Sid­dhartha, the son of a Brah­min, is con­sumed by the quest for wis­dom. Early in life, he decides that he has learned all he can from his par­ents and teach­ers. As he begins to con­tem­plate new direc­tions, a group of itin­er­ant ascetics passes through his town. Impressed by their lives of sim­plic­ity and self-denial, he joins the sect.

Sid­dhartha divests him­self of worldly poses­sions, fasts, and begins the process of destroy­ing the Self in order to attain Nir­vana. He makes progress, but soon becomes dis­il­lu­sioned with this path, as well. He pro­ceeds to seek enlight­en­ment through a num­ber of other paths, each change being accom­pa­nied by dras­tic shifts in his lifestyle. After many years of this, still unful­filled, Sid­dhartha comes to rest on the banks of a river at the house of a fer­ry­man. Vasudeva, the fer­ry­man, lives a very sim­ple — yet very con­tented — life. Sid­dhartha soon real­izes that he can learn far more from Vasudeva and the river than from any of his pre­vi­ous teachers.

It was inter­est­ing to read this and Paolo Coelho’s The Alchemist in the same day. Both are sto­ries of per­sonal searches for wis­dom and a mean­ing­ful life. Both Sid­dhartha and San­ti­ago take long wind­ing paths to their respec­tive goals, with many unplanned stops along the way. Also, they both real­ize their goals in ways and places they never would have imag­ined when begin­ning their quests. I think that I pre­fer Sid­dhartha to The Alchemist, largely because it is never bla­tantly “inspirational.”

I was amazed at how many peo­ple in the Chicago Mid­way Air­port gave me unso­licited com­ments as I was read­ing this book ; all were unequiv­o­cally pos­i­tive. Appar­ently, I’m among the few who didn’t read Sid­dhartha in high school (thank you, Ten­nessee pub­lic edu­ca­tion…). I’d highly rec­om­mend read­ing this if you haven’t, and reread­ing it if you have.