and sounds that computer games offer. Still, what can compare to the fifties when movies had smellovision, and people with heart conditions were warned not to see the latest Vincent Price or Hitchcock movie. I suppose daily living is the ultimate glass bead game.

I have heard of the book but have never read it.  Someone created a game based on the book which was later sold commercially under the name "Master Mind" I think.