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ravikiran's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
5.0
sidharthvardhan's review
4.0
Ramayana is considered by some to be the first poem ever written and Vālmīki is the first poet. I personally think of it as a tragedy of idealistic people - given that the hero and his wife suffer in trying to keep on ideal path.
As to truth of the fact, I take to Rabindranath's opinion who saw it 'not as a historical fact' but as a 'marvelous parable of reconciliation'.
Although it may as well have been a children story if taken in its crudest form. A princess is kidnapped by a really bad guy and her husband, prince rescues her using help of all kinds of good people, gods ... and most importantly, animals.
Buck's rendering
First thing that you need to remember while reading this book is that it is not original, not at all a translation but a rendering - it says so in description and so author has warned you already. And he is not the only one, there are others including Tulsidas who is just as respected in India as Vālmīki. In trying to keep it short, Buck ends up making some of serious conversations look funny. He also makes a number of changes from Vālmīki's original but those changes do not seem unjustified.
More importantly, he does well to keep the poetry and beauty which most important thing in a retelling of epic poem and might had easily being lost in a word by word translation. It is the feeling that Indians feel on reading, arguably, their most loved piece of literature (given the blood shed on its account) that he does so well to capture.
As to truth of the fact, I take to Rabindranath's opinion who saw it 'not as a historical fact' but as a 'marvelous parable of reconciliation'.
Although it may as well have been a children story if taken in its crudest form. A princess is kidnapped by a really bad guy and her husband, prince rescues her using help of all kinds of good people, gods ... and most importantly, animals.
Buck's rendering
First thing that you need to remember while reading this book is that it is not original, not at all a translation but a rendering - it says so in description and so author has warned you already. And he is not the only one, there are others including Tulsidas who is just as respected in India as Vālmīki. In trying to keep it short, Buck ends up making some of serious conversations look funny. He also makes a number of changes from Vālmīki's original but those changes do not seem unjustified.
More importantly, he does well to keep the poetry and beauty which most important thing in a retelling of epic poem and might had easily being lost in a word by word translation. It is the feeling that Indians feel on reading, arguably, their most loved piece of literature (given the blood shed on its account) that he does so well to capture.
thelibraryskeeper's review against another edition
4.0
This was my first time reading the Ramayana. While it was for school, I am glad I got to read it in its entirety. Its a great story similar in structure to the Iliad or the Odyssey. The characters seem to come to life in this translation.
avnivallab's review against another edition
As like a kinda interesting charming story, this book was good, but as a religious text it's pretty problematic (but as are all religious texts so???)
The plot points were interesting, the beginning stories of how the sons came to be and Kaikeyi's betrayal were pretty fast-paced interesting plot points. Even much of their time in exile was interesting but once Sita gets kidnapped the story really slows down in kinda an uninteresting way. Mostly because finding and bringing Sita back could've happened a lot sooner, and they sort of drag out that process really unnecessarily to tell kinda generic moral lessons that are further reiterated later in the novel anyways?
The setting was pretty, the forest and Lanka were shown rly well even tho this was an abridged version that prolly left out a good chunk of that descriptive fluff, I still felt the setting was conveyed pretty well.
When it comes to the characters themselves, most of them are kinda just uninteresting? Like Ram, Lakshmana, Hanuman, and all the good guys have this very strict moral code that encompasses their entire personality. Ram is just this good moral dude who loves his wife, and doesn't really have personality behind that. Oddly enough I kinda feel like some of the women are given like more personality than the men even tho they are subservient. Kaikeyi has motivations of wanting to help her own son and has the drive to carry out that vision herself. Sita has moral resolve to stay true to her husband but also wants to kill herself in sorrow.
I dunno like a lot of stuff here happens for the sake of this ambiguous righteous morality even tho the most right logical thing to do is like simply save ur wife? Like Hunnaman could've brought Sita back when he first met her but doesn't for the sake of Ram's morality? and even when Ram dose come to capture Lanka he could def go save his wife first but goes through these morally right battle rituals and seeing Sita is like the last thing on the to-do list?
This all does come down to the famous Sita burning thing. so after the whole book is dedicated to getting her back it is like very not right for Ram to disavow his wife bc she's been in the house of another man. Sita's choice to jump into the fire is perhaps a radically feminist act? like she takes immense agency to do this action, but that is immediately erased by the fire letter her out unscathed, and Ram saying this was the plan all along, like he expected/wanted this to happen.
much of this further makes little sense considering Ram is literally an incarnation of god. So many things are destined to kinda go his way no matter what, and there are a variety of characters who recognize this incarnation of god and change their behavior accordingly. So can we really say Ram is this benevolent brave hero when this whole time he's rly just god and was destined to succeed no matter what?
