Name: Vojtech's review of Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
Item: Siddhartha
Rating: 5
Author: Vojtech

Hermann Hesse

Siddhartha (first published in 1922) is a novel based on the early life of Buddha, inspired by the author's visit to India before the First World War. The novel is about the young Brahmin Siddhartha's search for self- realization. His quest takes him from a life of decadence to asceticism, from the illusory joys of sensual love with a beautiful courtesan, and of wealth and fame, to the painful struggles with his son and the ultimate wisdom of renunciation.Siddhartha (first published in 1922) is a novel based on the early life of Buddha, inspired by the author's visit to India before the First World War. The novel is about the young Brahmin Siddhartha's search for self- realization. His quest takes him from a life of decadence to asceticism, from the illusory joys of sensual love with a beautiful courtesan, and of wealth and fame, to the painful struggles with his son and the ultimate wisdom of renunciatio

(illusatrated Edition)

Siddhartha

Herman Hesse

Herman Hesse's classic novel has delighted, inspired, and influenced generations of readers, writers, and thinkers. In this story of a wealthy Indian Brahmin who casts off a life of privilege to seek spiritual fulfillment. Hesse synthesizes disparate philosophies--Eastern religions, Jungian archetypes, Western individualism--into a unique vision of life as expressed through one man's search for true meaning.

An Indian tale

Christina Farkona

“When someone seeks," said Siddhartha, "then it easily happens that his eyes see only the thing that he seeks, and he is able to find nothing, to take in nothing because he always thinks only about the thing he is seeking, because he has one goal, because he is obsessed with his goal. Seeking means: having a goal. But finding means: being free, being open, having no goal.”

I have always believed, and I still believe, that whatever good or bad fortune may come our way we can always give it meaning and transform it into something of value.

What could I say to you that would be of value, except that perhaps you seek too much, that as a result of your seeking you cannot find.

It may be important to great thinkers to examine the world, to explain and despise it. But I think it is only important to love the world, not to despise it, not for us to hate each other, but to be able to regard the world and ourselves and all beings with love, admiration and respect.

So she thoroughly taught him that one cannot take pleasure without giving pleasure, and that every gesture, every caress, every touch, every glance, every last bit of the body has its secret, which brings happiness to the person who knows how to wake it. She taught him that after a celebration of love the lovers should not part without admiring each other, without being conquered or having conquered, so that neither is bleak or glutted or has the bad feeling of being used or misused.

Words do not express thoughts very well. they always become a little different immediately they are expressed, a little distorted, a little foolish. And yet it also pleases me and seems right that what is of value and wisdom to one man seems nonsense to another.

A book—rare in our arid age—that takes root in the heart and grows there for a lifetime. Here the spirituality of the East and the West have met in a novel that enfigures deep human wisdom with a rich and colorful imagination. Written in a prose of almost biblical simplicity and beauty, it is the story of a soul's long quest in search of he ultimate answer to the enigma of man's role on this earth. As a youth, the young Indian Siddhartha meets the Buddha but cannot be content with a disciple's role: he must work out his own destiny and solve his own doubt—a tortuous road that carries him through the sensuality of a love affair with the beautiful courtesan Kamala, the temptation of success and riches, the heartache of struggle with his own son, to final renunciation and self-knowledge. The name "Siddhartha" is one often given to the Buddha himself—perhaps a clue to Hesse's aims in contrasting the traditional legendary figure with his own conception, as a European (Hesse was Swiss), of a spiritual explorer.

Helen 

 Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, be fortified by it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it. 

He saw trees, stars, animals, clouds, rainbows, rocks, weeds, flowers, brook and river, the sparkle of dew on bushes in the morning, distant high mountains blue pale; birds sang, bees hummed, the wind blew gently across the rice fields. All this, coloured and in a thousand different forms, had always been there. The sun and moon had always shone; the rivers had always flowed and the bees had hummed, but in previous times all this had been nothing to Siddhartha but a fleeting and illusive veil before his eyes, regarded with distrust, condemned to be disregarded and ostracised from the thoughts, because it was not reality, because reality lay on the other side of the visible. 

um poema indiano : romance

Siddharta

Michal

They lacked nothing, there was nothing the knowledgeable one, the thinker, had to put him above them except for one little thing, a single, tiny, small thing: the consciousness, the conscious thought of the oneness of all life. And Siddhartha even doubted in many an hour, whether this knowledge, this thought was to be valued thus highly, whether it might not also perhaps be a childish idea of the thinking people, of the thinking and childlike people. In all other respects, the worldly people were of equal rank to the wise men, were often far superior to them, just as animals too can, after all, in some moments, seem to be superior to humans in their tough, unrelenting performance of what is necessary.

