Book Reviews

Hermann Hesse, <Siddhartha>

도미니크앙셀 분당점 2022. 11. 6. 13:10

How long has it been since I last encountered a well-written, well-translated novel like this? Perhaps classics are where I belong. It was quite inexorable to close Where the Crawdads Sing and put it back where it stood. Partly because it was too ‘contemporary’ for me, or simply because I was hampered by every sentence, even phrase freighted with the Southern slang. Instead, I picked up Siddhartha of which beautiful red cover with floral patterns imprinted beneath the two cranes in a circle, beak to claw. I acquired it during my trip to Portland this February. Honestly speaking, I do not understand why so many people are intrigued to visit some of the most popular ‘independent’ - what a paradox! - bookstores in a region, but I have done exactly the same; not only once then, but for several times since way long ago. Powell’s Books, about which I only later learned that they run stores nationwide, was where I found the novel. Am I a fan of Hermann Hesse? No. Do I speak German? No. Am I at least interested in German literature? No… Then, why did I choose particularly this amongst thousands of other choices? I am a simple guy and have always tried to respect my instincts as well as whatever my reason says. The book cover was pretty. That was all. No, actually, there’s more. During the first quarter of my exchange programme, I took an introductory Art History class whose focus spanned from the medieval period to the Renaissance. When we were going through the Southeastern Asia part, we had to discuss a lot about Buddhism too, and the instructor recommended Hesse’s novel to the class; not for religious study, but to merely inform us that the Buddha holds a number of names. I recalled this account when I saw Siddhartha on the shelf, and also because of its cover design, I had to purchase it.

 

However coincidental the discovery was, I was never wrong with my choice. Whether he was actually committed to Buddhism or not, Hesse taught and enlightened me a great deal and imparted invaluable and barely expressible lessons. His writing is concise, yet with enough power and charm to not only mesmerise readers but also transmit what is at the very core of his awakening regarding the self, the ego. I have not read other works by the author than Beneath the Wheel, another coming-of-age novel with more emphasis on how external expectations and societal norms could devastate a youth. Without much knowledge about Hesse’s bibliography, I dare suggest that the author somehow began to put an end to his lifelong quest for harmony between ego and the world in Siddhartha.

 

It seems easy from the title to speculate that the novel is about the Buddha - for instance, his biography fictionally reconstructed, but, surprisingly, it is not. All the characters do have names that readily remind the readers of the Buddha: Siddhartha, the protagonist, and his friend, Govinda, and Gautama, Kamala, Kamaswami, Vasudeva, his teachers. Obviously, Hesse dissected the original, whole entity of Gautama Siddhartha, the historical figure and the founder of Buddhism, into two discrete personalities: Siddhartha and Gautama. It is dubious if the writer had any Buddhist background, but his division accords perfectly with the etymology of Buddha Shakyamuni’s given name. According to Wikipedia - an apology first for the credibility of the source, Siddhartha and Gautama mean “he who achieves his goal” and “descendant of the one who has the most light” in Sanskrit, respectively (“The Buddha”). As a matter of fact, the surname itself foretells the Buddha’s paths in his lifetime as he, born as a prince, renounces his royalty and joins the ascetic for a while, then one day experiences the epiphany. Hence, the Buddha started off as Siddhartha and eventually became Gautama.

 

