In the midst of cleaning up my vast book collection, mostly
on my e-reader, I managed to finish the tale of Siddhartha, a fairly small
novel.
I’ve chosen it, because it fitted into my centennial
challenge which needs completion, since I’m longing for a brand new challenge.
I didn’t know what to expect, although the cover gave me some hint it might be
spiritual, as the Buddha is the main adornment.
Siddhartha is also the name of the man we follow in this
novel. He’s the son of a Brahman, in the caste-sensitive India, and is destined
to become a Brahman himself.
Brahmins
were traditionally responsible for religious rituals in temples, as
intermediaries between temple deities and devotees, as well as rite of passage
rituals such as solemnizing a wedding with hymns and prayers.
Siddharta
tries many forms of religion to find enlightenment in his life, in which his
experiences all sum up to be necessary to become the person he wants to become.
He
leaves his safe existence of following into his father’s footsteps and becoming
a Brahman himself. Trying an ascetic lifestyle, listening to teaching, being
taught in the game of the flesh between man and woman, even earning riches and
playing dice, he goes through life living different lives which gives him the
enlightenment he hadn’t searched for.
This
novel is quickly read, as it is both entertaining and very well written. No
words were wasted with this novel, which is exactly the charm of Siddhartha. Seeking enlightenment and
wisdom can quickly become irksome, as ideas tend to be indefinite in meaning as
words are woven. Hermann Hesse accomplished in my opinion all he wanted to say
in as few words possible, which gave their meaning a stark beauty.
The
novel in a whole is also very rounded. It had a beginning, a definable progress
towards the end, where the character may have find the bliss he needed, even if
it came in different form as he had anticipated. With many novels depicting
Indian characters, their simultaneous love and distance for each other strikes
me as a beautiful. Their lovemaking is more intense because partly because of
their egotistical behavior they need it to strengthen their bonds, which makes
me reflect that in our society of ‘for better or worse’, we have lost a few
things in the fire.
I would very much recommend it to anyone who seeks to enlighten themselves with some very true Indian wisdom. I might not have found Nirvana just yet, but I do feel I might have inched closer.
