Siddhartha

I’m still not sure that I fully understand Siddhartha.  It’s all about Buddhism and Hinduism and finding the right path to enlightenment; that much I get.  But it’s one of those books that make me feel that a little prior knowledge of the subject would have improved my enjoyment of it no end. 

Hermann Hesse wrote this in 1922 and it amazes me that someone from a Western background really got Indian culture back then.  It might sound naïve, but I’m so used to books of the period telling the story of colonisation from the colonisers’ point-of-view. So it is refreshing to read someone who clearly bothered to study and understand another culture rather than attempting to impose his own on the natives.  The book doesn’t actually deal with colonisation at all; it’s fully about Indian culture, unaffected by the West.

The tale is ostensibly, a simple one; Siddhartha and his best mate Govinda leave home on a spiritual quest.  After spending some quality forest time with the super strict samanas, it becomes clear that the pair disagree on how best to reach nirvana, as a result Siddhartha leaves to re-join society.  Over the years he becomes a rich and comfortable merchant with an almost functional relationship with a courtesan, Kamala.  Again he decides this is not the life for him, abandons his wealth and the (now pregnant) Kamala to return to poverty and true peace.  He runs into Govinda a couple of times along the way who as a monk is as unchanging as Siddhartha is fickle.  Govinda is chronically unable to recognise his old friend and the two have banter about philosophy and enlightenment. 

I feel that my summary of the novel is somewhat incomplete.  As I mentioned previously, there is a lot in here about Buddhism and Hinduism that I’m just slightly ignorant of.  Unfortunately, my school’s idea of religious education was Christianity with a disclaimer that there are other religions available.  What I do know is that Siddhartha was the original name of the Buddha and that he too left home young, renouncing his not inconsiderable wealth, to follow the samanas.  I remember reading somewhere that at one point he trained his body to be able to survive on one grain of rice a day; fictional Siddhartha never quite manages this, but he does learn the power of starvation.  I’m sure that the religious arguments each of the characters make are equally grounded in proper religion, but I don’t know which school of thought comes from where.  And I’m sure that knowing these things, while not essential to my understanding, did impact upon my enjoyment of Hesse’s book.

Siddhartha is a good book.  It’s wonderfully advanced in its attitude for its time, and that alone makes me want to read more Hesse.  The story is alright, if predictable.  It’s the religion that must, for some, make this book.  It’s a shame that I don’t know more as that became a barrier to engaging with the various religious arguments and in turn the book itself.  I know the basics of Buddhism: the wheel and the reincarnations, and nirvana.  I don’t know the ins and outs of the best path to enlightenment.  I wasn’t even really aware that it was a thing that could be disagreed upon (it seems like a rather un-enlightened thing to do) and my view of the novel suffered for it. 

My next read is the marvellous The Iron Heel by Jack London.  Spoiler: it’s marvellous.