The transformation from ‘Siddhartha’ to ‘Gautama’ also occurs upon the protagonist, nevertheless, in a different manner. In the beginning, Hesse’s Siddhartha undergoes the same course as his historical counterpart. He and his loyal friend Govinda came from a much revered, high-ranking society of Brahmins. Although Siddhartha excels at everything a Brahmin must practise - meditations, ablutions, memorising the Vedas, soundlessly speaking the om, and so forth, he still cannot quench the thirst for more knowledge, for the most important knowledge, which is with regards to “Atman, [himself], the Only One, the All-One” (5). Therefore, he embarks on a journey to efface his ego that keeps deceiving and bewildering him by surrounding the Atman. Siddhartha’s idea was somewhat simple; he believes that if he could escape from civilisation, then he would be able to reach immaculate peace. That’s why he becomes a samana with Govinda. These two learn how to wait and fast from the ascetics, yet Siddhartha still suffers the same distress; “[t]hough Siddhartha fled his ego a thousand times, dwelling in nothingness, in animal, in rock, the return was inevitable since he found himself again, in sunlight or in moonlight, in shade or in rain, and again was ego and Siddhartha, and again felt the torment of the onerous cycle” (15). Once he feels certain about the doubt, Siddhartha leaves the forest and travels with Govinda again to listen to the Sublime One’s Teaching. Suppose Hesse had wanted to rewrite the biography of the Buddha. In that case, he should have finished the novel at this point, and Siddhartha would happily be engaged in Gautama’s words of deliverance. However, neither the author nor the protagonist aims for such goals. Ever so clever and ingenious, Hesse has already separated Siddhartha from Gautama. This sheer fact implies that even if the protagonist achieves to be emancipated from the ego, succeeds at understanding Atman, he would never become Gautama. The status of ‘Gautama’ as the term, as ‘the one who has the most light,’ cannot be attained. One should be Gautama. Although not explicitly stated, Hesse’s Gautama founds a religion, apparently Buddhism, after his enlightenment just like the historical Buddha. In contrast, Siddhartha objects to the idea that a way of redemption can be taught, and to go further, postulates that “[Gautama’s] Teaching about the overcoming of the world” itself is “the small gap, that small break [which] shatters and abolishes the whole eternal and unified law of the world” (31). Thus, despite his great admiration towards Gautama, Siddhartha diverges from both him and the historical Buddha, and from here begins the demonstration of Hesse’s own philosophical inquiry.

 

One of the recurring themes in Siddhartha is that one should live it to learn it. Perhaps Siddhartha knew it way before he actually articulated before Gautama that the most important truth can never be transmitted by words or any means but must be reached by oneself. However, the idea must have been rooted merely intrinsically as he strides without particular destinations and purposes until he encounters beautiful Kamala in her pleasure grove. Siddhartha, not conscious of why he feels strongly compelled to awaken his long-numbed senses and to experience the child-people’s world, proudly seeks Kamala’s love. A mistress of splendid beauty and great fortune, Kamala requires Siddhartha to bring fine clothes, shoes, and money if he wants to receive the lesson of love from her. Hence, Siddhartha works under Kamaswami, whose name means the master of passion, the wealthiest merchant in the town. The man, who was once son of a Brahmin, then a samana, grows accustomed to the secular life; by the three assets from his past, how to think, wait, and fast, he surpasses Kamaswami in business, develops a romantic relationship with Kamala, and befriends ordinary people. However, at one point, he loses control of his life by getting addicted to dice. “The world … capture[s] him: pleasure, lustfulness, sluggishness, and finally the vice that he had always scorned and scoffed at most as the most foolish vice: greed” (70). The biggest trouble with him was that he came to the town to learn the world of senses, but he could not truly absorb it. There lay the difference between the lofty man and child-people: passion. People looked so childish in Siddhartha’s eyes because they had passion for every wordly goal - for instance, Kawaswami on his business, some on food, and others on clothes. They genuinely wanted and loved it. By contrast, Siddhartha did not, thus he only deteriorated himself without progress in comprehending the core of human life. In other words, he was in “game … called smsara, a game for children, a game that might be lovely to play once, twice, tenfold—but [not[ again” (75). So disappointed, Siddhartha even tries to commit suicide by throwing himself in the river that he crossed to reach the town, the river which marks the distinction between the world of reason and sense. Yet, the inner voice of om saved him, drove him to a deep sleep through which the listener-obeyer of the voice is reborn.

 

