I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this book. It's not a book that pulls the reader along, it's a book that you read slowly and ponder on. It's a book that kept my opinions changing throughout my reading of it. I'd think that it was beautiful and then I would think..."now why did he do that..." But to an extent, I think that this was Hesse's point.
Siddhartha is the story of a man by the name of Siddhartha who sets out to find himself. He sets out to achieve enlightenment through the teachings of the Buddha. Upon meeting the Buddha, the enlightened one, he finds that his beliefs contradict the Buddha's to an extent, so he takes his own path to enlightenment. This is where the book starts to frustrate me. The book, in my opinion becomes sort of fragmented here. He has many different experiences, which all contribute to his path to enlightenment, but some seem a little far fetched, or at least not explained enough.
For instance: He meets a young mistress by the name of Kamala who tells him that if he wants to "be with her" he has to have money and material possessions...so Siddhartha goes to work for a local rich man as a translator since he can read and write. Sure, he's giving in to material possessions and such, but he still seems to maintain this certain air of happiness about him...a zen mentality. Then all of a sudden, he's gambling away all of his money and he's depressed and suicidal and it literally comes out of nowhere. I kept looking to see if there were pages stuck together that I missed.
There were a few little parts like this in the book that bugged me, where I thought that Hesse could've went into depth a little further, but over all, it was a beautiful book that focuses on the essence of self realization...the journey of discovering what life is about, what matters in life, and how everything fits together.
First read for the Classics Challenge. I'd say it's off to a decent start.
