Siddhartha by Herman Hesse

Horn Tooting Scale: 3 Toots

• 1 toot for books position as a 60s counterculture classic
• 2nd toot for its position as a literary masterpiece
• 3rd for Herman Hesse's status as a Nobel Prize winning author

Points of Interest:

• Instruction on Hinduism and Buddhism
• The Buddha is a character in the novel (no not the title character; the Buddha goes by Gautama - his second name)
• Excellent explanation of meditation

Synopsis: Siddhartha, a young Brahman boy, is a religious prodigy. At the time of the book's opening, he is a late adolescent (16-20ish???) and already has comprehended both Om and Atman. His every movement is graceful, and his every utterance brings joy to everyone around him. However, he is not happy. Pursuing self-actualization, Siddhartha goes off to join a group of Samanas, Hindu holy men who renounce possessions and live off of charity while moving from town to town through the countryside. With the Samanas, Siddhartha learns how to think, how to wait and how to fast.
After a few years of wandering through the woods suffering pain and privation, Siddhartha decides that he is no closer to his search for enlightenment. At this point, Siddhartha and his friend Govinda, who had followed him to the Samanas, decide to go in search of Gautama (the Buddha), of whom they had been hearing reports for quite awhile. They go to a town where the Illustrious One is speaking and after hearing of the Eightfold Path, Govinda immediately asks and is accepted to be taken on as a disciple. Siddhartha, though he believes that Gautama truly has received enlightenment and that his philosophy of life is the best that Siddhartha is ever likely to hear, decides that he himself can not reach enlightenment through another man's experience. So Siddhartha leaves Govinda and the Samanas and goes off to continue his quest for enlightenment. Siddhartha next makes his way across a river and to a town. There, he falls in love with a beautiful courtesan, Kamala, to pursue this passion and to seek enlightenment in her arms, he is instructed by Kamala to acquire wealth. Using his gifts for fasting, waiting and thinking, Siddhartha does in fact become wealthy. For 15-20 years, he stays in the town, loving Kamala and seeking enlightenment through sensuality.
At the end of this time, Siddhartha realizes that he is still not happy. He leaves everything behind and goes back to the river that he had crossed so many years before. At the river, Siddhartha comes close to killing himself, but instead has an epiphany that the river is holy. That it is part of all humanity and all history. He gradually discovers that atman can be found in the river, in a leaf, in a clump of dirt, in anything at all. This might sound more like an LSD trip than part of any mainstream religion, but when Siddhartha hears Om in the river, I felt it resonate through me. There's an extra little section with Kamala and Siddartha's son, where Kamala dies and Siddartha tries to raise his spoiled son, who rejects him and his life. Siddartha then realizes that this is part of the cycle of life and that he himself did the same thing to his father. I wonder if that part of the book is a reflection of the author's feeling about his own father-son relationship. Altogether, this book far exceeded my expectations. It was simplistic; a short easy read, but very tight and with plenty of tidbits to think about. I would especially recommend it to a reader in his/her teens or early 20s.