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Title: Siddhartha

Author: Hermann Hesse

Narrator: Ron Welch

Format: Unabridged

Length: 5 hrs and 10 mins

Language: English

Release date: 01-22-18

Publisher: Bassett Publishing

Ratings: 5 of 5 out of 7 votes

Genres: Religion & Spirituality, Buddhism & Eastern Religions

Publisher's Summary:

Perhaps Hermann Hesse's most influential and acclaimed work, Siddhartha is a Nobel Prize-winning work originally published in 1922. The protagonist for whom the book is named lives with his father in ancient India and by all accounts is a faithful and devout son. However, he finds himself "going through the motions" so to speak and longs for a deeper meaning and purpose. One day, as he is traveling, Samanas passes through town preaching the enlightenment of asceticism, a rejection of physical desire. Siddhartha and his best friend, Govinda, against Siddhartha's father's wishes, join the Samanas to see what they can learn from them. Siddhartha struggles to make peace with his new lifestyle and eventually leaves Govinda in search of true spiritual enlightenment. A tale of friendship and self-understanding, Siddhartha is considered one of the most thought-provoking works of all time.

Members Reviews:

Perfect - except the Kindle edition is okay

Yes, the Kindle edition has some typos and translation issues, but these are the sorts of issues that are par for the course reading translated texts, you can certainly get the overall gist of the story. It's an acceptable edition.

Siddhartha is beautifully written, and worth reading. It's essentially a collection of essays, each trying to explain and illustrate concepts of Buddhist thought. The first story stands alone, and is as close to perfectas literature gets. The short version of the story is that a young boy named Siddhartha is trying to learn to lead a more perfect life, and after many trials and tribulations he comes to meet a mystic by the name of Gautama. For anyone who doesn't know, Siddhartha Gautama is the full name of the Buddha. This story serves as a biography for how the young Siddhartha came to be the Buddha, while at the same time serving as a metaphor for how people of the time- or indeed you as the reader- can come to understand the Buddha and his teachings. From that description alone you should be able to see all the layers in this book, it's wonderful.

The book does everything right. It's a good story on its own, but it's also written in the style of Buddhist literature. There is a lot of repetition, as were present in the Buddha's own words, without getting annoying. There is adventure, metaphor, allusion, and biography. It's food for thought. Anyone worried about this sounding overly religious or hokey need not worry- the stories here are just as powerful if you read them in a perfectly secular way where the Buddha was just a wise man and not any kind of deity.

As someone who's advanced in Buddhist/Zen thought myself, the message of the opening chapter is absolutely perfect. This continues through the book. If you want a play-by-play for exactly what "Englightenment" is supposed to be, how to attain it and how to live with it, the first story is one of the best examples I've ever read. I'd almost go so far as to say that you can't read the first chapter without "getting it"- it's just too perfect of a description of what Enlightenment is- but human beings have an amazing ability to miss the point.

So this book is great prose in and of itself, read as pure fiction it's lovely. As a biography of the Buddha and his travels, it's light on detail but rich in imagery.