#I'm not done with n&g btw I have so many drafts and a wip...

[impmansloot]

So I've been reading Knulp as I needed to "decompress"—to an extent that it's possible with Hesse's novels—with a shorter story after rereading N&G, and while I was reading, it made me think how all these Hesse's wanderer type characters unable to be tied down to one place and form stable/long-term relationships, embracing the fleeting fully, have this sense of inevitability and almost futility that just makes me so, so sad because how do you even cope with this urge to always leave, to always be in motion?

But the focus is shifted to the fact that Knulp was not exactly alone in the end and that there was nothing wrong with him. Things have changed and lost their familiarity, most loved ones of his have died, and yet all over these places so many know him and love him, ready to help him with whatever they can (I do think it's partially due to the culture and mindset of that time, compared to the very individualistic way of living we have today but that's a topic for another time). They might judge his vagabond way of living or express that he could've been this or that, but they're also fond of this childlike side of him and on some level understand it too. There was joy, and there was brightness he brought into people's lives, and that mattered.