Herman Hesse
Somewhere in Pankaj Mishra’s ‘The Romantics’, there’s a conversation about ‘Siddhartha’ and it being a reason for a Westerner’s interest in Buddhism and India. A conversation, not my view 🙂 That, and the fact that it also finds mention in Mishra’s other book ‘An End to suffering’ is primarily what led me to the book.
The book is best described as the story of an alternate version of the Buddha, and the Buddha features in the story too, including a conversation.
The message is perhaps like a quote I read somewhere, which amounts to “There are many ways to the top of the mountain, but once there, the view is the same”
The arguments are compelling, and makes you think, not just about the end, but also about the ways in which you get there. I especially liked the thoughts on the concept of time, the ‘goal vision’ obscuring everything else, and ‘the opposite of every truth is also true’.
Forget Buddhism, it is an excellent read on life, what we strive for, and my favourite paradox – the meaningfulness and the meaninglessness of our existence.