Siddhartha

Rating:
Summary: one of my favorite books
Review: You'll like it if there's any teensy bit of real spiritual sense in you. No bull here.

Rating:
Summary: this is NOT Hesse's best
Review: Let me take the liberty of saying that, unless you are into religion (Hinduism and Buddhism in particular), this is a rather boring/tedious novel. The development of the main character is too one-dimensional and I find Kamala and Govinda even more uninteresting than Siddhartha himself.

What I dislike the most about this novel is that it tends to eclipse everything else written by Hesse. I am looking right now at the Bantham Books edition and I see that it says on the front cover: "his most famous novel" and on the back it is written that "... Herman Hesse' most famous and influential work". I find these statements to the utmost misleading, because those who know anything about Hesse are aware of the fact that it was the Glass Bead Game that won him the Nobel Prize. It is his most monumental work and, truly one of the best novels of the 20-th century. However, I am not going to compare it with Siddhartha, because they are too different. Instead it would be easier to compare it with the Steppenwolf by Hesse.

Both novels have a clearly defined protagonist. However, Harry Haller from the Steppenwolf seems to be more flesh-made, interesting and easier to identify with than Siddhartha, because the Steppenwolf discusses an individual vs. society, while Siddhartha is centered exclusively around religion. What annoyed me the most in Siddhartha is that every move that he made was influenced by religion. Even his relationship with other people (Govinda, Kamala, his son and others) was dictated by religion. By no means I am trying to blame the author for that or say that it is a bad book; instead, it is the theme itself that imposed those restrictions. In Steppenwolf, even though there is a lot of grotesque, the protagonist is much more part of reality.

There is another novel by Hesse that I would rank higher than Siddhartha. It is called Demian. Although, it is a lot different from Siddhartha (completely different time, characters, setting), it is written in a similar vein as Siddhartha (at least, it is possible to tell that the two are written by the same author). I will make it bold to say that its two main characters, Max Demian and Emil Sinclair, are much more interesting to look at than Siddhartha.

To sum everything up, Siddhartha is merely a reflection of Hesse's interest in India. In fact, from Hesse's biography it is known that since he settled in Switzerland in 1919, if not to count brief departures to Italy and Germany, India is the only place he ever visited till his death in 1962. If I remember it right, Hesse wrote a few other books on India and the Hinduism, besides Siddhartha, but all of them put together are only a portion of his literary achievements

Rating:
Summary: River Man
Review: It's wonderful when people contextualize two completely different things and end up loving both. That's the case with this book and the Nick Drake's song "River Man", which I was very attached to before reading Hesse's Siddhartha.
The book it's very precise in its objective, never surrendering to secondary characters, while being very economical both in its prose and in its subject, but, at the end, the reader may feel there's little to discover in Siddhartha as a man: even the description of his first sexual experience is painfully passionless. The novel borrow its form from short stories, and Hesse reveals his true talent throughtout the metaphorical context he surrounds his characters.
Even though the reader doesn't agree with Siddhartha's conception of life as a whole, the novel is interesting because it portrays a man's itinerary throughout life, and this may explain the wide enthusiasm it still evokes in young people.

Rating:
Summary: Pointing out The Way, Hesse tells a simple story
Review: This short novel reads like a long fable, with a style reminiscent of short story artist Jorge Luis Borges. The protagonist, Siddhartha, favored son of a Brahmin, leaves his father's house to embark on a spiritual journey. As a Samana (a self-chastising ascetic) he is attended by his devoted friend Govinda, until they part over the worthiness of the teachings of the renowned holy man Gotama. Siddhartha falls for the allures of a courtesan named Kamala, and enters into a financial relationship with the merchant Kamaswami. He takes up drinking and gambling and becomes a wealthy debauchee. Eventually repulsed by his own moral corruption, he leaves this life behind and becomes the humble assistant to a poor ferryman. Here he learns to listen to the river, and comes to understand the totality of existence, but only after loving and losing his orphaned son.

This book was never a personal favorite of this reviewer, couched as it is in the tropes of eastern religious philosophy, but it neatly encapsulates Hesse's basic doctrine; his other books (e.g. Steppenwolf and Demian) are more focused on the character of the seeker than on the details of the search, and as such are both more novelistic. Being a fable, and set in an unfamiliar (to many westerners, at least) culture, this book shows a likable (we are told, but readers are welcome to their own opinions - he seems self-centered and shallow to this reviewer) young man, making decisions and taking action without giving us any real clue as to why. Perhaps Hesse meant to show that life is a series of random choices that can only be understood once we have attained wisdom, but that wisdom can only be achieved through spiritual growth, which is itself only the consequence of those same random choices. Thus reduced, Hesse is telling us to just live life, and trust that it'll all make sense some day. More useful, perhaps, is what we're told to avoid: complacency, self-deprivation, over-indulgence, all external religious instruction, any kind of obsession or self-absorption. Obviously there's no magic formula that enables one to make this happen, or everyone would be a sage, but Hesse's books certainly point out a clear set of priorities, whether we buy into them or not. In sum, Siddhartha is useful enough as fables go, but don't expect miracles from it, even though it's exclusively about ideas, and really isn't much of a novel. Definitely for those new to spiritual self-examination.

Rating:
Summary: It's barely a novel.
Review: I choked down Siddhartha in a matter of a few hours. This, however, should be interpreted as impatience to be done with the thing and get on to something more worthwhile. It was, in a word, tedious. It isn't that the philosophy is bad; it's just that anyone with even a rudimentary foundation in Eastern thought will have heard it all before (and much more eloqently, I might add) in various sutras and the like. Hesse isn't exactly breaking new ground here.

