Technological and economic forces are minimized, and many aspects of the setting are more reminiscent of the Middle Ages than the future. The novel is narrated by a fictional historian and takes place in a far-future country called Castalia, a country dedicated to intellectualism and the development of the mind, apparently in response to the chaos and destruction of twentieth-century wars. The book has also been published under the title Magister Ludi, or “Master of the Game.” It is a biographical parody set several centuries in the future, purporting to be the life story of protagonist Joseph Knecht, and his attempts to master the “glass bead game” and attain the Magister Ludi title. Originally rejected for publication in the author’s native Germany due to his anti-Fascist views, it was originally published in neutral Switzerland instead. Hermann Hesse’s novel The Glass Bead Game (or Das Glasperlenspiel), published in German in 1943 and translated into English in 1949, is Hesse’s last major work.
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