Slowly blossomed, slowly ripened in Siddhartha the realisation, the knowledge, what wisdom actually was, what the goal of his long search was. It was nothing but a readiness of the soul, an ability, a secret art, to think every moment, while living his life, the thought of oneness, to be able to feel and inhale the oneness. Slowly this blossomed in him, was shining back at him from Vasudeva's old, childlike face: harmony, knowledge of the eternal perfection of the world, smiling, oneness.

Bart Veldhuijsen 

wijsheid is nooit over te dragen. De wijsheid, die een wijze voor een ander toegankelijk probeert te maken, klinkt altijd als iets dwaas.

Hij had nog steeds een verstandiger, bezielder gezicht dan de anderen, maar lachen deed hij zelden meer, en meer en meer begon het die trekken aan te nemen, die men in het gezicht van rijke mensen zo veelvuldig vindt, die trekken van ontevredenheid, van een ongezonde levenswijze, van mismoedigheid, van traagheid, en van liefdeloosheid. Langzamerhand kreeg de ziekte van de rijke man hem in haar greep, een ziekte die de ziel aantast.

loisesya

“Wisdom cannot be imparted. Wisdom that a wise man attempts to impart always sounds like foolishness to someone else . Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate it and teach it.”

“AIl the waves and water hastened, suffering, towards goals, many goals, to the waterfall, to the sea, to the current, to the ocean, and all goals were reached and each one was succeeded by another. The water changed to vapour and rose, became rain and came down again, became spring, brook and river, changed anew, flowed anew. But the yearning voice had altered. It still echoed sorrowfully, searchingly, but other voices accompanied it, voices of pleasure and sorrow, good and evil voices, laughing and lamenting voices, hundreds of voices, thousands of voices.”

Vojtech

With half of a smile, with an un­waver­ing open­ness and kind­ness, Got­ama looked in­to the stranger’s eyes and bid him to leave with a hardly no­tice­able ges­ture.

“You are wise, O Samana,” the ven­er­able one spoke. “You know how to talk wisely, my friend. Be aware of too much wis­dom!”

The Buddha turned away, and his glance and half of a smile re­mained forever etched in Siddhartha’s memory.

He had star­ted to sus­pect that his ven­er­able fath­er and his oth­er teach­ers, that the wise Brah­mins had already re­vealed to him the most and best of their wis­dom, that they had already filled his ex­pect­ing ves­sel with their rich­ness, and the ves­sel was not full, the spir­it was not con­tent, the soul was not calm, the heart was not sat­is­fied.

Siddhartha, 1953 im Suhrkamp Verlag erstmals erschienen und fur Generationen zu einem Kultbuch geworden, ist die Legende von der Selbstbefreiung eines jungen Menschen aus den familiaren und gesellschaftlichen Konventionen zu einem eigenstandigen Leben, ein Buch uber die Erkenntnis, daSS BewuSStsein nicht uberlieferbar ist durch Lehren, sondern nur durch eigene Erfahrung erworben werden kann. IN diesem Text sucht Hesse zu ergrunden, "was allen Konfessionen und allen menschlichen Formen der Frommigkeit gemeinsam ist, was uber allen nationalen Verschiedenheiten steht, was von jeder Rasse und von jedem Einzelnen geglaubt werden kann".

eine indische Dichtung

Josephina Lucke

Blends elements of psychoanalysis and Asian religions to probe an Indian aristocrat's efforts to renounce sensual and material pleasures and discover ultimate spiritual truths.

An Indian Poem

Lindy B

This was constantly referred to me as something along the lines of That Buddhism Novel but really it's so Christian it's not even funny.

roman

Ubeyd Gencer

"Arama bir amaci olmak demektir.Bulmaksa,ozgur olmak,disa acik bulunmak,hicbir amaci olmamak" hayatin tamamina farkli bir pencereden bakan bir eser.

read this in a gasping gulp, so well written & so profound. here to learn & love, truly 🪻

farro

An incredible read... love is the most important thing

egle trovato

Laura Mauler

Probably 1.5 stars, but we round up in my family. 

