[In] Peter Camenzind we have an essentially reflective work; the hero, in recounting his experiences, distances himself from them, mulls them over, extracts lessons from them with which he does not fail to instruct the reader, and uses them as a starting point for a generalizing, rather sententious commentary upon life. To assist in this, the technique is essentially one of retrospect, and the wisdom is one of hindsight…. His self-knowledge, when he painfully achieves it, acquires for him the quality of dogma. Armed with such dogma, he frequently addresses the reader in his didactic style…. And this movement, from the direct communication of recalled experience to detachment from it and eventually to didactic commentary upon it, is one of the most essential features of Hermann Hesse's writing; memory and reflection are aspects of that duality which is the framework of his art. (pp. 2-3)
Peter Camenzind remains even today a very readable book. It establishes the prototype of the characteristic lyrical, monologic style of novel, but gives little indication of the torment and profundity to be found in later works…. [The opening is] an overture to the glorification of nature, specifically the splendor of the Bernese Oberland, for this novel is in conception a return to nature, a fact which partly explains its success. (p. 11)
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