The Journey to the East is an obscure novel telling of an eccentric secret league of artists, philosophers, writers, and others that surpasses time and space, and is engaged in a meandering journey that appears to have no definite goal. In easy, intriguing prose, Hermann Hesse’s Journey to the East tells of a journey, both geographic and spiritual.
H.H., a German choirmaster, is invited on an excursion with the League, a secret society. The parties transit both space and time, encountering Noah’s Ark in Zurich and Don Quixote at Bremgarten. The pilgrims’ ultimate terminus is the East, the “Home of the Light,” where they desire to find spiritual revival. Yet the concord that supervised at the beginning of the trip soon worsens into an opening conflict. Each traveller finds the rest of the group unbearable and heads off in his direction, with H.H. bitterly accusing the others for the collapse of the journey. It is only long after the trip while poring over catalogues in the League archives, that H.H. uncovers his role in the abolishment of the group and the sinister importance of the expedition itself.