Fair enough! If I might continue to wax a bit verbose on the excuse to discuss books I'm reading, even if it is veering close to off-topic:
As I mentioned, I am reading the two literally concurrently, so I may be primed to see Spengler where he may not truly be lurking, but the fact that Hesse was a German of the generation for whom Spengler would have been the talk of the town, along with a handful of specific breadcrumbs and some broader themes makes me think it's safe to say that Spengler was an influence on the work, though not the influence. Instead, I get the sense that Hesse thought that Spengler had a great deal of insight and spotted many important trends, but took them to overly exact conclusions and discounted too much the possibilities of human striving to soften or ennoble the trends outlined in The Decline of the West.
On a more pragmatic note, JMG's pocket reviews of all of Hesse's novels were helpful to me and directly led to my reading Glass Bead Game and gave me some thoughts about it going into reading it. If you haven't read it already, that post might give you some more guidance on whether/where to dive into Hesse's works.
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As I mentioned, I am reading the two literally concurrently, so I may be primed to see Spengler where he may not truly be lurking, but the fact that Hesse was a German of the generation for whom Spengler would have been the talk of the town, along with a handful of specific breadcrumbs and some broader themes makes me think it's safe to say that Spengler was an influence on the work, though not the influence. Instead, I get the sense that Hesse thought that Spengler had a great deal of insight and spotted many important trends, but took them to overly exact conclusions and discounted too much the possibilities of human striving to soften or ennoble the trends outlined in The Decline of the West.
On a more pragmatic note, JMG's pocket reviews of all of Hesse's novels were helpful to me and directly led to my reading Glass Bead Game and gave me some thoughts about it going into reading it. If you haven't read it already, that post might give you some more guidance on whether/where to dive into Hesse's works.