Siddharta by Hermann Hesse

[irinmisfit92]

Due to some circumstances, my friend and I have to rush in guiding and helping this guy in writing his literature essay. Is there anyone here who can help us give some helpful pointers in Siddharta by Hermann Hesse? I would be very grateful.

Another friend of mine mentioned that it's a great book, but right now he is unable to help me summarize Siddharta as he's busy with school.

[PeterL]

Due to some circumstances, my friend and I have to rush in guiding and helping this guy in writing his literature essay. Is there anyone here who can help us give some helpful pointers in Siddharta by Hermann Hesse? I would be very grateful.

Another friend of mine mentioned that it's a great book, but right now he is unable to help me summarize Siddharta as he's busy with school.

I don't remember much of it, but Hesse has been very popular, but i don't know why. Read it and you might get something from it.

[irinmisfit92]

I don't remember much of it, but Hesse has been very popular, but i don't know why. Read it and you might get something from it.

I probably will but then my friend and I need to rush so that's why I posted this thread. She has read the book but it would be great if someone can also point out the important themes in the book, so that we can help the other guy faster. He needs to get it done in less than two weeks.

[PeterL]

Try searching. There must be some enthusiast who has posted an essay about it. It isn't as popular as some of his other books; there must be tons of stuff about Steppenwolf.

[stlukesguild]

Steppenwolf was read here at LitNet as part of some group discussion. You would probably just need to do a little search on it. It was one of my favorite books just out of high-school, although I prefer the Glass-bead Game now.

[Big Dante]

One key point is he seperated himself from the teachers and traditions to embark upon his own successful spiritual journey. It shows more freedom within religion, that you can still believe in the same ideals as another but live out life in a very different manner with the intention of reaching the same goal.

[Des Essientes]

You should be careful and note that Hesse's Siddharta is not the same person as the historical buddha, who also shares the first name Siddharta. The historical buddha was from the warrior caste while Hesse's Siddharta is from the priestly caste. Hesse even has his Siddharta meet the historical one at one point in the book.

[Darcy88]

Steppenwolf was read here at LitNet as part of some group discussion. You would probably just need to do a little search on it. It was one of my favorite books just out of high-school, although I prefer the Glass-bead Game now.

Steppenwolf was one of the first serious literary works I ever read and it remains to this day one of my favourites. The Glass Bead Game is pretty good too, I think that's the one that garnered him a Nobel Prize.

[Raven Falcon.]

Steppenwolf was one of the first serious literary works I ever read and it remains to this day one of my favourites. The Glass Bead Game is pretty good too, I think that's the one that garnered him a Nobel Prize.
Siddharta is a didactic book.

The plot is straightforward.

[WICKES]

I remember it being very beautiful. Hesse referred to it as "my Indic poem" and that is how it reads- like an extended, meditative prose-poem. It is typical Hesse really: like so many of his novels it features a central character who is very much his own man, a true individualist (Hesse was v influenced by Nietzsche and Jung) struggling towards growth and enlightenment. Like all Hesse's novels there is an undercurrent of melancholy- not nihilism or despair or desperation but a strange, almost pleasant, melancholy.

I read pretty much all his novels in my 20s (except the glass bead game) and this emphasis on the need to be an individual, to be your own person, affected me a lot. I think Hesse can really teach you what it means to be a man (much more than that braggart and bully Hemingway). I have no doubt that he influenced me for the better; that I wouldn't be quite the same person if I'd never read him.

I don't know if there is such a thing as a moral and immoral book. But I do believe that some works of literature can be a force for good in the world, others for evil. It makes me happy to think there are people out there reading Hesse, just as it makes me happy to think people still read Dickens.

[Emil Miller]

Yes Hesse is an interesting writer and I also went through a phase of reading him when younger, but it's some time ago since I did so and, apart from Der Steppenwolf, I had to check my bookcase to see if I had read Siddharta; which I haven't as it turns out. There is a book of short stories in German and Narziss and Goldmund and The Prodigy in English, and also Rosshalde in French. The one I remember most clearly is Der Steppenwolf, which is probably his most famous novel and well worth anyone's time.