If the ephemeral world without true, absolute passion was samsara, Siddhartha finally learns how to embrace the world not as samsara but as it is through his son, Vasudeva the ferryman, and the river. Siddhartha first meets his son between Kamala after his lover dies on her way to attend the last moment of Gautama in samsara. Hesse portrays her death so masterfully that I almost cried. Not many descriptions, not many dialogues, with only minimum words the writer illustrates the scene as a whole, and still the readers can feel the poignant yet warm atmosphere of the last exchange of intimacy between the lovers so real. Anyway, their son, left alone, lives with his father for a while but soon runs away from Siddhartha for the father’s sudden, absolute love was unbearable to him. From this heart-wrenching loss Siddhartha eventually becomes assimilated into the world of unity and cycle in which “[e]verything not fully suffered, not fully resolved came again” (115). In this world of give-and-take, where karma governs everything, once one holds passion, whether requited or not, the passion reverberates eternally, as if every object is connected and deeply intertwined. “[T]hat time does not exist,” “that the river is everywhere at once, at its source and at its mouth, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the rapids, in the sea, in the mountains, everywhere at once, and only the present exists for it, and not the shadow of the future” becomes ever so evident to Siddhartha only after he finds the missing piece to the puzzle of samsara (94). And it was Vasudeva the ferryman who helped Siddhartha listen to the river all along. He, albeit illiterate and poor, has learned all the important things, and above all, the om, the perfection from the river. After imparting the final secret of the river, Vasudeva leaves Siddhartha and joins the “oneness” (120).

 

Siddhartha ends with the enlightened protagonist telling his old friend, Govinda, who is now a Buddha’s monk “revered by the young monks,” about what he had realised so far (121). I do not doubt that Hesse himself had cried over writing these few final pages. Here the author proves why he deserves such an honour like the Nobel prize: writing ever so bold and penetrating (“The Nobel Prize in Literature 1946”). Since there exists no better way than to exactly recite Hesse’s writing for expressing the complex magnitude of emotions that surged within me, I would like to cite the entire passage directly: 

 

I have found a thought, Govinda, that you will again take as a joke or as folly, but it is my best thought. This is it: The opposite of every truth is just as true! You see: A truth can be uttered and clad in words only if it is one-sided. One-sided is everything that can be thought with thoughts and said in words—everything one-sided, everything half, everything is devoid of wholeness, of roundness, of oneness. When the sublime Gautama spoke and taught about the world, he had to divide it into samsara and Nirvana, into illusion and truth, into sorrow and salvation. There is no other choice, there is no other way for the man who wishes to teach. But the world itself, the Being around us and within us, is never one-sided. Never is a man or a deed all samsara or all Nirvana, never is a man all saintly or all sinful. It seems otherwise because we are prey to the illusion that time is a reality. But time is not real, Govinda: I have experienced this time and time again. And if time is not real, then the span that seems to lie between world and eternity, between sorrow and bliss, between evil and good is also an illusion. (124)

 

I never had this much of a spiritual experience reading a novel. To confess, I shed tears several times. Hesse has rare literary talent that makes the audience understand every scene with concise language. Since he does not need much embellishments, his words, one by one, lead us to the very core of human life. If the author did not let us travel with Siddhartha, if the holy lesson were said by Gautama the Buddha, if the above quote has been merely narrated, then that words never suffice to contain the wholeness of the world would sound futile. However, it is the very last scene where I cannot resist weeping every time it appears before my eyes. Initially sceptical of his friend’s wisdom, Govinda begs Siddhartha to impart one of the thoughts he could carry on until death. Since Siddhartha already emphasised that only knowledge, not wisdom, can be uttered to someone else, he instead lets Govinda kiss his forehead. Then, Govinda finally kneels, full of tears, awe, and the deepest love, before the oneness, the Buddha, the Sublime, and Siddhartha.

 

No longer knowing whether time existed, whether this seeing had lasted a second or a century, no longer knowing whether a Siddhartha existed, or a Gautama, or I and Thou, wounded in his innermost as if by a godly arrow, whose wounding tasted sweet, enchanted and dissolved in his innermost, Govinda stood for a brief while, leaning over Siddhartha’s silent face, which he had just kissed, which had just been the setting of all formations, all Becoming, all Being. The face was unaltered after the depth of the thousandfold forms ahd closed again under its surface. He was still smiling, smiling softly and quietly, perhaps very gently, perhaps very mockingly—just as he had smiled, the Sublime One.
Govinda bowed low. Tears ran over his old face, but he was unaware of them; the feeling of deepest love, of humblest veneration burned in his heart like a fire. He bowed low, down to the ground, bowed to the motionless sitter, whose smile reminded him of everything that he had ever loved in his life, that had ever been valuable and holy to him in his life. (131, 132)

 

Hesse, Hermann. <Siddhartha>. Translated by Joachim Neugroschel, Penguin Classics, 2003.

 

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