Sunday, January 11, 2015

Storybook Favorites

The first storybook that caught my attention was "Every Lover a Soldier: Tales of Epic Love".  I enjoyed how the storybook told the three love stories in a classic but modern way, with the three women gossiping about how they fell in love.  Savitri's love story really peaked my interest because it involved a common theme in epic tales of a lover following their spouse into the underworld.  Unlike Orpheus, Savitri's tale had a happy ending, which I did not expect.  

The next storybook I read was "The Diary of Karma", I thought it was very clever that the author told these tales from diaries because the adventurer "might just eat you up." I also think telling the stories through diary entries is very effective because it shows progression and builds up to the effect of karma.    I also like that the diaries show remorse, but indicate that their actions are unchanged.  I liked how some of the stories had the diary show the passage of their lives and then how karma got them in the end,while Ahalya's Diary was used as a means of redemption after her curse.  

The last storybook that I viewed was "Blogging for Bad Guys", a forum that hosts the evil ones featured in Indian Epics.  I loved how it turned the villains from epics into angst sounding teenagers. This was a very creative way to poke fun at the trivial things over which Ravana and Kaikeyi waged war.  The little details in the storybook such as the time period on the post being a "long long time ago" and Ravana being emo about having acne on some of his ten head were hilarious.  I also thought it interesting that the author depicted Ravana as a good guy early on but who gave into a hedonistic lifestyle, this is something that was not represented in other storybook's interpretations.      

(Image information: Picture of Ravana provided by Museum Syndicate.)

1 comment:

  1. Hey! I was just reading through your storybook favorites and I liked all three of the ones you chose. My personal favorite, which I also chose as one of my favorites was the “Blogging for Bad Guys” one. I also thought that the little details put into it were hilarious, but the author also put a new take on the different characters in it. I thought it was a very creative storybook, and interesting to read. All three of the ones you chose were interesting in their own way, and I enjoyed looking over them

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