Customer Reviews

Siddhartha

5 star:		(64)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(22)

 

 

The layout and cover are beautifully done. Hesse's book is a masterpiece. The translation also has a kind of poetry that I suspect is close to the German, however there are a fair number grammatical errors or typos in this edition - it seems they used spell check so the typos aren't obvious, but I can't go more than a few paragraphs without having to read a sentence a few times to figure out which word was left out or spell-checked into the wrong word. 'Learned' becomes 'Leaned', 'that' becomes 'That', 'ice' becomes 'icy', 'breaths' becomes 'breathes', commas break sentences in ways that unintentionally change meaning, etc... These are just some examples from a few pages chosen at random. This problem is consistent throughout the book. There is even an instance where a question left by the translator, in German, is sitting IN THE TEXT in a sentence, which is just absurd.

I read this book when I was 19. I am now 51. Having just discovered Amazon Books, I was "surfing" and searching out titles that came to memory. I also read the lyrical version in German in those now distant days, and spent much time looking for "Suleika", or "Zuleika". It brought me great peace of mind at that time, as I had to interrupt my college days in order to enter the Army and go to Vietnam. The book reads like the flowing river, and is in some ways an eternal story of search for meaning in life and realization. Like Sidhartha our search for meaning often ends at the beginning. Ultimately, we return to the basic and simple truths that were there when we were born. Growing up is a kind of struggle. Sidhartha is a story of idealism and virtue that survives ignorance, futility and evil. If in the end, we retain that idealism, our lives can be heroic and our conscience pure. Sometimes, I remember and recall the words: "From Sidhartha to Sidhartha is my coming and my going." It is a book of haunting beauty and depth of meaning. W. H. L./Bellevue

Siddhartha

I highly recommend this book but not this translation. The awkward sentence structures and many typographic errors get in the way of the reading. This is a story which should flow and unfold not stutter and stammer.

This is truly a great book, but the translation of the free version is awkward and painful. I suspect that the volunteer(s) knew German very well, but their English was like that of a foreign exchange student on his first day in America. I read it all the way through, but would gladly pay a few bucks for a professional translation if I were to do it again.

Several years ago when I first read Siddhartha I did so as part of a search for understanding the elements of Eastern spirituality. The book was mentioned in a surprising collection of other authors during that zeitgeist which is how I lost my original copy: borrowed and not returned! The recent replacement copy of Siddhartha sent to me through Amazon,however seemed to be an unedited and oddly formatted (margins inconsistent)piece of literature. There were grammar errors and odd translations that distracted from the text. A German word had been put in English form with parentheses and a question mark, for example. There was no publication date that could trace the authorship. Was this a bootleg?

There are multiple versions of this listed. The version I'm reviewing against has built-in line breaks all throughout, which causes the book to be broken strangely when reading on the Kindle or iPhone. Unless you use the absolute smallest font (and landscape orientation on the iPhone), you will have full lines alternating with lines of 1-2 words.

If buying on Kindle - be sure to get a free preview first, to be sure you're not getting the badly paginated version!

This edition of the classic Siddhartha is beautifully presented, and the translation of this version of the timeless story is deeply moving. I have read this book over and over, and will read it over and over again!

I teach high school English and ordered this version for my classes because of the low price and the promise of a glossary. I regret my choice and am looking for a new version to replace this one. I don't care for this translation (although I can only compare it to other translations and not the original). I have study guides and tests that I'd made using different versions of the text, and I can't find the answers to many of the questions in this text although I can in other texts. So while I don't know exactly what the problem is, I found this version to have awkward wording and be more difficult for my students to understand that others I have used.

This translation attempts to modernize the phrasing of the book. Lots of contractions and the use of words like "gaga" as in he went gaga. All that is accomplished is that the power of the words has been dissipated. The story is there, and that's wonderful, but the power of the language has been drained away. Try another translation -- you will be glad you did!

Siddhartha is a philosophical novel about one man's quest for spiritual enlightenment. The story takes place about 500 BC in India. Siddhartha, the son of a Hindu Brahmin, groomed to become a Brahmin himself, turns his back on the teachings of his father and leaves his village to search for inner peace. He renounces all worldly possessions and joins the samanas, ascetic mendicants who live in the forest. Siddhartha then meets Gotama, the Buddha, but ultimately decides to seek his own path rather than follow the Buddha's teachings. At this point Siddhartha turns his back on his thoughtful life of fasting and meditation, and begins a worldly life of lust and greed. Though the meaning of life continues to elude Siddhartha, and he finds each new lifestyle to be inadequate to answer his metaphysical questions, along the way he learns something valuable from each stage of his journey, and this accumulation of knowledge and experience advances him step by step on the path towards enlightenment.

Hermann Hesse is a masterful writer who deservedly won the Nobel Prize in 1946. Many of his novels revolve around the quest for knowledge and wisdom, yet all differ greatly in their setting and tone. Siddhartha is written in deceptively simple prose. It reads almost like a fairy tale, yet Hesse's economy of words masks a rich depth of philosophical insight and spiritual understanding. It is a very short novel, easy to read, and accessible to readers of all levels from junior high to PhD, though the deeper philosphical concepts may escape younger readers. Due to its brevity and the inherent ambiguity in its spiritual subject matter, this novel can be enjoyed again and again, with new discoveries made in each rereading. It provides a good introduction to the philosphy of eastern religions, Hinduism and Buddhism in particular, though one may also recognize in the text elements from schools of western philosophical thought like pantheism, stoicism, and cynicism (in the Greek sense of the word). But a big part of the message of the novel is that enlightenment cannot be reached by labeling movements or perusing texts. One can only find inner peace by living life, by experiencing. Wisdom can be learned but cannot be taught. For those engaged in their own quest, this book does not provide a treasure map with a big red X where lie all the answers to your metaphysical queries. It's more like one solitary signpost along a winding path, with a simple arrow pointing the way.