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Funny story. My German Lit professor, introduced Steppenwolf with a sour lecture about how her classes had demanded reading more Hesse and less Mann. So she compromised and split the difference. I was twenty-three actually and went on a Hesse kick after that class systematically reading everything including Magister Ludi.
What you probably don't see are the connections to what I might call Landscape Romanticism, after the great US landscape artists, and all that Nature <=> God. It's not a bad place to be as a kid, you know. I was just starting to hike in the Sierra Nevada by myself off trails and you really get into this trip, if you haven't seen another person for a few days. The landscape becomes the other person of your thoughts and you start to hear its natural sounds as a conversation with you.