I liked the plot more or less, it was interesting and faced paced enough to finish the book. There were tons of kinda cool unique ways to examine morality, Sugriva's story was interesting, and Vibheeshana's betrayal was also cool.
I think it's an important story to read to better understand Indian culture, and I look forward to now reading feminist retellings of this story. I thought this translation more or less served its purpose rly well. Unnecessary retellings/fluffy descriptions were cut and summarized which allowed the story to more on relatively fast. The chapters were also nice and short. There were a number of moments thought the novel where the translator imparts his own moral interpretations of what's going on, which in some cases were helpful but in other places it really felt like it took you out of the story. That being said you can definitely tell the translator has an agenda with his translation in that he wants to more or less paint the good guys as good and the bad guys as bad, and wants you to walk away liking this book and the tellings of the Ramayana.
feels weird to do a dream cast for a religious book but here goes nothing w a female twist bc per usual I know no male actors
The plot points were interesting, the beginning stories of how the sons came to be and Kaikeyi's betrayal were pretty fast-paced interesting plot points. Even much of their time in exile was interesting but once Sita gets kidnapped the story really slows down in kinda an uninteresting way. Mostly because finding and bringing Sita back could've happened a lot sooner, and they sort of drag out that process really unnecessarily to tell kinda generic moral lessons that are further reiterated later in the novel anyways?
The setting was pretty, the forest and Lanka were shown rly well even tho this was an abridged version that prolly left out a good chunk of that descriptive fluff, I still felt the setting was conveyed pretty well.
When it comes to the characters themselves, most of them are kinda just uninteresting? Like Ram, Lakshmana, Hanuman, and all the good guys have this very strict moral code that encompasses their entire personality. Ram is just this good moral dude who loves his wife, and doesn't really have personality behind that. Oddly enough I kinda feel like some of the women are given like more personality than the men even tho they are subservient. Kaikeyi has motivations of wanting to help her own son and has the drive to carry out that vision herself. Sita has moral resolve to stay true to her husband but also wants to kill herself in sorrow.
I dunno like a lot of stuff here happens for the sake of this ambiguous righteous morality even tho the most right logical thing to do is like simply save ur wife? Like Hunnaman could've brought Sita back when he first met her but doesn't for the sake of Ram's morality? and even when Ram dose come to capture Lanka he could def go save his wife first but goes through these morally right battle rituals and seeing Sita is like the last thing on the to-do list?
This all does come down to the famous Sita burning thing. so after the whole book is dedicated to getting her back it is like very not right for Ram to disavow his wife bc she's been in the house of another man. Sita's choice to jump into the fire is perhaps a radically feminist act? like she takes immense agency to do this action, but that is immediately erased by the fire letter her out unscathed, and Ram saying this was the plan all along, like he expected/wanted this to happen.
much of this further makes little sense considering Ram is literally an incarnation of god. So many things are destined to kinda go his way no matter what, and there are a variety of characters who recognize this incarnation of god and change their behavior accordingly. So can we really say Ram is this benevolent brave hero when this whole time he's rly just god and was destined to succeed no matter what?
I liked the plot more or less, it was interesting and faced paced enough to finish the book. There were tons of kinda cool unique ways to examine morality, Sugriva's story was interesting, and Vibheeshana's betrayal was also cool.
I think it's an important story to read to better understand Indian culture, and I look forward to now reading feminist retellings of this story. I thought this translation more or less served its purpose rly well. Unnecessary retellings/fluffy descriptions were cut and summarized which allowed the story to more on relatively fast. The chapters were also nice and short. There were a number of moments thought the novel where the translator imparts his own moral interpretations of what's going on, which in some cases were helpful but in other places it really felt like it took you out of the story. That being said you can definitely tell the translator has an agenda with his translation in that he wants to more or less paint the good guys as good and the bad guys as bad, and wants you to walk away liking this book and the tellings of the Ramayana.
feels weird to do a dream cast for a religious book but here goes nothing w a female twist bc per usual I know no male actors
anisha_inkspill's review
3.5
{3.5 stars}
I came back to this one after finding a translation by Ralph T H Griffith on Gutenberg that is over 400 pages. I realised this would make more than a 3-hour reading.
