Getting in the Buddha's head, in line at the airport

Book review:
Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
January 2, 2011

The circumstance in which I read this book are amusing to me. My intention was to try to commune with Hesse -- and the young Buddha, of course -- while visiting what is one of the holiest cities in all of India, as far as Hindus are concerned, Varanasi. I had a few days of free time to spend there in late December and it seemed Siddhartha would be a perfectly fitting read to ring in 2011 in an ancient Indian city, perhaps not unlike the places in which Siddartha Guatama -- both the character in Hesse's novel and the real person -- spent time.

As it turned out, however, bad weather and flight delays had me reading nearly the entire thing while standing in a line for five hours at the airport. I've probably never had such high expectations for the context in which I would simply read a book; appropriately, the way it went down was more or less the exact opposite of how I had envisioned it. I noted with irony as I stood in a 200-person long line for three hours in front of the American Airlines service desk, barely moving from the linoleum floor tile I had started on when I took my place early that morning, that this was perhaps the best time to be reading Siddhartha -- what better book companion to have at a time of frustration and impatience?

Anyway. That was the setting for my Siddhartha reading.

My thoughts about the content are simply that I liked it. I didn't love it; four stars (maybe three?) on goodreads.com. Hermann Hesse as a person might be a more interesting study for me than this particular book of his. I should try to read more of his work and more about his life. From the introduction of Siddhartha in the copy I had, the inspiration that led Hesse to become interested in and write about this character is quite compelling, albeit the product of that inspiration wasn't quite life-changing for this particular reader.