While
Siddhartha might be less characteristic of Buddhism than once thought, internet commentary reveals that readers nonetheless identify with the protagonist Siddhartha and often appreciate the novel for what they deem its therapeutic value. On the website Goodreads, where readers review and recommend books, 5,200 people per month access the page dedicated to
Siddhartha.
1This data was retrieved from Keywords Everywhere on August 1, 2022. The Goodreads users’ thoughts on
Siddhartha show their appreciation of the novel’s perceived universality. The user Sanjay Gautam, for instance, initially dismissed
Siddhartha as a misappropriation of Indian philosophy: “I thought this guy has written a book for [a] western audience who are not familiar with the ‘philosophy of karma and dharma,’ or rather, in general, the basic philosophy of India, who after reading it will realize something esoteric.”
2Sanjay Gautam, “Siddhartha Review,” Goodreads, August 1, 2022. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52036.Siddhartha. After reflection, though, it occurred to Gautam that the novel was more “realistic” than they formerly thought. The reviewer claims: “Even the character Siddhartha, as I came to realize, was as fragile and incomplete & imperfect as me or any common man. Now I understand, after many years, that Hesse has written from the point of view of a common man, not a protege [
sic] like Buddha or Adi Shankaracharya. And it is in this light of ‘the struggle of a lay man’ that this book comes in all its glory.”
3Gautam, “Siddhartha Review.” Gautam thus finds the novel’s accessibility, not so much in its ostensible Buddhist motifs, but, rather, in its broader relatability. Siddhartha’s “enlightenment” is not the novel’s focus so much as his journey is: for Gautam, Siddhartha is an archetype who embodies a universal
human striving.
Another Goodreads reviewer, Nandakishore Mridula, shares Gautam’s perspective and views the book’s depiction of enlightenment as a flexible paradigm into which any reader can transplant their own idea of self-discovery:
[Enlightenment] can be theistic (the
Aham Brahma Asmi—“I am the Brahman” or
Tat Tvam Asi—“Thou Art That” of Hinduism) or atheistic (the Buddhist Nirvana, based on the
Anatman—“non-soul”); but the person who achieves it, according to all sources, is caught up in profound rapture. To reach this stage, one has to tread an arduous path. Carl Gustav Jung called the process “individuation”: Joseph Campbell called it “the hero’s journey.” Herman [
sic] Hesse’s eponymous protagonist of
Siddhartha is a man who embarks on this enterprise.
4Nandakishore Mridula, “Siddhartha Review,” Goodreads, August 1, 2022. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52036.Siddhartha.Bearing Hsia in mind, we should recall that Jungian individuation and Buddhist Nirvana are not the same. But they share one crucial trait: each one is a reward attained at the end of a personal journey. In observing this resemblance, this Goodreads reviewer has identified Hesse’s adoption of the German Bildungsroman for his Indian protagonist. They have also provided an important insight that helps explain Siddhartha’s relatability: the parallel between the comparative mythologist Joseph Campbell’s monomyth (the “Hero’s Journey”) and the Bildungsroman.
Although it is a Modern conception, the
Bildungsroman nonetheless follows the mythic structure of ancient epics such as
The Odyssey: “separation (departure)—initiation (action)—return (reflection).”
5Joseph Campbell, The Hero With a Thousand Faces (New York: MJF Books, 1949). Todd Kontje credits Wieland’s Geschichte des Agathon (Story of Agathon) and Goethe’s Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre (Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship) as the progenitors of the genre. See: Todd Kontje, The German Bildungsroman: History of a National Genre (Columbia, SC: Camden House, 1993). Iterations of this model vary, but Campbell demonstrated how this basic formula—along with other archetypal images—is disseminated globally. Scholar Robert C. Conard has shown how
Siddhartha is comprised of the same archetypes as other modern Western novels and has located their source in a universal distribution of symbols akin to those Campbell discerned.
6Robert C. Conard, “Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha, eine Indische Dichtung, as a Western Archetype,” The German Quarterly 48, no. 3 (1975): 358–69. Conard views the novel’s motifs as distinctly Western, though. Campbell, on the other hand, observed archetypes in mythologies of different cultures around the
world, noting how even the Indian
Ramayana as well as the Babylonian
Epic of Gilgamesh fit the template of the Hero’s Journey.
7Campbell, “Hero,” 180–86. While we remain cautious against sweeping claims of universality, the relatability the Goodreads reviewers find in the character Siddhartha cannot be discredited as inconsequential. Whether Siddhartha’s reward is more indicative of Jungian individuation or Buddhist enlightenment is clearly not the issue for these reviewers. They have identified with Siddhartha’s pursuit, not his achievement. The stages of his journey follow a template that, for these readers, has a universal allure. The Goodreads thread once again illustrates how people of diverse backgrounds can connect to discuss Hesse through digital spaces and enlighten one another from distances that physically separate them.