Siddhartha

Mainstream book that I wanted to read from a long time. Good pearls of wisdom scattered throughout this. Story gets a little slow sometimes, but worth the read.

I was always curious as to why I was named so - my mother tells me that my father started reading this book two to three months before I was born. He finished it a week before my birth - and it made such an impression that I was named Siddhartha after the book's central character. This book, for this reason, has a permanent place in our bookshelf. I picked it up on a whim, and was absolutely blown away. This book is truly timeless - Hesse expresses simple and pure ideas with magnificent elegance.

In Buddhist mythology, Siddhartha Gautama is a man who realises that the world is meaningless, if lived either fully in desire or asceticism - after achieving enlightenment, he becomes the Buddha, and spreads the concept of a ‘middle path'. Hesse takes this concept even further, and separates Siddhartha and Gautama - in his work, Siddhartha is the son of a Brahmin who longs to rise above his mortal shell, and Gautama (stylized as Goutama) is the Buddha, who has already achieved enlightenment by the time Siddhartha steps to find out meaning in his life.

The journey of Siddhartha never stops - whether sinning, repenting or at peace with himself, Siddhartha never ceases to be static. And yet he would not trade these experiences for anything in the world - because they are what has moulded him. Learning that money, love, cowardice and avarice exist - and learning to experience them, while rising above them, is what Siddhartha learns through the course of the novel.

In a sense, Siddhartha is the ultimate existentialist. He loves everyone and everything, warts and all, simply because they are - thus freeing himself from both human and material attachments, and achieving enlightenment. He can be easily dismissed as something to be read about, absorbed and dismissed, because of his philosophy's seeming naïveté.

However, the central theme of Siddhartha is not the protagonist's teachings per se, but his unwavering belief that introspection and self-taught lessons are always better than what a teacher may impart, because secondhand knowledge can be dangerous. And that is a belief that is as valid in a utopia, as it is in ours. This, and other such concepts scattered around the work, makes the book stay with you long after you've read it.

Probably 1.5 stars, but we round up in my family.

Just not my cup of tea.

Thoughtless narcissist
with delusions of grandeur
insufferable!

Mi-a adus aminte de Batranul si marea, o calatorie de gasire pe sine, foarte scurta, scrisa de un maestru al literaturii, doar ca de data asta mi-a pasat de calatoria lui Siddhartha si nu s-a simtit lungita (ce-i drept, Batranul si marea se intampla intr-o barca si nu prea ai ce face inafara de monologuri).

A really beautiful book, full of poetry and teachings, this one goes directly in my Life Changing category. I must admit that I didn't know much about Siddhartha before reading this (my only glimpse was the movie Little Buddha so...), and this was really interesting. It teaches you a lot about how everything intertwines, but also how to deal with pain, longing, patience, suffering, and life as its whole.

Was an okay read. Not the best one I have read this year and I can see why people were influenced by this but it was a bit of a drag tbh.

Completed this during a 3.5 hour flight to Trivandrum. I was literally and metaphorically high!

I originally thought it was about the story of Gotama Budhha himself, but the story is about another man who lived at the same time as the Buddha. It is an interesting journey of this man, where he lives many different experiences and his learnings / insights keep on evolving through the places he travels, emotions he feels, people he meets. I loved it, his thirst to learn and unlearn. I often felt the journey was similar to mine and how my beliefs have evolved and also changed over the course of time.

This one insight is worthy enough to be mentioned: Some people are searching for something, some people are finding something. There's such a gentle and beautiful difference. I would definitely recommend this. Would have given 4.5 stars if I could. I'm definitely re-reading this in the future.

Weirdly I feel like I am behaving and talking like a monk now hahaha, all calm and wise. I've landed now (birthday surfing week!!) But I still feel a little high.

I registered a book at BookCrossing.com!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/12020016

What a weird and bizarre book. I had forced myself to relate to Siddhartha all along until the story brought him back to the River where it all just go loopy from there. Would anybody care to explain to me the point of all his search and the triumph of his resolution at all?

A little but profound book about a boy's journey to self discovery and meaning, seeing him living through different phases of life all the way to old age. What I learned from Siddhartha is this: Whatever I'm going through life, in every situation, in every suffering, there's always something to learn, as long as I stay open and present. Also, an old and known truism driven home, riches and luxuries don't bring meaning to our lives. However, I think sometimes we have to toil, suffer, despair and make mistakes in order to clearly see this. Another thing, maybe we need to stop looking so much in order to see that what we look for is staring us in the face.

At first I really didn't like it. I thought the beginning was very slow and Siddhartha was just a “childish” man (like he kept saying of others). He kept saying how superior he was and it really annoyed me. As the story progressed, I started to like it a lot more. I'm still not sure if I like Siddhartha, but it's beautifully written and it really made me think.

