Rating: 
Summary: The quintessential journey
Review: I re-read this work after I re-visited the highly overlooked, "Demian" by the same author. Though "Siddhartha" has a completely different goal in mind--that of conveying the story of the very person who "founded" what became Buddhism--"Demian" is another gem worth reading.
As some others have commented here, I ,too, read this book while I was a student--19 years old--and it is so different in reading it as an older person! I almost want to say that is what makes this work so powerful (as well as "Demian") because it seems to be written for that very important, transitional age group--the late adolescent. That just seems to be the right age to receive these works.
What prompted all this re-reading, though, is a much newer novel that deals with late-stage adolescence as it is about to metamorphose. I'm talking about the lesser known, "Simon Lazarus". Strongly recommend (note the Eckhart Tolle statements on the back cover--all true.)
Rating: 
Summary: Being Is A River...
Review: Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha is a parable about the dream of attaining bliss and discovering the truth about the one path. The story recounts the story of a young man who meanders through life, after departing his father's home, only to flow from a life of abstinence and piety to one of wantonness and lust only then to reach a tree at the foot of a river where pausing for a sojourn he begins to truly undertake the flight of his dreams towards the content inner self.
On his way Siddhartha learns life and happiness from many and yet finds that none can teach him what he wants to learn. Perhaps great people can not love, he tells himself.
In the short story Hesse, himself at conflict with his parent, life and often mentally at odds with his world, steers the reader away from conventional thinking on love, happiness and the meaning of existence. He casts the quest in a different light than most and indirectly imparts the wisdom that all things described are arrived at through passages which are personal and self-attained. Teaching is good, but learning is better. To hear one has to seek; not trust in the voice of another. To see one must look around himself; not be shown. One has to find his own way in this world and the guiding and soothing words of a wise man are not to be interpreted for others.
Siddhartha teaches that the river is not a metaphor for life, but is life itself. It can even teach one to think, to wait and to fast if one listens well enough.
Rating:
Summary: Revolutionary
Review: Hesse tells the story of a young man, Siddhartha, who is set on finding enlightenment and thus happiness. Initially, Siddhartha adheres to the teachings of his father, but after years of meditation and adulation, he was unhappy. No one had shown him the way to enlightenment. Set on finding it, he embarks on a new journey, with his friend, Govinda, and joins the Samanas. After awhile, Siddhartha feels the same discontent. His teachers, the Samanas, still have not shown him the way to enlightenment, and at this point, he parts with his friend and teachers and attempts to live the life of ordinary people. Although, at first, Siddhartha learns a great deal about business and the art of lovemaking, he again becomes bored and unhappy. He is caught in Samsara, the ways of the world, and once he realizes this, he is disgusted with himself. He leaves all of his riches behind and commences a new journey. The book is a treat to read. In addition, it has profound wisdom to impart to the reader. In a sense, a revolutionary message permeates the book; this message goes hand and hand with Siddhartha's desire to find enlightenment. Every time Siddhartha attempts to gain enlightenment by following the paths of others, he fails. At one point, he says, "No, a true seeker could not accept any teachings, not if he sincerely wished to find something." The message it sends to the reader is that one can only find enlightenment by listening to the wisdom deep within one. The teachings of others will not necessarily help one achieve true happiness because, according to Siddhartha, "wisdom is not communicable." For instance, Siddhartha believed that the illustrious Gotama, the Buddha, achieved enlightenment, while the followers of Buddha, such as Govinda, may never find it by adhering to the Buddha's teachings. Nevertheless, although Siddhartha's path was arduous, he eventually attained enlightenment by listening to himself and to the wisdom of nature.
Rating:
Summary: A mystical quest for the truth of our existence
Review: Hesse's Siddartha is a compelling story and a book that almost hypnotizes the reader with its simple, subtle approach to wisdom and existence. It combines the enigmatic brevity of the haiku with the matter-of-fact narrative of an Icelandic saga, all within a Hindu-Buddhist framework infused with Hesse's own brand of Western existencialism. The young man Siddharta, the Brahmin's son, is precocious and learns at an early age the traditional ways of worship and meditation. He eventually grows dissatisfied with their approach to salvation, and with his good friend Govinda he joins a wandering group of ascetic Samanas. During his life with the Samanas he learns the skills of 'thinking, waiting, and fasting'; but after three years he realizes that his old teachers have yet to find salvation, and that the ascetic life can not be the way he seeks. He and Govinda go to meet Buddha and listen to his teachings. Govinda decides to join Buddha's disciples, but Siddhartha will not accept the doctrine of the Illustrious one. He thinks that the Buddha is indeed a holy and enlightened man, but that such holiness and enlightenment can not be communicated. After living for a while as a rich merchant and learning "love" from a courtesan, Siddhartha eventually comes closer to what he has sought when he gives up his riches to live with Vasudeva, a ferryman. Through living with Vasudeva by the river he learns to listen, to fall and be drawn in, into the unity of all things. He learns to be and become without seeking, to abandon words, thoughts and the concept of time so as to better dissolve his Self into this all-encompassing whole. Although this is in a certain sense a celebration of the individual journey to truth and salvation, and surely an existencialist work, it is much less Nietzschean that Hesse's Steppenwolf. The negation of the self, the limits of human communication, and the importance of observation and pure being is more reminiscent of Kierkegaard and especially Heidegger (although Siddharta precedes Being and Time). Mixed with ancient Eastern mysticism and philosophy and a truly unique and captivating style of writing, this little book offers more inspiration and food for thought than virtually any other book you can read.
