HERMANN HESSE AND THE DIALECTICS OF TIME Salvatore C. P. ...

there are occasions when we experience a sudden realization, when, as it
were, a light bulb is switched on in our minds as we come to understand
something for the first time or see things in a new way. We only need a single
instance of that to remember it all our lives. (7)
Basden describes instants which powerfully impress themselves in memory (and are
available for future retrieval); however, there are other occasions when the intensity
of certain experiences (in the present) gives immediate access to past buried
memories: '[although] most memory works like a narrative, there are [...] especially
intense, visual "flashback" memories that give us immediate access to the truth about
the past' (King, 26). There are several occurrences of this phenomenon in Hesse's
fiction. The image of Lauscher's parents while they walk against the light of a sunset
is as etched into his memory. We noted above that Hesse, as a child, was exposed to
Bach's Tassionen', which his brothers sang at times. Later on in his life, the music of
Bach's Passions would conjure up his brothers' faces, and he would hear the sound of
their voices:
Es mochte bei den ungezahlten spateren Passionen, die ich horte, den Christus
und den Evangelisten wer immer singen, gewisse Stellen horte ich doch jedes
Mal mit den Stimmen und dem Ausdruck meiner Briider wieder. (Musik, 198)
Basden's moments of 'sudden realization' recall an important feature of the
early twentieth century's literature: epiphany. Referring to Joyce's Stephen Hero, Beja
describes epiphanies as 'sudden illuminations produced by apparently trivial, even
seemingly arbitrary, causes' (13). This is, for instance, the case of Govinda, who has
the impression that Siddhartha's and Gotama's smile merge for a moment and, for
him, that vision is a revelation of the unity of all existing forms in the world: 'und, so
sah Govinda, dies Lacheln der Maske, dies Lacheln der Einheit iiber den stromenden
Gestaltungen, dies Lacheln der Gleichzeitigkeit iiber den tausend Geburten und
Toden' (SW 3, 471 ).48 While dreams and memories are the most important sources of
'revelations derived from phases of the mind' (Beja, 15) in Joyce, Hesse leans more on
48 Ziolkowski similarly notes: The final vision, in which Govinda sees totality and simultaneity revealed in his
friend's face, is also an epiphany' (1965, 175). 'The most striking example' of epiphany, for Ziolkowski, 'occurs
in the "awakening" scene of Chapter 4 after Siddhartha has made up his mind not to follow Buddha, but to seek
his own way in the world of the senses' (1965, 173).
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