 Not familiar with the religious blabber in the novel, but I suppose only a gist is required for an adequate understanding. Couldn't care less about the main character. One could tell how his life would transpire after a certain point, which should mostly comprise the “rites of passage” (I don't mind whether the reader finds this a nonsensical usage of the phrase or not) in the plot. Hence, I spent much time of my reading threading upon the miscellaneous occurrences that the novel so embellishes itself upon, a trait of it I find slightly endearing. But I still mostly found myself only groping space I'm already accustomed with (again, not a surprise considering the fact that I was rightly speculative of the gist of it, a passage of thought that would soon be verified later in the not-so-prose-heavy novel). The experiences of Siddharta do soothe themselves into me - very much only slightly - but it is that mere slightness that engenders me to only sufficient satisfaction not much reflective of the prose until I've probed upon it after resolution. Only after my read do I bother attempting to care due to its apparent reflective qualities, but I still require a proper experience during my read. 

Siddhartha wanders, becoming a seeker after truth, a poor contemplative, a rich man who looks for the sensual pleasures of life, a father trying to teach his son, and, finally, a man of wisdom.

This is one of the most profound books I've ever read. I'd love to read this again, and I'd love to find a group to read this and discuss this with.

Some quotes from this book:

“I have always believed, and I still believe, that whatever good or bad fortune may come our way we can always give it meaning and transform it into something of value.”

“I have had to experience so much stupidity, so many vices, so much error, so much nausea, disillusionment and sorrow, just in order to become a child again and begin anew. I had to experience despair, I had to sink to the greatest mental depths, to thoughts of suicide, in order to experience grace.”

“It may be important to great thinkers to examine the world, to explain and despise it. But I think it is only important to love the world, not to despise it, not for us to hate each other, but to be able to regard the world and ourselves and all beings with love, admiration and respect.”

“And all the voices, all the goals, all the yearnings, all the sorrows, all the pleasures, all the good and evil, all of them together was the world. All of them together was the stream of events, the music of life.”

“And here is a doctrine at which you will laugh. It seems to me, Govinda, that love is the most important thing in the world.”

Herman Hesse is one brilliant. Period. This book is barely one 100 pages and its a masterpiece. At the end you get a beautiful description of wisdom by Siddhartha.

Something different than what i read usually, but quite interesting and well written.

Siddartha is an allegory; a story wrapped around the ultimate premise ‘Happiness for Dummies'. Okay, maybe not so simplistic, but it deals with the attainment and nature of happiness nonetheless.

Premise

Like its eponymous protagonist, the novel breaks down in several milestones or turning points that signal the development of the story and the growth of the character, marking the changes that have been wrought at each stage by happenstance or when the central character experiences, what they generally call, ‘awakening.'

Now, I have generally never been fond of that word; I look upon it with slightly cynical eyes that have been tainted long ago with the endless and ubiquitous New Age slogans and advertising jingles and other such byproducts of a spiritually-hungry-but-commercially-eager-to-cash-on-in-that-hunger culture that is so pervasive. For that reason, any word (especially buzzwords like awakening, purpose, destiny, soul - to name just a few, which must surely count as eternal favourites of those who specialise in Spiritual Quests) - any word bearing resemblance or connection to this New Age school of thought immediately props up red flags in my mind and, in response to that, my mind reciprocates my sentiments with a certain two-syllable word, namely, ‘bullshit'.

However, being as wary of this as I am, I am compelled to acknowledge that Siddhartha does not bear resemblance to those works proffering liberation and claiming to offer answers to your spiritual questions, at least, not in the typical sense. Hesse is not trying to sell you happiness in a How-To-Guide book form wrapped with a ribbon on top. Hesse isn't trying to sell you anything. What he is doing, though, is telling a story that puts this search, this spiritual hunger in an allegory form and examines the ways it comes about and the way it is resolved.

A historical perspective

We must put Siddhartha in its historical context to achieve a full perspective towards understanding this work. Herman Hesse was a German writer who, aside from being a pretty depressive kid and showing signs of serious depression even in childhood, was also the winner of Nobel Prize in literature. Bam. His parents had served as Christian missionaries in India. His exposure to the work of Arthur Schopenhauer, the German philosopher, renewed his interest in Indian culture. Hesse's work is informed with tenets of Buddhist and Hindu philosophy and, in the case of Siddartha, forms the setting of the story itself.

Siddhartha is important because, published in 1922, way before the Beat movement and the hippiedom of the 60s, it was the first major work dealing in Eastern philosophy and thought written in the West. What many of the world now knows or may appreciate as Buddhist/Zen philosophy as a school of thought, Siddhartha put forward first. Hesse influenced the work of Jack Kerouac, and many others of the Beat Generation ahead of its time. It witnessed a resurgence in the counter-culture movements of the sixties.

