The following story is adapted from a chapter called The Son in Hermann Hesse’s 1922 novel Siddhartha. Born in Germany in 1877, Hesse was the son of Protestant missionaries and shaped by questions of identity, rebellion, and the tension between spiritual ideals and real-world suffering. Like many of his works, Siddhartha draws from Eastern philosophy and Hesse’s own struggles with alienation and fatherhood. After the collapse of his first marriage and a period of personal crisis, Hesse began writing Siddhartha, a novel about a man’s journey toward spiritual enlightenment.
This short story, part of the greater work, The Son is arguably the most emotional chapter in the book. It’s about a father desperate to connect with a child who doesn’t want anything to do with him. It’s about love that isn’t returned, patience that isn’t rewarded, and the painful truth that you can’t walk someone else’s path for them.
In this version, the story has been modernized and Americanized for a more familiar setting. Siddhartha becomes Henry, a quiet man who’s retreated from city life. Vasudeva, the ferryman, becomes Walt, Henry’s aging uncle and mentor figure. Siddhartha’s unnamed eleven-year-old son becomes Josh, now seventeen—a bitter, grieving teenager suddenly dropped into a rural world that feels completely foreign to him. The setting shifts from ancient India to the rural American Midwest, but the heart of the story tries to stay the same.
