Siddhartha

Found this lovely word collage on Google Images.

I'm teaching a course this semester called "The Search for Meaning."  It's a Writing Intensive course, and it meets every Tuesday and Thursday from 11-12:15, so there is time for discussion and in-class writing.

The class is currently reading Herman Hesse's classic novel Siddhartha. It's the story of a young man's quest for his true self; in many ways it follows the tradition of the bildungsroman - the story of a young man growing into adulthood. In other ways it follows the hero quest genre from medieval romance. In other ways it resembles the "Vision Quest" of Native Americans. Altogether, it is gripping reading for men and women in their early twenties, which is when I read it. My students seem to be finding it gripping, too.

 

This time reading it, I notice how beautifully written it is.