Siddhartha |
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Author:
Hermann Hesse
By Picador
Average Customer Rating: 
List Price: £7.99
Our Price: £9.99
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780330354851
ISBN: 033035485X
Label: Picador
Manufacturer: Picador
Number Of Pages: 224
Publication Date: 1998-03-06
Publisher: Picador
Studio: Picador |
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Amazon.co.uk Review
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 Gautama 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 Brahman, 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 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. --Brian Bruya
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The River Laughs, 2008-05-18
This allegorical tale of a Brahmin's son who gives up everything in the search for his self is, in my opinion, one of the masterpieces of the 20th century. The story is short and clear, with one foot in Buddhism and another in Modernism. The first time I read this book (during one sitting in a Toronto cafe), I fell in love with it. Now, after reading it for the second time, I feel as if it will be the book I keep by my side, through out my life, for whenever I need to be comforted.
If you feel lost, depressed, unhappy or unsure about life in general, this book is worth a thousand self-help tomes injected into your blood.
 Stepping into the river again, 2009-02-14
Hesse is, for me at least, one of the most undervalued and under-read authors of the early twentieth century. As the modernism of Eliot, Beckett, Woolf and Joyce tore through literature, retooling relationships with the mechanics of language, causing consternation and some loud braying, Hesse continued to write psychologically acute stories of personal crisis and spiritual rebirth. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1946 and, in time, his work was swept into the referential carpet-bag of sixties counter-culture, indirectly inspiring everyone from hippies, anti-psychologists and beat poets, right up to the biker's favourite FM radio chestnut, 'Born to Be Wild'. With the weight of that kind of cultural influence, how could you possibly say no? (see also The Glass Bead Game ).
You get back far more than what you put in, 2007-07-03
I read this book in German (oh, hark at me!) but the language in it is so beautifully simple that I am sure the English translation provides an accurate rendering of the original.
I would recommend Siddhartha to everyone. The fairy-tale-like atmosphere it evokes and its simple prose make it immediately accessible, and its brevity makes it readable even for those who are not otherwise avid readers.
The message in it is deceptively simple: the way to contentment lies in a full experience and acceptance of all aspects of life, a willing resignation to the fact that things as they are is the only way they can and must be. Neither the life of the body nor that of the mind should be neglected and rejected out-of-hand; indeed Siddhartha is only able to find a permanent and stable inner peace once he has experienced all manners of excess, showing that understanding demands familiarity with what is to be understood.
I can understand why some comments refer to the book's ability to have a life-changing effect, but this was not the case with me, perhaps because I could not help keeping a distance from the message. A few aspects of the story didn't sit right with me. Siddhartha's discovery of inner peace I could well understand, for his life had been filled with all manner of varied experiences; but was the same true of Vasudeva or Gotama? How were they able to experience that same level of enlightenment without having had the variety of experience that cannot be denied of Siddhartha? There are other contentious points I would like to raise but they relate to the book's end and I wouldn't want to spoil it for those who are yet to read it!
This is a gem of a book and a real rarity considering what you get out of so few pages.
Hesse , 2009-03-15
There are several translations of this beautiful and powerful book but this one is the best and I recommend it thoroughly to all Hesse fans and to any new reader yet to taste the delights from this incredible writer. The story is a simple one but the message and depth of meaning are profound and lasting. Read it again and again as you grow up and grow older and maybe even as you grow wiser!
Truly wonderful, 2009-01-20
I felt such warmth and hope when I read this book. It evoked so many feelings, but what I will remember most of all is those profound moments I had in course of reading this book. I have a feeling this will be one book I will read over and over again.
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