Books in 2022: Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse

Book #5

It was some odd day when while scrolling through twitter I found this book highly recommended by a friend. Ever since then I really wanted to read it. Now after I am done, I wouldn't shy away from saying that my friend was right. In fact so right that it is one of those rare books which I have rated 5/5 on goodreads.

Caution, do not judge the book by its cover! It is not at all about Buddha, at least not how I interpret it. It is about life journey of a guy named Siddhartha who pursued wisdom about life and world. Based on his experience he renounced all that was taught to him, abandoned his teachers and took his own journey to learn from the world. Siddhartha, in fact, met Gautam Buddha and had deep discourse about his teachings. He abandoned Buddha himself since he couldn't feel what Buddha felt while he got enlightened. Throughout his life Siddhartha makes lot of choices - good and bad, learns from them, listens to others' wisdom and finally reaches his enlightenment.

Book is heavy on philosophy. But, there are too many takeaway points to keep it aside. In fact, this could be one book that I want to keep by my side all through my life. The last conversation between Siddhartha and Vasudeva was so deep that I would want to read it again and again at every stage of my life, for I know that I will always learn something new out of it every time.

One another point apart from that conversation that touched my heart and mind was about the "time". We have always read how time is important, time is money, losing it cost us .. and what not! However, the book makes us think what if we remove time from our life equation? What if our life is just like a river that continues to flow from one point to another, there is no past and no future, everything is just present. Wouldn't all our problems just vanish?

"Yes, Siddhartha," he spoke. "It is this what you mean, isn't it: that the river is everywhere at once, at the source and at the mouth, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the rapids, in the sea, in the mountains, everywhere at once, and that there is only the present time for it, not the shadow of the past, not the shadow of the future?" "This it is," said Siddhartha. "And when I had learned it, I looked at my life, and it was also a river, and the boy Siddhartha was only separated from the man Siddhartha and from the old man Siddhartha by a shadow, not by something real. Also, Siddhartha's previous births were no past, and his death and his return to Brahma was no future. Nothing was, nothing will be; everything is, everything has existence and is present."

Books in 2022: Mistborn series, Book 3: Hero of Ages

Book #4

I found the end to the trilogy.. poetic. Who doubted itself at every step, questioned about the very existence of divine finally merged with One, became the One. Poem indeed ! 

I failed to realize that the Hero of Ages was always there in front of my eyes, I was reading about it every time, writing about here in the blog but still failed to recognize! May be I will decipher these patterns as I grow further into this genre. Nevertheless, it was satisfying to read how everything came together at the very end, everything demystified and all secrets revealed. Alas, Elend and Vin weren't there with me to celebrate the epic end.

Philosophy of religions probably had a roller-coaster ride throughout the series. On one hand, religions gave people enormous motivation and power, as we learnt in book 1, yet on the other, almost all of their faith was lost when  it was realized that they can manipulated by evil forces. However, at the end religions found their definition - "They weren’t all true. But they all had truth"

A journey from this:

"

How did men believe in something that preached love on one hand, yet taught destruction of unbelievers on the other? How did one rationalize belief with no proof? How could they honestly expect him to have faith in something that taught of miracles and wonders in the far past, but carefully gave excuses for why such things didn’t occur in the present day?

"

to this:

"

The religions in my portfolio weren’t useless after all, he thought, the power flowing from him and remaking the world. None of them were. They weren’t all true. But they all had truth.

"

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Books in 2022: Mistborn series, Book 2: The Well of Ascension

Book #3

On one hand when the first book had arguably a simplistic plot, I credit Brandon to make plot of his second book really convoluted and interesting. Last 100 pages of the book were so exciting that I nearly forgave the author for the long chapters of boring political discussions and soliloquies. 

It turned out to be that the three-armies-plotting-to-conquer-Luthadel was just a side plot while the main story was about secret hidden in the well of ascension. Just like book one, really loved how secrets are being revealed one by one. By far, Sazed's character has been the most intriguing. I loved his overall character arc where he went from loving and knowing everything about religions to losing all his faith while he learnt how religions and prophecies can be used to misguide people. 

Can't wait how all these mysteries will close. Looking forward for the third one.

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Books in 2022: Train to Pakistan

 Book #2

Once I wrote a blog post about overlapping philosophies among different novels I read. Train to Pakistan by Khushwant Singh re-kindled that memory. On one hand where Mistborn's first novel taught me how religion can bind people and can help them achieve what seems impossible, train to Pakistan introduced me to the other side of it - how religion can plague minds of entire population to an extent that they resort to violence.

To be honest, I don't think I am meant to read such novels. Kushwant Singh tends to be very descriptive about the locations, weather, actions of characters and what not, that I get too bored to completely digest what the novel wants to convey. The pace of the story is so slow that, at one point, I had to avoid reading 2-3 pages of description of monsoon weather and then about what Iqbal Singh and Hukum Chand were thinking while they were trying to sleep. 

It was hard but I finally succeeded to comprehend the use of Juggat Singh's character who spent like 50% of the novel's time in Jail. But I unfortunately failed to do that with Iqbal's one. May be I will try it again some other time and see if I have matured enough to digest Khushwant Singh's works.

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Books in 2022: Mistborn series, Book 1: The Final Empire

 Book #1

With the Mistborn series, I commence my journey with long high fantasy novels. "The final empire" is first book of the series written by Brandon Sanderson. 

Overall, the novel is really gripping, specially at the end. Though the plot is simple - group of rebels plan to overthrow a tyrant emperor and finally succeed - yet it contains lot of secrets up its sleeves. The way Sanderson has designed its setting and embedded some very strong characters, it has all come together really well at the end. Probably for the first time in a fiction novel, I really liked its characters - Kelsier, Vin, Sazed are my top picks.

I really liked Sanderson's writing style - simple yet loaded with philosophies. There were lot of take aways from the novel, however, one that really stood out for me was that it took to spawn an entire new religion to motivate people, who were apparently forced to slavery for a thousand years, to rebel against a tyrant government. It was quite refreshing to read positives of religion as to how it can bind energies of millions of people to accomplish something so great.

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