The Journey To The East

Journey to the East is a short novel by German author Hermann Hesse.

Journey to the East is written from the point of view of a man (called “H. H.” in the book) who becomes a member of “The League”, a timeless religious sect whose members include famous fictional and real characters, such as Plato, Mozart, Pythagoras, Paul Klee, Don Quixote, Puss in Boots, Tristram Shandy, Baudelaire, Goldmund (from Hesse’s Narcissus and Goldmund), the artist Klingsor (from Hesse’s Klingsor’s Last Summer), and the ferryman Vasudeva (from Hesse’s Siddhartha).

The participants traverse both space and time, encountering Noah’s Ark in Zurich and Don Quixote at Bremgarten. The pilgrims’ ultimate destination is the East, the “Home of the Light,” where they expect to find spiritual renewal.

The conclusion of the short novel is a stroke of Hesse’s typical Eastern mysticism at its finest.