Siddhartha, by Hermann Hesse
published 1922 (1951 in America) - read 2005

Kind of the same deal as with The Power and the Glory, now that I think about it. Journey, guy questioning the path of the soul; liked it okay, don't have much to say about it. This was certainly shorter, but the monosyllabic, storybook-esque prose made it hard to really get into the character of Siddhartha as more than an archetype. Or a rewrite of Buddha anyway.

So what's the deal, was this like the first time anybody in the West heard about Buddhism or going with the flow or whatever? I enjoyed it okay, and at times it really made me feel peaceful just to be reading it...but I don't get the hype, and I'm by no means an expert on this strain of philosophy.

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