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larryhammerSo: reading the Ramayana. This is long enough -- 50,000 long-line verses, in the original, in 6 7 (stupid tyop) books -- that I think I'll take this book-by-book as I go. Book one is Rama's early life, largely his first adventures just before he comes of age at 16, including his courtship and marriage to Sita.
I would be happier about the adventures if young Rama earned anything. I mean, yes, there's a battle with two of the Big Bad's lieutenants, but it's very brief (and rather sketchily described) and Rama gets his power-ups first -- as in, before he's done anything to earn them. Most of what he does is done by being the Destined One, rather than his doing something. When a marriage test is to pick up the bow of Shiva that no one has been able to before, and he not only does that but manages to pull it so far that the wood breaks, it's hard to attribute this to his agency. Fortunately, as a youngster, he there's a lot of instructive stories (some within stories) to pass the time till Rama comes of age and, one hopes, to better adventures.
Note to first-time readers: I would say skip the first four cantos dealing with how the story came to be composed, including not just one but two summaries of the plot to come, but there's something of plot-significance in there -- specifically, in who the oral composition is first taught to. Not to mention there's something hinky in the framing for the narratology geeks among us.
So far, there hasn't been much that's as mythicly weird as in the Kalevala. Most notable is the seer who tells a king that one of his two wives will bear his heir while the other will bear 60,000 other sons -- at which point the wives turn on the seer and demand to know which will do which. (The answer is that they get to choose.) Fortunately for our suspension of disbelief, the mother of the 60,000 does not give birth to them individually, but rather to a gourd with 60,000 seeds, each of which is a tiny fetus. Much easier to swallow that. Less easy is the number of warriors to be the only person ever to receive the weapons of the gods.
The translation I'm reading is this one from the 1870s by Ralph T.H. Griffith, which while not line-by-line is at least in verse -- rough tetrameter couplets, though at least not dogtrot. It carries the story along without calling attention to itself, and while it's rarely poetic it rarely thumpety-crashes either. I suspect the limited use of metaphor is from the original, and the occasional breathtaking simile ditto. It is not entirely complete, but when Griffith omits a passage as offensive to modern taste or tediously repetitive, he notes this. For, one assumes, easy looking up later in unabridged translations.
Ninjas needed so far: 0. Takeaway lessons so far: when everything is a superlative, it's hard to compare anything.
---L.
I would be happier about the adventures if young Rama earned anything. I mean, yes, there's a battle with two of the Big Bad's lieutenants, but it's very brief (and rather sketchily described) and Rama gets his power-ups first -- as in, before he's done anything to earn them. Most of what he does is done by being the Destined One, rather than his doing something. When a marriage test is to pick up the bow of Shiva that no one has been able to before, and he not only does that but manages to pull it so far that the wood breaks, it's hard to attribute this to his agency. Fortunately, as a youngster, he there's a lot of instructive stories (some within stories) to pass the time till Rama comes of age and, one hopes, to better adventures.
Note to first-time readers: I would say skip the first four cantos dealing with how the story came to be composed, including not just one but two summaries of the plot to come, but there's something of plot-significance in there -- specifically, in who the oral composition is first taught to. Not to mention there's something hinky in the framing for the narratology geeks among us.
So far, there hasn't been much that's as mythicly weird as in the Kalevala. Most notable is the seer who tells a king that one of his two wives will bear his heir while the other will bear 60,000 other sons -- at which point the wives turn on the seer and demand to know which will do which. (The answer is that they get to choose.) Fortunately for our suspension of disbelief, the mother of the 60,000 does not give birth to them individually, but rather to a gourd with 60,000 seeds, each of which is a tiny fetus. Much easier to swallow that. Less easy is the number of warriors to be the only person ever to receive the weapons of the gods.
The translation I'm reading is this one from the 1870s by Ralph T.H. Griffith, which while not line-by-line is at least in verse -- rough tetrameter couplets, though at least not dogtrot. It carries the story along without calling attention to itself, and while it's rarely poetic it rarely thumpety-crashes either. I suspect the limited use of metaphor is from the original, and the occasional breathtaking simile ditto. It is not entirely complete, but when Griffith omits a passage as offensive to modern taste or tediously repetitive, he notes this. For, one assumes, easy looking up later in unabridged translations.
Ninjas needed so far: 0. Takeaway lessons so far: when everything is a superlative, it's hard to compare anything.
---L.
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Date: 22 June 2011 07:30 pm (UTC)Out of curiosity, have you read the Lotus Sutra?
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Date: 22 June 2011 07:52 pm (UTC)I haven't, actually -- catching up on the Buddhist classics is also on my agenda of get to someday.
---L.