A review by pinkblingd
Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse

slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

Siddhartha is an inquisitive and privileged young man born into a Brahmin family.  He goes through the motions of his pre-built pious lifestyle with a dissatisfaction building inside him; how can these men claim to know the secrets of life when they are rarely happy? Is there a god? The sacrifices and incantations are impressive but is that all? And so he leaves his home with his loyal friend Govinda to learn the truth about life — from here, I absolutely start hating Siddhartha. 

So, begins the journey of a privileged, eloquent, arrogant, literate man seeking answers with free rides and meals — yes, I get that's the path of a seaker and I'm all for it. But I have read a monk's story, just the one yes, and absolutely no one gets all these opportunities/meals easily. Seems like the author either does not understand monkhood or, more likely, he was highlighting Siddhartha's skill in persuading people, finding opportunities, and getting by. Siddhartha is even surprised at one point when he realises that not everyone can read and write. But to be fair, that's Siddhartha's journey, I guess I just would have preferred a smarter protagonist with love and compassion to get through such a book. 

Siddhartha learns from the samanas and later travels to meet the Buddha, it's set in that timeline, yes. While his heart is filled with love for Buddha, he has come to believe that nothing good comes from learning second hand. Words cannot convey what enlightenment feel like. To truly attain enlightenment, one has to trek to nirvana on their own.  I'm all for this but pages 40 to 119 I absolutely hated the protagonist and I sometimes had to read a paragraph over 5 times cause I could not stop rolling my eyes and I lost track of what I had read. 🙈

The last 40 pages are definitely beautiful, intelligent, and delivers the wisdom the book promised. I'm just not sure I needed to go through so much to get there — I mean, sure we all live in the chaos of samsara BUT I just don't relate to Siddhartha with his lack of compassion, love, respect and most importantly, disdain for everyone around him. 

Another reason to hate him is his very inconsistent perspectives — sometimes the people in the society are 'child-like' and 'fearful'. Otherwise times he is 'childlike' and 'wise'. This happened so many times! And the Brahmin identity — goes off and then it's there again. 

And the way women are written (just two in the whole book, BTW). Even if it's Siddhartha's perspectives when he was in his asshole phase, there's no attempt to remedy the way women, women's 'lust' and 'greed' and woman's aging body is written. 

The last 40 pages pacified me and directed my thoughts to much calmer places and places I was hoping this book would lead me to.