So, this audiobook is a very abridged version.
Skimming through Ralph T H Griffith’s book, it was a surprise to find there is more to the Ramayana then the Rama and Sita story, but from what I can tell, it still touched on the themes of duty (to family and spouse), order / hierarchy, and the steps to take to keep good karma.
And it was good listening to Sita Ramamurthy’s reading again. This time, with more context, where this time her gusto made the texts assertions more visible of how to live and keep good karma intact.
And this time I noticed Kaikeyi (one of the King's wives) and felt a little sorry for her. She stirs up trouble in looking out for her son wanting him, and not Rama, to be next in line for the throne. But later she regrets shaking up the status quo (for the times she lived in, brave woman BTW), though this is only shown in the poem in a couple of lines that are easy to miss and speak volumes.
When Sita walks through the fire to prove her fidelity to Rama still leaves me stunned. She was kidnapped, and in the end is saved, but when Rama tests her for her fidelity to him, this traumatic experience was not on his mind. It’s like Rama has completely forgotten when he self-exiles himself to live in a forest, Sita is insistent to go with him; Sita, a princess, who is ready to leave behind a luxurious, comfortable life to face the hardship of forest living. This is the action of a loyal, committed wife who is ready to carry her husband’s burden, and yet he doubts her loyalty.
Maybe, the longer version explains that it’s not a trust issue when Rama asks Sita to walk through the fire, and there is a bigger explanation that is missing from this audiobook, but here it’s Sita’s heroic actions that speaks volumes to me.
I came back to this one after finding a translation by Ralph T H Griffith on Gutenberg that is over 400 pages. I realised this would make more than a 3-hour reading.
So, this audiobook is a very abridged version.
Skimming through Ralph T H Griffith’s book, it was a surprise to find there is more to the Ramayana then the Rama and Sita story, but from what I can tell, it still touched on the themes of duty (to family and spouse), order / hierarchy, and the steps to take to keep good karma.
And it was good listening to Sita Ramamurthy’s reading again. This time, with more context, where this time her gusto made the texts assertions more visible of how to live and keep good karma intact.
And this time I noticed Kaikeyi (one of the King's wives) and felt a little sorry for her. She stirs up trouble in looking out for her son wanting him, and not Rama, to be next in line for the throne. But later she regrets shaking up the status quo (for the times she lived in, brave woman BTW), though this is only shown in the poem in a couple of lines that are easy to miss and speak volumes.
When Sita walks through the fire to prove her fidelity to Rama still leaves me stunned. She was kidnapped, and in the end is saved, but when Rama tests her for her fidelity to him, this traumatic experience was not on his mind. It’s like Rama has completely forgotten when he self-exiles himself to live in a forest, Sita is insistent to go with him; Sita, a princess, who is ready to leave behind a luxurious, comfortable life to face the hardship of forest living. This is the action of a loyal, committed wife who is ready to carry her husband’s burden, and yet he doubts her loyalty.
Maybe, the longer version explains that it’s not a trust issue when Rama asks Sita to walk through the fire, and there is a bigger explanation that is missing from this audiobook, but here it’s Sita’s heroic actions that speaks volumes to me.
bredahl's review
4.0
Boken är en väldigt nedkortad omskrivning av det stora, indiska eposet. För att kunna förmedla de poetiska budskapen till oss västerlänningar har författaren valt att skriva om historien till en mer lättillgänglig version. Detta på både gott och ont.
Nytappningen blir en bra startpunkt för västerländska läsare intresserade av de indiska mytetna men förlorar självklart mycket djup i samma veva.
Nytappningen blir en bra startpunkt för västerländska läsare intresserade av de indiska mytetna men förlorar självklart mycket djup i samma veva.
breadandmushrooms's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
c2pizza's review against another edition
2.0
Something really bothered me about this one. The epic part of this work rivals many of the other great epic works and it can wax poetic fairly often, but the religious (im)moralizing of it rivaling the brutality and inhuman precepts of other iron age religious texts (the Bible and the Koran) brought my rating down considerably. However, other classics with similar mechanics like The Arabian Nights and Journey to the West didn't provoke the same vitriolic emotions that I'd get from time to time reading this one, and I think the reason is the Ramayana always felt like it was winking at the readers telling us that we better try to do as Rama, Sita, et cetera do... or else, the others didn't take themselves nearly as seriously on the moralizing. Furthermore, I've encountered a lot of sexism in classical literature, but this one is probably the biggest offender I've read to date.