Curiously now, almost vanished from the world, are the novels of Hermann Hesse,

which meant so much to me and my friends in the middle 60's, before The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings swept the board.  Was a time when I read (and re-read) Magister Ludi--and Steppenwolf and Journey to the East) with the fervor of a newly converted apostle. Hesse, after all, understood Mozart (as only I had thought that I ever would), and music generally, and early German romantic writers like Hölderlin and Novalis just as I understood them (or thought I did).  My notion of Utopia is still, and will always be, Castalia, even though I call it, nowadays, Cascadia, and deep within I am, always,  always, Josef Knecht.