Underlying themes and meaning

Hesse examines the search for spiritual fulfillment by having his characters embody aspects of personality and living that are unified, at various stages, by the protagonist Siddhartha himself. Govinda, like Siddhartha, is a seeker and then a Samana, or an ascetic who has renounced all wordly possesions. Kamala, the woman who instructs Siddhartha in the art of physical love and later, the mother of his child, embodies hedonism and sensuality. Kamaswami, the merchant, signifies the chief example of the ‘child people', the materialist. The ferryman, Vasudeva, exemplifies quiet understanding and wisdom, just like the Gautama Buddha, the Sublime One.

At various stages of his life, Siddhartha experiences the different aspects of these different personalities himself; he changes and grows as a person by becoming and unbecoming these traits. He is first and foremost, a seeker, who leaves his home to become a Samana, an ascetic giving up the ways of ‘the child people'. He is then the lover, basking in the pleasures of love and sex. Then he is the trader, the materialist, consumed by worldly woes. He is the gambler, giver and taker of riches, losing sight of what he was before. Then he is the suicidal depressive who has reached a breaking point, a crises in life, realised that the journey he traced out until this point left him empty, hollow, broken. Then he is the awakened, the conscious, the curious. He is the child, born-again, who laughs to himself realising that he has been given a blank slate to begin anew.

Siddhartha's journey is one of trial and error. He sets of with the one goal of escaping the ‘ego', the vanquishing of the Self to achieve oneness with the universe, the Brahman. Yes, that sounds a bunch of wish-washy terms strung together to sound fancy. Admittedly, they wouldn't look that great on a resume, or seem out of place in daily conversation. ‘What do you want to do with your life?' ‘Oh, you know, just vanquish the Ego and stuff...and become one with the Universe. Can you pass the ice-cream, please?' Yup. However, let's give the Brahmin kid a break.

To that end, he traces out a path that wavers between two extremes - two opposite paths that might lead to one destination that is his goal. The first path, of course, is the one of renouncing of the worldly wealth, the path of the Samanas, the path of hermits, one of patience and fasting and suffering and simple living to overcome material wants and excesses. The second path, which he embarks upon after meeting Kamala, is directly opposite to his former one: instead of giving up pleasures and possessions, it encourages him to pursue them with active desire. When it turns out that this was not working either, Siddhartha runs away from it too and reaches that dreaded dead-end, suicide. This breakdown is the culmination of another lesson, heralding a new beginning, a clean start.

Siddhartha's mistakes are numerous and his teachers many; from his Samanas, the Buddha, Kamala, Kamaswami, the ferryman, and ultimately the river. His loves, much like his paths and means to the journey of fullfilment, know many faces and forms. At one point in the novel, Siddhartha asserts to Kamala: ‘Maybe people like us cannot love,' and yet in time he himself comes to experience the many aspects of love. He knows platonic love, in relation to his best friend Govinda, brotherly love suffused with profound respect to Vasudeva, romantic love to Kamala, and familial, fatherly but unrequited love to his son.

Conclusion

Compared to other books tackling existential angst such as the likes of The Stranger by Albert Camus, or Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Siddhartha is different in that it is uplifting and somberly optimistic in tone. Hesse's prose is languid and well-written, with a tendency to become simple at times, but not simplistic. The central message of the novel is exemplified in the final meeting of Siddhartha and Govinda, fraught with the difficulty of Govinda seeking to glean understanding from the learning of Siddhartha, and Siddhartha asserting its impossibility: Wisdom cannot be taught. Knowledge can be passed on, but wisdom cannot. That Siddhartha spent his entire life trying to learn it himself, and made many mistakes along the way, but fumbling and falling, made it through, underlies this claim.

Different people will interpret novel differently. Some might think it is trite, some might think it changed their life. It didn't change mine. But it gave me some nice things to think about.

A young man journeys to find knowledge and the meaning of life. A philosophical gem.

This is my second book I read from Hermann Hesse. The first one was “Unterm Rad” (Under the wheel) which I had to read as a young teenager for school. I hated it, although remembering back, the story was really amazing.

Well, this time I am much older and finally can understand the writing of Hermann Hesse. And this book is especially good. Really great story about the meaning of life and what is important in ones life. Written in such an excellent way, this book is a big enjoyment to read. But be warned, this is not a light story, not an easy story and not written in an easy german either.

I highly recommend this book, especially in german to everyone who wants to read some very good short novel.

