The reading selection I
picked was The Ramayana by R. K. Narayan, which was one of the books recommended
for the course and was purchased at Ratcliffes.
I picked that book because it was recommended and had a reading
guide. I spent less than an hour reading
the sections for both A and B. One thing
about the book that I do not know whether is true or not is that my roommate
said that liberties were taken in this version of The Ramayana, which I feel
like, makes this more like one of our stories we write rather than a source
material.
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| Rama stalks Marica (Source: wikimedia) |
Ethan, I am so glad you read Narayan's version, and yes, exactly: he is telling a version based on Kamban who was in turn telling a version based on Valmiki... and there are even different versions of Valmiki! For example, some versions of Valmiki include what happened after Rama and Sita return to Ayodhya (it's intense), and other versions do not. So, you have already figured out why I organized the class this way: everybody, from Valmiki to Kamban, to Narayan to you: we are all just telling different versions of the Ramayana. There is no "source" that is pure: they are all stories, told by storytellers with specific agendas of their own. I'm glad that is something you are realizing already thanks to your roommate!
ReplyDeleteAnd something else to think about: each artist is creating their own version too, a version in visual form! And the illustrations are all so different from one another.