Customer Reviews

Siddharta (Spanish Edition)

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Hermann Hesse is a Swiss Nobelist. The story commences with
conversations between Siddharta and Govinda who are friends.
Siddharta grows to become a learned person amongst the Brahmins.
The love of his parents, knowledge passed down from posterity and
time in the local community are not enough for Siddharta. He routinely practices meditation near a banyan tree. Siddharta makes a pact to go into the forest. If he succeeds in finding bliss as a Samana, he will return to teach the experiences gained in absentia. If he becomes dis-illusioned, he will return to offer special sacrifices.

Siddharta began his journey stripped of worldly possessions. He
entered the forest with only a loin cloth and an unstitched cloak. He spent time fasting to become empty of thirst, desire,
dreams, pleasure and sorrows. The experiential domain of this
exercise was supposed to lead him to purity of mind and thought.
Ultimately, Siddharta came to a realization that knowledge can be communicated but not wisdom. Wisdom only comes with the experiential aspect of life's tribulations. The book provides an important lesson on Eastern philosophical and religious thought.
The contents will be appreciated by philosophers, religionists
and literary experts everywhere.

Hesse's tale of a young Brahmin's son about to embark on the adventure of life is a wonderfully simple and concise story - it is a parable about the struggle of life, and has a wonderfully optimistic message.

Hesse's strengths as an author lie in the way he imbues a strong narrative with a dual meaning - one comes away with the impression of having read a good book, but at the same time with the realisation that the story was merely a framework on which Hesse has hung a touching spiritual tract.

A great book that had me completely subjective to the storyline, into the journey of Siddhartha and the many other characters: his childhood friend - Govinda, his father, his later lover - Kamala, his son, his acquaintance with the Buddha, his friend and teacher - Vasudeva the ferryman and others.

It's a very interesting story of a spiritual seeker who at the very end of the novel manifests his enlightenment, as his childhood friend, Govinda, experiences. The journey of spiritual seeking, of learning and taking in knowledge, of asceticism, of sexuality and love, of power seeking and money making, of both poor homelessness and luxuriant living and its eventual culmination, the outcome of the spiritual enlightenment: the subjective experience beyond all knowledge and teachings, transcending all the relative and transitory existence into a unity of Being.

Now it's the way Hesse writes and his descriptive and artistic style that weigh his story of the enlightened soul and I found it outstanding. Similar to his other book, Journey to the East, the story leads up to the final outcome, the ending of the novel, the last chapter, explains what can not be explained culminating from the entire story line.

The story itself depends on the readers individual experiential spiritual seeking and both external and internal search. The external eventually leads to the internal where all lies in mystical experience and the internal and personal spiritual development.

I can't help but continue visualizing the last scene of the book with the sudden flash of Siddhartha's translucent smiling face overseeing the realm of multifaceted relativity in its complete unity under the mystical kiss of Govinda on Siddhartha's farhead and his perceived subjectivity of consciousness and marvel at Hesse's attempted descriptive undertaking of the Nirvana and subjective experience. What an awesome attempt to convey such a non-thing and Hesse is a great and unique writer.

wow. Being a prolific reader, I thought I could finish this small (relatively) book in under two hours. Well, more than six years have passed since I first read it, and my thoughts keep coming back to Sidhartha and how he found his way to himself - a man's true profession. This book will require you to search within for an understanding of yourself. This was the fist book of Herman Hesse that i read and since then I have read Steppenwof, demian, and Narcissus and Goldmund. All great books that force you to seach for meanings within your life through the experiences of the characters in the book. But Sidhartha is the best of the lot. The journey by Sidhartha from his place to the river where he discovers himself is worth reading.

In Siddharta, Hesse manages something that the greatest metaphysicians could not: he concretizes a metaphysical system into a life lived. In other words, he presents the possibility of LIVING a metaphysical position. It's the story of one man's encounter with Being, his experiments with beings, and his eventual return to the One- represented by the Heraclitean image of a river, which always remains but is always changing, and into which you can step but once.

I had read "Demian" by Hesse several years ago, and did not care for it. But I thought I would give him another try and picked up this book. I couldn't have made a better decision. This book has changed my life in ways, well, you only read about. Hesse gives a wonderful story about Siddharta from his earlier days through his old age. The book is a very quick, easy read. It makes the reader think about his/her own life in ways never before imagined.

Very... but very bad edition... if this books costs me 1 cent I would feel swindled.
Don't get me wrong, this Hermann Hesse book is good, the bad here is the edition. I think I'll use this for my BBQ.

Update: Curious to see how those 5 stats reviews doesn't show the users purchased the book. They are paid reviews for sure.

Hesse transforma esta maravillosa e imponente historia de un hombre que sigue su propio camino para llegar a su verdad. Es un balsamo espiritual de existencialismo que toda persona debe leer como un clasico, para comprender los dilemas de nuestro dolor y destino...que al final de cuentas, segun Siddharta...todo se compensa en esta vida.

Siddharta is a sort of story which one finds very close to heart. One feels the same passions and temptations which were faced by the Barhimans son. Hermann Hesse really excels when Siddharta is cofronted with Buddha and that portion is the high light of this masterpiece.

if you think this is great, read steppenwolf