Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse (Fiction)   Paperback 152 pages (January 1, 1982) Bantam Classic and Loveswept ISBN: 0553208845 Bookshelf Categories Buddhism Yoga & Hinduism

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Synopsis:

From Amazon.com

In the shade of a banyan tree, a grizzled ferryman sits listening to the river. Some say he's a sage. He was once a wandering shramana and, briefly, like thousands of others, he followed Gotama the Buddha, enraptured by his sermons. But this man, Siddhartha, was not a follower of any but his own soul. Born the son of a Brahmin, Siddhartha was blessed in appearance, intelligence, and charisma. In order to find meaning in life, he discarded his promising future for the life of a wandering ascetic. Still, true happiness evaded him. Then a life of pleasure and titillation merely eroded away his spiritual gains until he was just like all the other "child people," dragged around by his desires. Like Hermann Hesse's other creations of struggling young men, Siddhartha has a good dose of European angst and stubborn individualism. His final epiphany challenges both the Buddhist and the Hindu ideals of enlightenment. Neither a practitioner nor a devotee, neither meditating nor reciting, Siddhartha comes to blend in with the world, resonating with the rhythms of nature, bending the reader's ear down to hear answers from the river. In this translation Sherab Chodzin Kohn captures the slow, spare lyricism of Siddhartha's search, putting her version on par with Hilda Rosner's standard edition. --Brian Bruya

Reviews:

A search for the self	2/6/2001
Reviewer: Guillermo from Mexico, Distrito Federal Mexico
Siddharta is the son of a renowned Brahmin, a good-looking, intelligent and rich boy. But his spirit needs more than what he sees in life. Siddharta is an individualist looking for himself and for his own personal connection to the Universe. So he leaves his family and joins the samanas, wandering monks. He lives with them until he becomes dissatisfied once again. In his wanderings, he meets the Gotama Buddha, and joins his group of students. He appreciates what Gotama teaches, but it remains within himself the sense that he can't learn from others, that he will have to find the truth by himself. His spiritual search hasn't been successful. So he tries the life of the world, of money and the senses. He goes to a city and lives as a merchant, getting rich. He has a wife and son, and experiences all sensual pleasures. But soon he finds that this life won't fulfill his spiritual ambitions. At last, he goes to a river and becomes a simple ferryman, taking people to both sides of the river in a small boat. He then establishes in the life of contemplation. Siddharta's quest is for the integration of self and universe, of instinct and spirit. It is a "bildungsroman" or a novel where the author traces a particular character throughout his whole life, telling us what and how he learns in his growing up. This novel is a mix of Western and Oriental views on life, but it is also more than that. It is the story of a search for the meaning of life, of the uncompletenness of narrow ways of life, and the need for experience to be diverse in order to find what we are looking for. As correctly pointed out by another reviewer, Siddharta is not particularly likeable until the end of the book. This is because Hesse wants to show us the mistakes and errors we all committ at some point in our lives. But this book also says an important truth: wisdom is reachable, wisdom is there for us to get it, if we learn to look for the right answers by making the right questions and by seeing not only with our eyes, but with our full brain and soul. It's hard to imagine anyone not finding something to think deeply about after reading this book, and therefore it is recommended to everyone.

Only $4.95? For the wisdom it imparts,make my bid a million.	2/4/2001
Reviewer: A reader from Los Angeles, CA USA
The maxim goes that you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but in this case, the judgement is justice cooked well-done. This is an amazing book by Hesse, even in comparison to his other masterpieces. Written like a religious myth, "Siddhartha" is easily digested and its ingredients quickly distributed to the hungriest portions of the brain and soul. Heed not the truths revealed in this book, and you're in for a lifetime of irrational anguish regardless of which religious tree you're barking up(Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim). Siddhartha kicked all notions and did his own thing. Follow his example, but don't necessarily dupe it step by step. An amazingly inspiring book.

a summary of the book Siddhartha by Herman Hesse	5/27/1999
Reviewer: A reader from PWHS, Pennsylvania, U.S.
This book is about a man named Siddhartha who seeks to find his "self" and then lose it. He wants to become wise and lose his foolishness that he has had since he was a kid. He leaves his village, listens momentarily to the Buddha, understands him, but not wishing to follow his ways, moves on. Siddhartha then comes upon another village, where he learns the art of love from Kamala, his female companion, and also the art of handling buisiness with the help of an old man named Kamaswami. He then realizes that he has thrown his life away to live upon riches and waste his life's intentions. As Siddhartha moves on, he encounters Vasudeva, a wise ferryman, who takes people across his lake, but is really a very wise and intellectual person. He influences Siddhartha, and Siddhartha finally becomes wise. He then takes over Vasudeva's job and meets his old friend Govinda. He tells Govinda about his journeys and how he ended up finding his wiseness and then he shares it with Govinda.

Beautiful and Special	10/24/1997
Reviewer: A reader from Bellevue, WA
I read this book when I was 19. I am now 51. Having just discovered Amazon Books, I was "surfing" and searching out titles that came to memory. I also read the lyrical version in German in those now distant days, and spent much time looking for "Suleika", or "Zuleika". It brought me great peace of mind at that time, as I had to interrupt my college days in order to enter the Army and go to Vietnam. The book reads like the flowing river, and is in some ways an eternal story of search for meaning in life and realization. Like Sidhartha our search for meaning often ends at the beginning. Ultimately, we return to the basic and simple truths that were there when we were born. Growing up is a kind of struggle. Sidhartha is a story of idealism and virtue that survives ignorance, futility and evil. If in the end, we retain that idealism, our lives can be heroic and our conscience pure. Sometimes, I remember and recall the words: "From Sidhartha to Sidhartha is my coming and my going." It is a book of haunting beauty and depth of meaning.