Week 4 Reading Diary A: Rama in Reverse

This is a Reading Diary that details my thoughts from pages 1-58 of the Ramayana retold by William Buck.  

• This story begins where the other story ended.  
• Valmiki becomes the first poet ever because of his outrage when a hunter kills a bird.  
• Buck tells the story of Rama in a very unique way.  The other story cut out the ending where Rama exiles Sita because the author wanted to leave it on a happier ending.  However in Buck's retelling he opens with the sad ending and uses the lost sons to sing Rama's origin.  
• There is an awful lot of description over how abnormal all of Dasharatha's sons look. 
• Many parts that were not touched on in Narayan's Ramayana  are being told here.  For instance, Ravana destroying parts of heaven and the gods discovering they need a human to destroy Ravana.  It also gives more details on the birth of Ravana. 
• This version really sets up Ravana as the villain instead of him just coming out of nowhere at the end and stealing Sita.  
• Why does Buck go into SO much more detail but decides to cut out Thataka? 
• Honestly now that I know what is going to happen, I just feel bad for Sita.  She basically HAS to marry him, then go into exile with him, be kidnapped because of him, be rejected by him and then be re-exiled again.  Her life sucks.  

("Hermitage of Valmiki" from Wikipedia.)