4.5/5

Siddharta, in originale “Siddhartha” è un romanzo dello scrittore tedesco Hermann Hesse edito nel 1922, ma pubblicato solo nel 1945 in Italia. Considerato dallo stesso Hesse come un “poema indiano”, il romanzo presenta un registro molto originale che unisce lirica ed epica, ma anche narrazione e meditazione, elevazione e sensualità, e che lo rende tuttora affascinante. Il romanzo è ispirato liberamente alla vicenda biografica del Buddha, anche se il Siddharta protagonista non è il Buddha storico, il quale compare nel libro come personaggio secondario sotto il nome di Gotama, ma un personaggio di fantasia che rappresenta uno dei tanti Buddha potenziali.

Sicuramente è un romanzo di formazione. Le vicende si svolgono in India, l'autore però non si sofferma sulla descrizione dei luoghi, e non si sa nulla di Siddharta, tranne il fatto che è figlio di un brahmino. Le dottrine che fanno da sfondo al romanzo (oltre al pensiero di Schopenhauer e a quello di Henri Bergson) sono l'induismo e il buddhismo.

Il successo del libro arrivò un ventennio dopo la pubblicazione e sulla scia del Premio Nobel conferito ad Hesse nel 1946, e fu frutto soprattutto dei giovani che fecero della figura di Siddharta un compendio dell'inquietudine adolescenziale; il libro ebbe poi un periodo di rinnovato successo anche nel corso degli anni sessanta e settanta, alimentato anche dall'interesse che una parte del mondo giovanile e artistico dell'epoca aveva per la cultura orientale e indiana in particolare.

Il romanzo narra dell'avventura spirituale del giovane Siddharta, figlio insoddisfatto di un bramino, che decide di intraprendere una nuova via di conoscenza assieme a Giovinda, suo amico di vita. I ragazzi si metteranno così in cammino per raggiungere gli Samana, asceti che fanno della meditazione e delle privazioni il loro stile di vita. Ma questo non sarà sufficiente ed i due ragazzi riprenderanno, dopo alcuni anni, il loro viaggio nel mondo, alla ricerca della saggezza e dell'illuminazione.

Lo stile dell'autore è molto complicato. Il linguaggio rispecchia la difficoltà e la complessità del tema espresso. Il messaggio che ne deriva è molto profondo: ognuno per trovare la felivcità deve dapprima conoscere se stesso ed è lì che troverà tutte le risposte alle domande che si pone o saprà perlomeno dove andare a cercarle. Un altro messaggio che Hesse vuole trasmettere da questo libro è che bisogna ricavare il massimo dalla vita apprezzando ciò che ci circonda e sfruttando al massimo le proprie capacità e il proprio potenziale, infatti secondo l'autore solo i deboli d'animo si appoggiano alle dottrine che danno sicurezza... ma la saggezza non si può trasmettere attraverso le conoscenze ma ognuno deve maturarla dentro di sé.

Il libro è un classico che va sicuramente letto, un unico appunto che posso fare personalmente è che lo stile e la sintassi sono frutto di una ricercatezza estrema che lo portano ad essere molto complicato e in un romanzo nel quale la speculazione filosofica è il fulcro della trama, avrei apprezzato un linguaggio più essenziale. Probabilmente in questo gioca anche il fattore scrittura: il romanzo è stato scritto in tedesco nel 1922 e tradotto nel 1945, dunque una certa difficoltà di comprensione bisogna metterla in conto.

Probabilmente per apprezzarlo come si deve dovevo affrontarne la lettura nel periodo adolescenziale in quanto lo considero un tipico romanzo di formazione, letto ormai da adulto ha perso una parte importante di quello che poteva trasmettermi.

It's Buddhist fan fiction and like all the best fan fiction it updates, reorientates, and makes the story feel new.

For me the highlight was reading this while watching The Bear and seeing the book get a mention, what are the odds?Enjoyed it enough to read some more about this buddhism thing, turns out buddhism is pretty good.technically the odds are pretty high since I'm always reading something so at some point whatever book I was currently reading would be mentioned by whatever I happened to be watching, but also, maybe karma?

“Every freshly acquired knowledge only engendered a new thirst.”

Keep digging!

Horrible. Where should I start.
Vague descriptions of the setting. Clay houses, dense mango groves, green blue river. It is as if an unsocial person leaves his 21st century abode and marvels at roads and malls and telecom tower.

But what angered me was the blatant misuse of Hindu(?) words which don't even make sense. Words like Samana, Atma, Om are just thrown around here and there without any sense or context. Infact even the people who indulge themselves in spiritual materialism would not appreciate it.

Hermann Hesse did 0 homework when he decided to write this book. At all his flaws and instances of cultural appropriation, this could at best been an essay or a short story.
What's more, even with desparate attempts, the book is painfully shallow and is not even about Buddhism or the founder of Buddhism- Siddhartha.

I will reread ‘Siddhartha' anytime and at any point of life. Also I would recommend this book as starter for spiritual journey.