Siddhartha: An Indian Tale (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics) - Softcover

Hesse, Hermann; Neugroschel, Joachim

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0141181230 ISBN 13: 9780141181233

Publisher: Penguin Classics, 1999

Synopsis

In the novel, Siddhartha, a young man, leaves his family for a contemplative life, then, restless, discards it for one of the flesh. He conceives a son, but bored and sickened by lust and greed, moves on again. Near dispair, Siddhartha comes to a river where he hears a unique sound. This sound signals the true beginning of life - the beginning of suffering, rejection, peace and, finally, wisdom.

About this title

Review:

By the Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature

About the Author:

In the 1960s, especially in the United States, the novels ofHermann Hessewere widely embraced by young readers who found in his protagonists a reflection of their own search for meaning in a troubled world. Hesse s rich allusions to world mythologies, especially those of Asia, and his persistent theme of the individual striving for integrity in opposition to received opinions and mass culture appealed to a generation in upheaval and in search of renewed values. Born in southern Germany in 1877, Hesse came from a family of missionaries, scholars, and writers with strong ties to India. This early exposure to the philosophies and religions of Asia filtered and interpreted by thinkers thoroughly steeped in the intellectual traditions and currents of modern Europe provided Hesse with some of the most pervasive elements in his short stories and novels, especiallySiddhartha(1922) andJourney to the East(1932). Hesse concentrated on writing poetry as a young man, but his first successful book was a novel, Peter Camenzind(1904). The income it brought permitted him to settle with his wife in rural Switzerland and write full-time. By the start of World War I in 1914, Hesse had produced several more novels and had begun to write the considerable number of book reviews and articles that made him a strong influence on the literary culture of his time. During the war, Hesse was actively involved in relief efforts. Depression, criticism for his pacifist views, and a series of personal crises combined with what he referred to as the war psychosis of his times led Hesse to undergo psychoanalysis with J. B. Lang, a student of Carl Jung. Out of these years cameDemian(1919), a novel whose main character is torn between the orderliness of bourgeois existence and the turbulent and enticing world of sensual experience. This dichotomy is prominent in Hesse s subsequent novels, includingSiddhartha(1922), Steppenwolf(1927), andNarcissus and Goldmund(1930). Hesse worked on his magnum opus, The Glass Bead Game(1943), for twelve years. This novel was specifically cited when he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1946. Hesse died at his home in Switzerland in 1962. Calling his life a series of crises and new beginnings, Hesse clearly saw his writing as a direct reflection of his personal development and his protagonists as representing stages in his own evolution. In the 1950s, Hesse described the dominant theme of his work: From Camenzind to Steppenwolf and Josef Knecht [protagonist ofThe Glass Bead Game], they can all be interpreted as a defense (sometimes also as an SOS) of the personality, of the individual self. Joachim Neugroschelhas won three PEN translation awards and the French-American translation prize. He has alsotranslated Thomas Mann'sDeath in Veniceand Sacher-Masoch'sVenus in Furs, both for Penguin Classics.He lives in Brooklyn, New York. Ralph Freedman, Professor Emeritus of Comparative Literature at Princeton University, is acclaimed for his biographiesHermann Hesse: Pilgrim of Crisis, andLife of a Poet: Rainer Maria Rilke"

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Classics
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0141181230
• ISBN 13: 9780141181233
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 176