Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse (Lisa Hill, ANZ LitLovers)

Hesse says in his introduction that this is the most misunderstood of his works and I can understand why. It seems to be a first person narration of a person with a mental disorder - maybe schizophrenic or maybe chronic depression - but whatever it was, I got tired of it before long. 
The Steppenwolf is a man who feels himself to be half man, half wolf, and he is torn between satisfying his 'base' desires (exemplified by sex, dancing, jazz and generally the sort of stuff that most people enjoy but he despises himself for it) and satisfying his intellectual desires (Goethe, Mozart, solitariness and rejecting bourgeois taste). 
He meets a strange girl who seems to know what's good for him, but Hermoine is also a Herman, and a procuress to boot.  She lines up another girl for him, not to mention Pablo the jazz muso.
I know, I know, all this is a metaphor for the crisis in Hesse's own persona, but at the end of the day, it just didn't work for me.  At least it was short.