Week 8 Reflections

The Tortoise is carried away by the Geese. Illustration by E. Boyd Smith. Published in The Tortoise and the Geese and Other Fables of Bidpai by Maude Barrows Dutton (1908).

Reading

I think that I have been making good choices in terms of my reading. While I’m sure I’d enjoy the Narayan versions of the Ramayana and Mahabharata, picking the public domain versions allowed me to get an idea of how different the storytelling styles are. Reading the lyrical versions of these two epics is likely more authentic, in that the stories were likely told as songs, just like The Odyssey or The Iliad.

I have to admit that the sheer number of names and places of the Mahabharata made it difficult to follow along. For this and other reasons, I preferred the Ramayana. The Ramayana, in being focused on a smaller number of characters, seemed to be able to provide a more intimate account of the people involved. I could more easily image how Rama would react to events than Arjuna. I tend to read books that are focused on small sets of characters rather than huge set pieces and (literal) armies of characters. This makes my preference for the Ramayana less surprising.

When I read books that aren’t part of a school assignment or a class, I rarely take notes. This is half the result of a disinclination towards doing so and half not wanting to write on a book. The latter used to seem almost sacrilegious. It took a lot of English and literature classes before I started to take good notes that were more than just vague statements. While I don’t take notes on a regular when it comes to my free-time reading, I find myself critically analyzing small passages and thinking about them a lot more as I continue on in the book.

The note that I’m taking in this class are really helping. Rather than writing my thoughts after I’ve read the passages for that day or that week, I take notes whenever some line or some situation intrigues me. In this way, I can record my more precise thoughts on the story, rather giving my general feelings about it. In addition, these more precise notes allow me to come up with story ideas based on relatively minor events (such as Arjuna and Hanuman’s meeting). I can look back at my notes and use an idea that I’ve written about to create a story.

I intend to focus my reading efforts on folktales. While great kings and warriors are all well and good, I’d like to read more of those stories that relate to those of more humble origins. In reading these folktales, I’d get a perspective of the royalty and of the commoners. The specific tales I’d focus on are the Hindu legends, such as Dutton’s Fables of Bidpai.