Siddhartha is a novel by German writer Herman Hesse, as well as one of his best known and appreciated works. The book tells the story of Siddhartha, a man who is always on the move, always looking for something, passes from one experience to another without ever feeling that he has reached the level of knowledge sought, to end up living as a boatman, listening to a river, understanding that its wandering in search of the goal is perhaps already the goal itself.
A few years ago, I saw Siddharta, in the Adelphi edition with the price indicated in lire among my mother’s books, but only this year I finally read it. In the time that has passed between the discovery of this book and reading, I have heard many people describe it as a powerful, revealing book. My expectations were indeed very high. As I heard about it it seemed almost impossible to be disappointed, I was already ready to face a reading that would partly change the way I think, to face the world. I firmly believe that there are books that are strong enough to change your life, and I really thought I’d found one. I say reluctantly that it was not so, I probably had idealized the novel before even understanding its structure.
Nevertheless, I cannot deny that reading Siddhartha was at least an interesting experience, which gave me various ideas for reflection on the meaning that every man gives to his life, it made me spend a lot of time thinking, asking myself questions about myself too: are able, as the extraordinary protagonist of the novel, to continue to search, acknowledging not to know enough? Can I treasure every experience and take every opportunity to grow? The answers were actually simple to give: no. This helped me to understand how the gestures of the protagonist, which at first glance seemed very simple to me, actually had incredible.
Reading this book was also a very pleasant experience, it is in fact a small novel, with a language definitely sought, but not at all difficult to understand, unlike other novels, I think of when I read Lolita by Nabokov (which I adored, like most people) and I remember reading it constantly accompanied by a notebook on which I noted the countless words I did not know. Siddhartha is a sliding book; it has a hundred pages and you can easily read it in a couple of days.
All in all, I enjoyed this work, although I was sorry that I did not fully grasp the greatness of the novel, which many other people have fully grasped and embraced.
Valeria Del Sordo 4N
