Reading Demian with increasing distaste. When Demian and Sinclair are mooning about the Demian household, dabbling in various spiritual practices in an undisciplined way and basking in their self-glorification, we're clearly supposed to think they're highly evolved beings, rather than arrogant prigs. That college-aged young men should be dead serious about their mishmash of haphazard spiritual practice and superstition is of course to be expected, but that Hesse (and Demian's mother) should also take them at their own valuation is intolerable. If I were Frau Eva, I wouldn't be prompting young Sinclair to sit in his room and strain at producing triumph-of-the-will passion. Too much of that around the house already. I'd set him to changing diapers and entertaining three-year-olds for a couple years, and then to do some hospice-work: let him see a bit more about what the whole human experience is, to see what there is to learn from dealing with the blood, shit, piss and phlegm of this breeding world.