A funny thing happened on the way to Wallace Stevens' later poetry

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The only Hesse book I haven't read all the way through is the Glass Bead Game. I was using it as the theme of a chapter of one of my own novels that I never finished, so I didn't finish either.

The best things about The Glass Bead Game are 1) the concept  2) the "Three Lives" appended to end of the novel.

Going through the Magic Theater:For Madmen Only doesn't have much use if you have to spend your whole life trying to relive it. Same thing with Infernos and Seasons in Hell.

Yes, my dead friend Philip was always seeking novelty.  Unfortunately, one lifetime isn't enough, and then comes old age, when novelty becomes a scarce commodity.

I taught myself some tricks. Dark Nights are scary and painful and, here's the kicker, Exciting! Excitement is the Thing. In my asleep, awake, halves don't half do things justice,  Dream Country Quaking and Volcanoing, I wrestle the Things that go Bump in the night and body and mind.

That's called Living. 

Lord knows I need more excitement in my life, but then again, I have my own ideas about what's exciting.  Excitement for me is "feeding my head" as in the song White Rabbit.  That, and laughter, but I seem to have lost the ability to laugh.  I can approach it but it always seems just out of reach.  Didn't Harry Haller finally break through by way of laughter?  The laughter of the "Immortals"?  But then I think he was also hallucinating a mass shooting while he was laughing.  If I'm remembering right....didn't reread Steppenwolf.

Then there's falling in love.  The best excitement.  And the rarest.  Unless you count movies, and falling in love with characters in a film.