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

609). 14 Klingsor even calls on the world of sounds and colours to dissolve the illusion
of time:
«dies sind unsre Kanonen», rief er, «mit diesen Kanonen schiefien wir die Zeit
kaputt, den Tod kaputt, das Elend kaputt. Auch mit Farben habe ich auf den
Tod geschossen». (SW 8, 317)
The musicality and sensory plurality of Siddhartha, first published in 1922, act on
various levels of the text. A first aspect refers to the centrality of repetitions rhythmic
patterns, as highlighted by Boulby:
The complete work is written in a strongly rhythmical, sensuous prose with
ritual features. The use of leitmotifs, parallelism, and the repetition of phrases
and of single words (especially threefold repetitions) in the liturgical manner
is constantly reminiscent of the Bible, the Psalms, or perhaps more directly-
the Pali canon [...] the extreme parataxis and the apparently endless
repetitions of Buddha's canonical preachings, like prayer mills. 15 (132)
The many correspondences between time and space, and the continual flow of the
acoustic into the visual occupy a pivotal position in Moritz's analysis of the novel:
Im Kapitel 'Om' wird das Blicken ins Lauschen transformiert. Die dabei
entstehende Kontamination des Visuellen und Akustischen ist fur die
musikalische Poetik des Textes von prinzipieller Bedeutung. 16 (Moritz, 322)
The syllable 'OM', which is an essential thematic element that points to the unity of
all beings, micro- as well as macrocosm, is another facet of the musicality of the text. 17
As an elementary component of a word, the syllable 'OM', is the ideal bridge
between 'logos' and 'melos': its reiterated utterance disperses all the semantic
attributes of the syllable and dissolves them into pure sound:
the magic syllable OM, 'the word of words' which stands for Perfection or the
Perfected [...], the alpha and omega of every Vedic text, [...] a power without
14 As opposed to writing, both music and painting are forms of art in which language is not the primary medium.
15 Moritz similarly notes: 'Neben den motivischen Ubereinstimmungen fallt hier auf, dass Hesses Text sich
durch eine deutliche, auf syntaktisch-semantischen Wiederholungen basierende Rhythmisierung auszeichnet'
(175). She also hightlights the shift in emphasis from signified to signifier brought about by repetitions: 'All
diese Aquivalenzenreihen in [Combination mit inhaltlichen Wiederholungen verschieben das Gewicht vom
semantischen Gehalt der Aussage auf ihre klangliche Komponente' (276).
16 Moritz also identifies the word 'Augenblick' and its recurrence as an expression of the interlocking of the
temporal and the visual on a linguistic as well as thematic plane (See Chapter 5, section 4).
17 The 'voices' of the river merge into the sound 'OM' (see 2.4).
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