Hesse is indeed great. I've read several and still have a few on my shelf yet to read. I don't have The Glass Bead Game. Should I find a copy?

Interesting about Cristo. I loved that book, but now that you mention it, it has little to do with the characters. At least the 3 Musketeers has personalities. The Black Tulip was great too, underrated, IMO. I read a lot of classics that were made into swashbuckling movies. Some were better than others. For me it was about immersion and escaping to another time and place. I wonder how much of the media I consumed in my life would have very different appreciations if I were have known all that I now know about Machiavellianism and truth-seeking, not to mention about plot/character writing. (Before I was just a professional animator. Now I'm writing to have better and meaningful content to actually animate eventually.)

Revenge is certainly among the petty emotions, yet somehow I think many can identify that Cristo really earns it. More flat than the book was the 2002 movie adaptation that utterly Hollywoodized the ending and cast a dud as the protagonist. Guy Pierce was good as usual, but it all had so much potential to be great.