What is nirvana? What is the purpose of life? What is the purpose of the universe? What is the purpose of mortality?
Raised in wealth and religion - young Siddhartha serves as a model of excellence, piety, aesthetics and purity. With him is his friend Govinda who desires to be this excellent body's shadow and nothing more. To his parents Siddhartha is the guru of all discipline and virtue. To others around him Siddhartha is praised for his virtues and dedication.
But this is not enough for young Siddhartha. To be praised and loved is fruitful and welcomed but what of the waging heart that strives to learn of truth, destiny and meanings of life - what of existence in itself?
He begins a pilgrimage to find the truth and the Self to which Govinda accompanies him. He believes he might find this road in the models of the ascetic but is it enough? Would he find it in sexual abstinence? Or with sexual exploration? Will he find it in wealth? Will he find it in wandering? Will he find it in wealth? Will he find it in death? Or, will he find it in the very redefinition of life itself?
Siddhartha is a novel that dares to explore life. Hermann Hesse does not delete or censure nor does he complicate or oversimplify - the quest for truth is beautifully orchestrated in the poetic and simple verse that is his prose. The art of the novel lies in how the life story of such a wise man is explicitly portrayed without prejudice or judgments. What happened has happened and Hesse merely demonstrates the beauty of variations, of the diversities of life be it with Siddhartha or the ones adjacent to his. Every character aids our protagonist but not in the traditional expectations of the hero model. None are wasted as caricatures but are impregnated with philosophies which merge with Siddhartha's heart either for taking or for forsaking.
The novel illustrates the potencies of life and its truth. It speaks of perseverance and patience but also of restlessness, despair and anger but of all hope as well. It deals with abandonment and of attainment but also what we consider extraordinary and ordinary. And Hesse does this with a beautiful talent of making the reader feel that she/he is with Siddhartha and journeying in this pilgrimage for meanings and nirvana.
It is a novel meant to enlighten and educate. It goes to extremities and also to balance. It shows beauty but also ugliness. It promotes youth but also the olden spheres of life. To read Siddhartha is to read life ad it raises itself and/or descends in a tempo of illusions and reality. How life heals or betrays and how it might evoke great sadness or euphoria transcendental of all emotions.
(image: Amazon.com)
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