Siddhartha - Herman Hesse

The first book in my batch that I picked up to read - it was a really fast read, but one of the most worthwhile things I've read in a long time.

I'm not really going to try and ruin it for anyone who hasn't read it, but basically, it details the life of a man who shares the name with the Buddha (Siddhartha), not of Siddhartha Gautama himself, who plays a large part in the book but is referred to only by his last name.

Siddhartha goes from being the son of a priest, to a wandering monk, to a salesman enthralled in sex, wine, and gambling, and finally to being a poorman at peace and unified with the world around him.

I think what really hit home with me is that Hesse's Siddhartha portrays the process of learning and discovery in a way that doesn't set a teacher as someone superior to the pupil, and that human emotion isn't a barrier to discovery and doesn't prevent one from reaching the sublime.

The only point of irony was that everything in the book happened so fast, seemed such a fluid process, when really it details a single tumultuous life that was long and arduous at times for the person living it - it makes me think about the fact that everything really is transient, that everyone's life is heading towards something, but they spend so much time trying to focus on the road ahead or the road behind that they neglect to realize that the scenery is part of the journey.

Quotes:

• "It is not my place to judge the life of another! Only for myself, for myself alone must I judge, must I choose, must I decline."
• "This too I have learned from the river: Everything returns!"
• "Writing is good, thinking is better. Cleverness is good, patience is better."
• "Do you really believe you have committed your follies so that your son may be spared them?"
• "I would rather be a bandit and a murderer and go to hell than to be like you! I hate you; you are not my father, even if you were my mother's lover ten times over!"
• "The world...is not imperfect, not to be seen as on a slow path toward perfection: No, it is perfect in every moment, all transgression already bears grace within itself, all children already have the aged in themselves, all sucklings death, all the dying eternal life."