Just not my cup of tea.

Blends elements of psychoanalysis and Asian religions to probe an Indian aristocrat's efforts to renounce sensual and material pleasures and discover ultimate spiritual truths

Arya Bhushan

The book is written in many long, but poetic, proses. It did take me some time to adjust to Hesse's writing style, but once I did, I couldn't help but love the way he wrote.

rakshu

no words will ever be able to describe how beautiful and meaningful this book is

Siddhartha, a young man, leaves his family for a contemplative life, then, restless, discards it for one of the flesh. He conceives a son, but bored and sickened by lust and greed, moves on again.

Traci Wilbanks

A short book that says so much. 
I will definitely read it again in a few years

Wederom een groots boek van Herman Hesse. Het boek is vrij kort maar met veel inhoud. Het is ook moeilijk om te beschrijven wat het boek nu zegt, want het zegt heel veel. Het boek gaat ook over jezelf vinden en loslaten van dingen. Dit is zeker een aanrader

José Saramago

um poema indiano

Erik Wallace

Jacob Medure

This book is one of the books I feel like everyone should read. Similar to Pualo Coelho's Alchemist, but much more profound, this book artistically tells the story of enlightenment. The punchline here is that many lessons in life are only derived through experience, despite what you may have learned without experience. After reading, I feel as though that just may be the key to life, to live it.

heleen de boever

Faith Ho 

"But one cannot love words. Therefore teachings are if no use to me; they have no hardness, no softness, no colours, no corners, no smell, no taste - they have nothing but words. Perhaps that is what prevents you from finding peace, perhaps there are too many words [...]"

Slightly ironic, given this is a book. But - not really ironic. A man's journey to nirvana and the spiritual insights he has along the way. And yet it isn't an epic; he doesn't travel very far, there aren't exciting extreme circumstances - rather it is a careful process of psychological and spiritual development. 

There're probably debates over its literary or intellectual merits, but what I can say, and why the quote isn't really ironic is: it touched something in me. Perhaps that's why I read, to experience, for a ephemeral moment, of something beyond "my reality". A thirst for finding that "something" that Siddhartha starts off with, and eventually finds; but that perhaps the rest of us will spend our lives, and may never achieve. This book leaves much for me to think about, but also the contradictory point that thinking is not the way to things; knowing not just with intellect (here I admit I am often tired of thinking; because my thoughts eat themselves up, a negation, exaggerate and yet extinguish everything)- "finding means: to be free, to be receptive, to have no goal."

"And if time is not real, then the dividing line that seems to lie between the world and eternity, between suffering and bliss, between good and evil, is also an illusion [...] his future is already there [...] to leave [the world] as it is, to love it, and to be glad to belong to it."

An incredible piece of fiction about a man who sets out on a spiritual journey to discover a higher state of being. I originally left this book on hold, but after giving it another go, I couldn’t put it down. The last few chapters were thought-provoking, particularly when it touches on misaligned values and fate. It’s beautifully written, the poetic style and imagery made it easy to appreciate.

Aakankaha Dwivedi

"The purpose and essential properties were not somewhere behind the things, they were in them, in everything."

The classic novel of a quest for knowledge that has delighted, inspired, and influenced generations of readers, writers, and thinkers. Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read Though set in a place and time far removed from the Germany of 1922, the year of the book’s debut, the novel is infused with the sensibilities of Hermann Hesse’s time, synthesizing disparate philosophies–Eastern religions, Jungian archetypes, Western individualism–into a unique vision of life as expressed through one man’s search for meaning. It is the story of the quest of Siddhartha, a wealthy Indian Brahmin who casts off a life of privilege and comfort to seek spiritual fulfillment and wisdom. On his journey, Siddhartha encounters wandering ascetics, Buddhist monks, and successful merchants, as well as a courtesan named Kamala and a simple ferryman who has attained enlightenment. Traveling among these people and experiencing life’s vital passages–love, work, friendship, and fatherhood–Siddhartha discovers that true knowledge is guided from within. Susan Bernofsky’s magnificent translation brings out Hesse’s inspired lyricism and his elegant, melodious cadences, illuminating the novel’s universal themes and timeless wisdom about the human condition. This original Modern Library edition includes a lively new Introduction by Tom Robbins and a glossary of Indian terms.

