Siddhartha is a fictitious biography. A sort of Bildungsroman, it records the passage of a special individual through selected key experiences until he attains to a position of competence in dealing with what little life is left to him. The nature of Siddhartha's preoccupations and development, and the stylistic devices used to relate them, suggest that the work is the repository of certain truths regarding human existence in general…. (p. 117)

Siddhartha is not content. He is conscious of a discrepancy between conventional assumptions and personal satisfaction which neither adulation nor material advantage nor received interpretations of life's meaning can overcome. The apparent cause of Siddhartha's discomfort is the inception of an awareness of himself as a question-begging phenomenon in a situation which provides no ready answers…. However much of a philosophical wild goose chase the search for the overall meaning of existence may be, it takes a gloomy...