Week 2 Reading Overview


Figure 1: General Illustration of the Ramayana Wikipedia

I intend to read the "Ramayana Online: Public Domain Edition". as an anthology with many contributing authors, I suspect that the diversely written nature of the work will be more representative of diverse Indian culture in general. I also suspect that an anthology reading will be less risky to read than a novel, as I may dislike the manner in which the novel is written, but the probability that I will dislike every anthology is lower, given that they are all written differently.

The two comic books that I intend to read are "Tales of Durga" and "Tales of Balarama". "Tales of Durga" involves a series of battles, which always excites me. The fact that its women beating up all the demons is also something that I find appealing. "Tales of Balarama" interests me because I often find the secondary players in a narrative be interesting. Being the brother of an incarnation of a major god means living under a huge shadow, and that is something that I can definitely relate to. I also find the idea of reshaping the geography of a subcontinent to be surreal and appealing. These were the first two stories that I examined. I suppose that I just find stories in genera to be appealing.

The "Crane and the Lion" was interesting as the story appears to be very old. The generic characterization of all the characters involved seems to be characteristic of older stories, and this left me wondering how old the story was. I found the "Stages of Life" video to be quite interesting. The modern western ideals of stages in life are very different from those proposed in this video, and I find that difference to be quite fascinating; however, I can't seem to articulate why.


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