Hesse's 'Narziss And Goldmund' And Where's The Emphasis?

Hermann Hesse's 'Narziss And Goldmund' - where's the emphasis? Narziss And Goldmund is the contrast between the man who lives in the world of the abstract, and the man who immerses himself in sensations and creativity. Narziss And Goldmund presents the importance of identifying where you are on this spectrum and then pursuing a life that actually fits; but it also wonders whether one way is in fact better than the other and, importantly at the end of the novel, it questions the wisdom of choosing the extreme of the intellect end of the spectrum.

Where's the emphasis in Narziss And Goldmund? Because the answer to the question alters the book that's just been read. Is it a juxtaposition of two types of men, Narziss-types and Goldmund-types? Or is it a biographical tragedy; the tragedy of Narziss?

Narziss, the boy steeped in the world of the intellect, is introduced; Goldmund appears, is everything that Narziss isn't, and years go by; finally when Narziss is a middle-aged man and after many doubts about the life of the intellectual, he is confronted by death and the real tragedy of his life dawns on him? Does much depend on the reading of the end of Narziss And Goldmund?

Goldmund is dying; there is no evidence for an afterlife; and he finds that he is happy to die. His life has been all about experience, death is the final one and to be stepped-into with all the happy openness that has characterized his other dealings with experience. Images of his mother have shown him that it can be a pleasure to be part of this earthy-world process. His mother has symbolized not only motherhood but also all that is feminine - romantic love, nurture, a hunger for sex, and the thrill of cheating - and then he looks at Narziss and, full of concern, says his last words:

"But how will you ever die, Narziss? You know no mother. How can we love without a mother? Without a mother, we cannot die."

It seems that this, at the end of his story, rocks the foundations of Narziss. It seems that Narziss is profoundly troubled by his future death. What is suddenly burningly clear is that an equable passing-on like Goldmund's is completely impossible for his type of man. Narziss's final thoughts:

'The rest of what he muttered was unintelligible. For the two last days and nights beside his bed, Narziss watched the light die out of his face. Goldmund's last words still seared his heart like a flame.'

If you choose to read it this way then the book has had to navigate a balance: the risk is that the life of Goldmund, the huge discursive story that takes up the large centre of Narziss And Goldmund will reduce the dimension that is Narziss. He is there at the novel's beginning, and he must walk his cloisters a complex, a real, and a sharply defined man; he is there at the end; but his 'stage time' is far less than Goldmund's. He needs to be the real living Man Of Ideas standing at both ends of the much larger life that is the colourful Goldmund.

Perhaps Narziss has indeed lived life far too 'dry'. And now at the end his death is going to be, once again, something 'dry'.

Is the novel the biographical tragedy of the intellectual? Or is it a juxtaposition of two human types? I suspect that some readers see a completely different book to other readers.