Week 4 Reading Diary A: Starting Buck's Ramayana

I really like Buck’s Ramayana. There is a lot of background information before Rama starts out on his journey with Vishwamitra, which I found super helpful as a reader. The explanation of the war between Ravana and Indra, as well as what led up to it, was really detailed. It was a great setup for the rest of the story, so I feel like a very well-informed reader. I also really enjoyed the explanation of Valmiki early in the reading. It’s interesting to know the reason why he recited his Rama epic in the first place.

I found myself wondering about Ravana’s origins a lot while reading Narayan’s Ramayana because there a number of passing references as to how he became so powerful. So it was cool to read Buck’s version with such an in-depth explanation.

There are a lot of characters in this first part of the reading. Many, many characters. I found them all a little difficult to keep track of, but I found a character list at the beginning of the book, which helped a lot. I also remember a lot of the characters from Narayan’s version, which helps, but is also interesting because I learn more or different things about them.

One of the ideas I had for my storybook was to write about the magical chariot Pushpaka that flies by thought and varies in size. So it was great to read about how that was created and how it transferred ownership to Ravana. That will be really helpful for me if I decide to use that in my storybook this week.

(Ravana's Pushpaka chariot)