Siddhartha and Hesse live on

I first read Siddhartha and other Hesse books in my early 20's during the early 70's while a student at the University of Iowa as well as during a tour with the US Army. For many, back then, Hesse seemed to strike a cord for helping you make sense of life and where your own life was headed. Over the years thoughts of these Hesse books would come back to me remembering perceived pearls of wisdom. So now these forty years later I decided to give Hesse's books another go. Now in my 60's and retired, Siddhartha still gives out a perspective on life. There is still life to be lived in the golden years. Reinforcing the thought that life is for the living, Siddhartha discusses that one shouldn't get too serious about the meaning of life, the challenge is to accept life as it is, with both the good and the bad, in the end it's all the same thing, a life. One interesting aspect listening to this now is that when I first read the book back in the day I was reading it from the perspective that I was a son and what impact did my own father have on the direction of my life. Considerable I suppose. But now I look at it from the perspective of the father, having a son of my own in his 20's. Accepting and letting him lead his own life isn't always easy but realizing that he will lead his own life is the challenge. Once you accept that, it gets a lot easier. It is amazing that almost 100 years after being written this book still has meaning, maybe now a maturity.

6 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

Outstanding audiobook (author+narrator)

Story's reviews are available in many resources, so I'll focus on the narrator. He has a really soothing voice and an excellent command of it. The toning, emphasizing and volume changes per context were all in place and outstanding. I hope I can get more books he has read.

4 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

Meditation in Story Form

I wasn't sure what I was getting into. I didn't even remember why I had this on my list to read, but I'm glad I read it. It's your basic philosophy for life. With the entire point being that its not the end that is the goal, but the path that is the goal. That you should never stop learning, never stop getting closer to enlightenment. I feel like this book is essentially meditation in story form if that makes sense.

2 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

Not THAT David Cross

Not read by the comedian, David Cross, if you're hesitating to buy based on that.

10 personnes ont trouvé cela utile

Run at 0.90 speed

It’s read too fast for me with few gaps between sentences to give time to absorb Running at 0.90 speed helps a lot. Even 0.80

1 personne a trouvé cela utile

Very Nice story

It helps to understand many of the principles we hear on buddhism and spirituality. Easy and short.

Great story

Great story with deep thoughts to think about. Many that I needed to write down to think on longer.

A Good Reminder

Siddartha’s life is a good reminder not to get worked up about the trivialities of life and when you have to look at the world, take an optimistic perspective or at least realize that every part of the world is just a piece of a grander reality and not all will understand this. Beyond the “life advice” or affirmations or perspective one can derive from this book, it was presented well. The orator wasn’t difficult to listen to and the story itself revealed a lot of things about Siddartha that I didn’t know! Which is always great to learn something new. The only reason I gave a 4/5 in the “overall” category is because I didn’t know what to expect from this book based on the information provided about it on audible before purchasing. Thus, I had in the back of my mind there would be a scene that marked the transition from Siddartha to the Buddha, which never came - or at least not the way I suspected it to. However, I came into this book with prior “knowledge” on the subject which, due to it being collected from secondary sources may have been abridged and not entirely accurate. In any case, the background on this book prior to purchase could’ve been stronger, so the reader knows what he/she is getting.

Great piece. Excellent narration

This is this is how audiobooks are supposed to be. Really enjoyed this audiobook version of Siddhartha.

Englightenment 101

Although there were parts in this book that I somehow found unnecessarily pretentious and a little bit boring, in the long run, and by that I mean by the time I was done with the book, I feel like they worked for and not against the narrative as a whole. This is a great book about getting to know yourself and about finding peace and meaning in the world. I really enjoyed the audio version, the narrator is great and I liked the little bits of music they added within chapters. And I like how the book is not just about going out into the world, finding an enlightened teacher and just letting him tell you how things are. I like that Siddhartha is like "Naw, naw, naw. Wisdom, and the true nature of things cannot be taught by words, only through personal experience." He also mentions that you can certainly learn many things from teachers, but the only thing that can teach wisdom is your own experience on this planet. I really liked this book. As for little nitpicks, I'd say the combination of the text with the narration made some parts seem a bit pretentious and I don't really know if it was the time when this was written or that was what Hesse was going for. Probably the latter, since in the last chapter of the book, Siddhartha mentions that trying to express wisdom through words to the unenlightened will sound like gibberish. And I will say that at times throughout the book, it did go one step in front of the line separating interesting and insightful to pretentious, but maybe that's just me. Overall, read this book. It's very good.