Siddhartha by Herman Hesse

C and I recently traveled to Nepal, her for a conference and me to get my visa stamped as having left India (we're not supposed to stay for more than 180 consecutive days). Walking along the corridor of the Katmandu airport after having just arrived, and before hitting the barrage of travel bureaucrats to review and stamp my papers, I took in the signage (apparently posted by some Russian vodka interest). I learned various things about Nepal ("gorgeous mountains", etc.), but one thing hit me that I hadn't realized. Nepal is the birthplace of the Buddha, Siddhartha Gotama of the Shakya clan. After I finished The Snow Leopard, I knew what I should read. 

I've actually read Siddhartha once before, and unlike many  readers, not in high school or college. I was an adult. I recall it to have been interesting and worthwhile but nothing that grabbed me by the lapels. Nevertheless, I'd see it at Rajat Books and thought that I should take another crack at it, since (I thought) India was the homeland of the Buddha, and the character Siddartha is a sort of alter-ego and acquaintance of the Enlightened One. Also, since Hedecki, C's fellow graduate student and our house guest 30 years ago, kept a small Buddhist shrine on our spare room and thereby spurred me to learn about Buddhism, I've kept reading and attempting to understand and (at least to some small extent) practice this way of living. 
 
I'm happy to report that the trip back into Siddartha proved worthwhile. Just for the sentences of  "I can think. I can wait. I can fast." makes the re-reading worthwhile. What a thought-provoking and challenging attitude! For those of you unacquainted with the premise of the book, it's set at the time of the Buddha, and the main character is the son of a Brahmin family who, like Buddha, finds his situation uneasy, and he goes to live the life of an ascetic. Moving  through life, he encounters the historical Buddha, but unlike his companion Govinda, he chooses to go his own path. Siddhartha's path takes him across the river by courtesy of the ferry man, and into the city and good graces of Kamela, the courtesan. Siddhartha continues to grow and learn as his life unfolds. Indeed, literary critics have dubbed this book a bildungsroman, a coming of age story, but Siddhartha learns and reflects not just through youth but into his advancing years. 

I must say that I benefited greatly, after completing the book, and reading the introduction for the 90th anniversary edition that Pico Iyer wrote. Iyer notes the book's effect on him as a youth, and he points to the spirit of rebelliousness and heroics that appeals to youth. But he points out something that resonates now with him and with me: the ending. The elder Siddartha as he gives an account of his life and learning at the end of the book, a perspective and accounting different from that of the Buddha, yet, I think, complementary. If you think about it, as an aging man of many worldly experiences, Siddhartha hints at a path that most of us must consider: that of finding some insight and repose in this world through the difficult issues of love, vocation, family, desire, foolishness, loss, and everything else. Some try to by-pass these issues by living as solitary, ascetic hermits, but I think that they deceive themselves if they think that they can run away from all of this world's challenges. As one can see clearly from the writings of the Christian Desert Fathers, even alone in the desert learn that our mind is populated by the world, by the thoughts, images, and desires that being-in-the-world compels upon us. I think that we must hope that by the end of our lives that we, too, can smile like the Siddarthas--both of them.