This month, we are covering Herman Hesse’s novel, Demian, about a young man named Emil Sinclair who yearns to truly live, free from the shackles of his Christian bourgeois upbringing. Helping him along the way is a mysterious older student named Max Demian, and a hearty helping of Nietzschean philosophy.

In this first episode, I introduce the Overman, and discuss themes from the novel’s first three chapters, including the division of reality into Two Worlds, a few heretical interpretations of Bible stories, and what it means to try to become yourself.

Next month, we will be continuing with Demian, as we explore the book’s second half and hopefully come to some sort of understanding of its enigmatic conclusion.

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