Still, it could be a worthwhile read nonetheless, if was more concerned with being a novel rather than a platform for the author's enthusiasm about the philosophy/religion in question. But it's not. There is essentially no action outside of the title character's predicatable spiritual journey, and none of the characters have any existence beyond the most basic: Gotama, Govinda, and the ferryman are 'wise.' Kamala and the merchant are 'worldly.' Siddhartha is 'wise,' 'worldly,' and then 'wise' again. And that, folks, is all she wrote. Quite literally. I challenge anyone to provide me with a character portrait of ANY of these people that goes beyond single-adjective territory.

'That's not the point,' you might say. 'It's not about the characters particularly; it's about a spiritual awakening.' Oh, but it's exactly the point. Because Siddhartha is NOT a sutra; it is a novel (though one imagines that Hesse might have wished otherwise), and a novel with no compelling characters, meaningful action OR unique ideas is not a novel that I want to read.

I suppose I might recommend the book anyway; given how quick a read it is, and how so many consider it a classic, it wouldn't hurt to have it under your belt. But I must strongly contest the notion that, reputation aside, it is a great, or even a particularly good, piece of writing.

Rating:
Summary: Profound - but with one big shortcoming
Review: I read this book in my junior year of college. I thought it was profound. It was one of my favorite books. I'm glad I re-read it now that I am 51-years-old. It is not one of my favorite books anymore.

Siddhartha is fine literature and deeply insightful. It traces the life of an intelligent, sensitive young man of Eastern (Buddhist?) spirituality; from his youthful studies with the masters, through a period of self-conscious asceticism and self-rejection, through a period of self-indulgence and sensuality, ultimately to self-knowledge and peace as he becomes a ferryman living humbly in a small hut beside a river which teaches him many of the ultimate truths of life.

Siddhartha has a shortcoming that I did not see when I was young but I see now. This book is always and only about the self. Even when he finds salvation - Siddhartha finds it in himself. The path towards salvation is only internal - coming from self-denial, self-examination, self-discipline, self, self, self... Where compassion, charity, humility, and love exist, they exist as by-products of self-knowledge.

There are a great many truths in Siddhartha. Young people who are seeking should read this book. Siddhartha looked into the river and saw that life does not change. I suggest that things do change - and they change as a result of what we do. Like the young Siddhartha, the young reader of this book should pause for a while, then grow and move on. There are bigger things outside the self. You will find that Robert Frost spoke more truly when he said "[you] have promises to keep."

Rating:
Summary: interesting but contrived story
Review: I had to read Hesse's Siddhartha for my literature and philosophy class. It was a quick and easy read. This book definitely opened a lot of interesting philosophy questions like what is the meaning of life and the everlasting quest for truth. Siddhartha, on this quest, strives to find truth in a seemingly meaningless world. Despite this being a good book introducing some facets of eastern religions and opening up philosophical questions, it was also an extremely contrived book. As I was reading, I didn't feel that Siddhartha's story was unique to him, but instead it was Hesse's attempt at generalizing the experiences of every single Eastern religious person who goes on a quest for truth. Look at Buddha for example: he started out as a rich prince and then got sick of the material world, and then went on his little journey to find truth. If you were to summarize Hesse's Siddhartha in a nutshell, you get the same story. Yes, this journey is interesting, but so what? It wasn't unique, and extremely stereotypical. If you want a good introduction into eastern thought, read this book, but if you know at least a little about Hinduism, Buddhism, etc. don't read this, because it basically retells you everything that's already expected and known. Siddhartha, in the end of the book, does indeed find truth, and the reader thinks sarcastically, "Wow, I didn't see that coming." There are no surprises, which can make this a bit dull to more adventurous readers.

Rating:
Summary: Absolutely staggering
Review: This simply-written novel by nobel-prize winning Hermann Hesse is easy to read yet incredibly profound. The story is about the son of a Hindu priest, Siddhartha, who is living at the same time as the Buddha. Like the Buddha, he sets out on a spititual journey to discover how to cope with life's inevitable suffering, how to be satisfied with what we have, how to control our constant urges, how to be content. Siddhartha's journey has many parallels with the Buddha's--they have the same first name and both go through extreme suffering and then overindulgance in their search. However, Hesse's genius is that Siddhartha's story is brilliantly clever, profound, and ultimately supremely creative. For anyone who has asked, "Why do we suffer and how can we cope with it?", for anyone studying Buddhism (although the book is not religious), for anyone struggling with the drives of the ego, this sparkling gem is truly a gift to humanity.

Rating:
Summary: Amazing Book.
Review: A very interesting book that tells the tale of searching for enlightenment, a timeless topic, that brought with it lots of understanding and peace. I never read a book that I enjoyed this much! Being sixteen, I feel that this book will continue to influence me for many years to come, the pages old and worn.

Rating:
Summary: A must-read
Review: This book has a played a huge influence on my life. Though I read it an entire year ago, it still continues to influence me as I travel down my own spiritual path. Often I will remember a particular passage that made no sense to me at the time and it will suddenly become perfectly clear and shed everything in a new, shimmering light. Siddhartha should be the kind of book that affects each person differently, just as each person's spiritual journey is different, therefore I cannot really tell you much about the meaning of the book. Indeed, Hermann Hesse's philosophical ponderings, in the same way, differ from mine and everyone else's, because they are his own. However, Hesse has a unique insight that often has helped me to understand my own thoughts and sometimes even explains for me thoughts i couldn't quite pin down. Hesse has become my favorite author for this reason; though his novels can sometimes be rather hard to plow your way through, since they are translated from another language and can be awkward and don't flow as beautifully as i am sure they do in German, it is well worth plowing your way through for the fruits you harvest in the end from his immortal wisdom. Siddhartha, I believe, is also a good introduction to some of the more complex compositions of Hermann Hesse. Definitely read this book.