[Darcy88]

Hesse doesn't seem to get the recognition I feel he deserves. He is never classed along with the early 20th century greats like Lawrence, Joyce, Hemingway, ect. I wonder why. I've even had a couple people, a writer and a professor, tell me they find his work underwhelming and that "there's nothing there." I've only read him in translation but his mastery of style comes across brilliantly and his writings seem to have a lot to say.

[WICKES]

Hesse doesn't seem to get the recognition I feel he deserves. He is never classed along with the early 20th century greats like Lawrence, Joyce, Hemingway, ect. I wonder why. I've even had a couple people, a writer and a professor, tell me they find his work underwhelming and that "there's nothing there." I've only read him in translation but his mastery of style comes across brilliantly and his writings seem to have a lot to say.

I get the feeling that he's considered to hover on the edge of the front rank of writers. He is kind of at the top of the second league of 20th century writers, like Somerset Maughum. Still, Bloom includes several of Hesse's books in his western canon and the guy won the nobel prize for literature so...

[Emil Miller]

I get the feeling that he's considered to hover on the edge of the front rank of writers. He is kind of at the top of the second league of 20th century writers, like Somerset Maughum. Still, Bloom includes several of Hesse's books in his western canon and the guy won the nobel prize for literature so...

Maugham would have laughed to be compared to Hesse, even though it is doubtful that Hesse even knew of Maugham. It is true though that Hesse doesn't fit into the German canon as does Thomas Mann for example, but he is undoubtedly a major figure in German literature and not to be ignored by those who seek to understand Germany's contribution to European literature per se.

[Des Essientes]

It is true though that Hesse doesn't fit into the German canon as does Thomas Mann for example, but he is undoubtedly a major figure in German literature and not to be ignored by those who seek to understand Germany's contribution to European literature per se.

Hesse surely fits into the German canon like Thomas Mann. In fact Mann saw Hesse's "The Glass Bead Game" as a novel that paralleled his own "The Magic Mountain" and if you'e ever read "The Glass Bead Game" you'd see that it is quite German in that it is so focused on organizational hierarchy and the travails of scholarship.

[Darcy88]

Hesse surely fits into the German canon like Thomas Mann. In fact Mann saw Hesse's "The Glass Bead Game" as a novel that paralleled his own "The Magic Mountain" and if you'e ever read "The Glass Bead Game" you'd see that it is quite German in that it is so focused on organizational hierarchy and the travails of scholarship.

How do Germans regard Hesse? English and French literature seem much more prominent in all the literary books, articles and discussions I take in. Is there a bias against German literature or am I just imagining things? And in used book stores, I find a wealth of French literature, lots of Hugo, Zola, Stendhal, Camus, Sarte, Proust, ect, but hardly any German. Hesse, Mann, Brecht, Goethe are the only names I frequently see.

[Des Essientes]

English and French literature seem much more prominent in all the literary books, articles and discussions I take in. Is there a bias against German literature or am I just imagining things?

One cannot say there is a bias against German literature on the Nobel Prize commitee as fully one quarter of the prizes in the last dozen years have been awarded to people writing in German. (Herta Müller in 2009, Elfriede Jelinek in2004, and Günter Grass in 1999) I am not familiar with the other two recent winners, but I have been absolutely enamored with Grass's writing for years and I cannot think of any living writer who deserved the prize more than him. All hail the lone Kashubian Nobel Laureate!

[Emil Miller]

Hesse surely fits into the German canon like Thomas Mann. In fact Mann saw Hesse's "The Glass Bead Game" as a novel that paralleled his own "The Magic Mountain" and if you'e ever read "The Glass Bead Game" you'd see that it is quite German in that it is so focused on organizational hierarchy and the travails of scholarship.

Re-reading what I have written about Hesse, I don't know why I said that he doesn't fit into the German canon. I suppose it was due to too much Côte du Rhône.