Siddhartha

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.

Thoughtless narcissist
with delusions of grandeur
insufferable!

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.

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?

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

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.

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.

What is the best quality of this book?
Well, it flows like water. An essential symbol in the book.
Hesse's really unbelievable achievment. Ah! the prose is more of a verse here for me.

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.