Vishwa

Interesting read, but not life-changing. Spurred a bit of thought in the realm of what internal happiness is.

It's clear that Hesse derived from his eastern endeavors, and then melded it with western philosophy (stoicism mostly), so this was a cool read to understand that landscape.

This edition has a NEW introduction by PAULO COELHO. Siddhartha is perhaps the most important and compelling moral allegory our troubled century has produced. Integrating Eastern and Western spiritual traditions with psychoanalysis and philosophy, this strangely simple tale, written with a deep and moving empathy for humanity, has touched the lives of millions since its original publication in 1922. Set in India, Siddhartha is the story of a young Brahmin's search for ultimate reality after meeting with the Buddha. His quest takes him from a life of decadence to asceticism, from the illusory joys of sensual love with a beautiful courtesan, and of wealth and fame, to the painful struggles with his son and the ultimate wisdom of renunciation

Ben Jenkins

Siddhartha meninggalkan keluarganya untuk hidup sebagai samana, namun jiwanya tidak menemukan kedamaian, dan dia pun pergi untuk menjalani kehidupan duniawi. Seorang anak terlahir untuknya, tetapi ini pun tidak menenteramkan hatinya, dan dia kembali mengembara. Dalam keadaan nyaris putus asa, Siddharta sampai di tepi sungai dan bertemu dengan Vasudeva si tukang perahu. Pertemuan ini menjadi awal kehidupannya yang baru––awal dari penderitaan, penolakan, kedamaian, dan akhirnya, kebijaksanaan.

Stef

Akhirnya bisa nyelesain buku ini setelah 2 bulan lebih belum sempat baca lagi. Well,, Siddhartha menceritakan perjalanan hidup Siddhartha muda mencari OM (Kesempurnaan : arti harfifah di bukunya). Dalam perjalanan awalnya dia di temani sahabatnya govindha mengikuti hidup para samana, akhirnya di tinggal govindha yang bertemu dengan Gauttama,, orang yang dianggap suci dan memiliki ajaran kebenaran,, diperjalanan selanjutnya siddhartha mengalami banyak pergolakan sampai dia mendapat arti OM itu sendiri. 

Ini merupakan karya Hermann Hesse pertama kali ku baca. Plot cerita yang lambat dan narasi yang panjang khas karya-karya classic pada umumnya kadang membuat baca agak lama dan bosen di tengah cerita.

Cerita nya sendiri berisi banyak petuah dan filsafat hidup yang berapa banyak ada di kehidupan sehari-hari, namun masih sulit untuk dimengerti.

Overall, aku kasih 3,5 bintang buat ceritanya yang sarat makna dan banyak kutipan-kutipanya membangun. Recomen buat pembaca yang mencari bacaan spritual yang tak berkesan menggurui (In my opinion). 

"Tak ada satu pun ajaran yang bisa diterima seseorang yang benar-benar mencari, yang benar-benar menemukan. Tetapi dia yang sudah menemukan ia bisa menyetujui ajaran apapun, semua jalan, semua tujuan".

Abigaël Chevillard 

Izza

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.

This book is extremely relevant and reflective. I recommend to anyone in a time of big life changes 

Eliana

Vanessa Arenas

I had heard so much about this book. That it was amazing, that it was a must read, but also that it was too philosophical, slow, too dense, and more. I am a page turner type of book lover so no dense books for me please. I went into it a little skeptical but, its only about 200 pages, so how bad can it be? The veredict: It's magic! ♥️ This book is art. This book is pure, beautiful magic. It is not dense, it is actually a very simple story of Siddhartha who is looking to find the truth of life and beautifully finds it, in himself. It teacher you to love life with all that it comes with. It is one of those books you will think of many times after you read it and that will give you life lessons and will change your life. 5/5 review! .

Who wouldn't want to escape the circle of suffering? 

 is my personal favorite. Each time I re-read it I feel close to different part of the main character's journey.

Lets hope that when I read this book again at the end of my life I will find enlightenment just as 

Who wouldn't want to escape the circle of suffering? Siddhartha is my personal favorite. Each time I re-read it I feel close to different part of the main character's journey.

Lets hope that when I read this book again at the end of my life I will find enlightenment just as Siddhartha found his own at the of the book.

Vojtech &
Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse

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