Rating:
Summary: Truly a masterpiece
Review: i have one grouse...most reviewers are not indians so they dont't seem to understand one basic point,A Brahmin is different from A Brahman.
A BRAHMIN is a person who belongs to the priestly class or caste,he is one who is supposed to be well versed with the vedas and upanishads.Not every one can be a brahmin,he/she has to be born to brahmins to be a brahmin I.e its hereditary.
A BRAHMAN is one who has realized himself and is in sync with the cosmos,he is also refered to as one with the cosmos.any one can become a brahman or one with the cosmos and doesnt have to do anything with the lineage.
i would recommend works of Shri Adi shankara to understand more about Brahman.
Rating: 
Summary: Not a masterpiece!
Review: I loved HESSE more before I read this book. It is a story, just a simnple story and far away from human reality at least from my point of view. It is full of philosophical discussions about what life should be but I don't think it can be a guide for it.
I think that there will always be people who will like this book especially in the west, regarding the spiritual crisis expected to get serious dimensions in the following years, but not suffiecient for pragmatist people.
Anyway, not a very bad read.
Rating:
Summary: Pleasant read but incoherent worldview
Review: If you want a short story and a light read that's a little entertaining, this is the book for you. There's just something about the writing style (and this is a good translation) that just makes this book a pleasure to read. As far as depth of character, plot, and all that, the book is rather shallow and flat, but telling a good story doesn't appear to have been the author's intent. The intent seems to be to explain the author's worldview. I have several problems with the author's worldview, but that did not prevent me from enjoying this book.
Without going into too much detail, I wanted to mention something about the author's worldview that I have a problem with. It seems that the author's idea of wisdom consists in denying the obvious. All of these things are dismissed as illusions: contradictions, time, distinctions between this world and eternity, suffering and bliss, good and evil. His denial of the law of non-contradiction is especially troubling. He says, "in every truth the opposite is equally true" (p. 115).
Francis Schaeffer once said that no matter what a person believes, they still have to live in the real world, and for some people that causes tension. You can see the tension in the author's view of time. Time is supposedly an illusion. But the author has to live with time just like the rest of us, so how does he escape reality? Though meditation. He writes, "During deep meditation it is possible to dispel time, to see simultaneously all the past, present and future, and then everything is good, everything is perfect, everything is Brahmin" (p. 116). If you have to meditate in order to pretend like your worldview is true, then you just don't have a very good worldview.
Why not embrace a worldview that affirms the obvious? If two claims contradict, they can't both be true. Time is real. There is a difference between suffering and bliss, and also between good and evil. And for goodness sake, a rock is not a person!
Rating:
Summary: Ying and Yang
Review: Life
I liked this book a lot. It's a big part of my philosophy on life
Rating:
Summary: One of the most beautiful novels I have ever read
Review: Siddhartha is an excellent novel for the post 9/11 world. No, I'm not prescribing a "Buddhist" religion to Muslims or Christians; this is because the novel Siddhartha does not prescribe any religion or doctrine. Neither does it really tell you how to be happy or spiritually enlightened; the novel simply deals with the fact that enlightenment is subjective from person to person. What made Siddhartha enlightened in the novel, did not make Gotama, the other Buddha enlightened. But the saintly thing about the character Siddhartha, is he did not judge Gotama for his spiritual differences or try to convert others to any doctrine.
The prose in the novel is simple, yet lush, descriptive and profound, making it a short satisfying read, which should be taken in slowly, rather than rushing through where you might miss important words.
In Siddhartha, a young Brahmins son, leaves a comfortable life when early in the novel he joins the Samanas, a group of wandering ascetics, practicing self denial. In Siddartha's journey he begins to distrust doctrines because they brought knowllege, but no wisdom, no peace or enlightenment. He leaves the Samanas and began a life which many would call "sinful" until he changes his lifestyle again.
But the way Siddhartha by Herman Hesse is different than other religious books, is that the character Siddhartha has "to sin in order to live again." The fact is that everyone is a sinner. There is no way to not be a sinner, and Siddhartha has to have the "experience" of what is sin, to know what is moral and right. Many religious books simply tell you how to live, this novel doesn't. Please do not read it as an introduction to Buddhism, or something you can read and immediately achieve salvation, it's simply a work of art that shows spiritual freedom in the path one takes.
The message I received from the novel was that life is too complex to prescribe a way of salvation that works for everyone. As Hesse says, "Wisdom is not communicable" and the book doesn't communicate wisdom universally, because no one can. In this fanatical world, religions might not clash so much if they took this into consideration.
Rating:
Summary: Eastern Religion Intake
Review: The book journeys through a man's life, Siddhartha, to showcase the different cultural values that are present in the Eastern religions of Hinduism, Janism, and Buddhism. The historical may not be accurate on the case of Siddhartha (Buddha) in the book, but I don't believe that is the intentions of the book. I read the book as a prelude to discussions about Hinduism, Janism, and Buddhism in my World Religions class this semester, and it has helped give me a further understanding of those religions from a personal standpoint through this novel.
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