Famous Last Words: The Palace of Illusions + Looking Ahead

Last week I outlined some changes for my course schedule, replacing the weekly writing assignments with extra credit options to help make room for homework in other classes. So far, a couple of weeks in, that's been a huge help. Juggling my other assignments and projects in other classes has been less stressful, especially with graduation looming, and since the extra-credit assignments take me so much less time than the writing assignments, I’ve been able to start working ahead in this class on the weekends, too.

In terms of reading, this week I finally finished up The Palace of Illusions by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. It’s a retelling of the Mahabharata from Draupadi’s point of view, and the really cool thing about it is, that’s it’s entire hook: it follows all the usual events of the Mahabharata faithfully, but it manages to add fresh content and its own twists to the lore by examining all those same events through Draupadi’s perspective, with all her complicated and conflicting internal monologue and narration. That adds a lot of interesting new layers to the story, but what’s also striking is how perfect Draupadi is as the narrator—I didn’t realize it till reading Palace, but she really is the center of a web of a large and interconnected web of characters. More than anyone except maybe Krishna, she’s the one who interacts with all the different groups, and by nature of that and her role in bringing about the Pandava-Kaurava War, she truly is instrumental to the plot. Anyways, it’s a great read and adds a lot more depth to the same original stories, without straying too far from its source material.

Now I’m sitting back and trying to figure out what reading options I want to use for the rest of the semester. It’s bizarre to think that it’s already almost over, but I have plenty of good choices, so we’ll see what I end up with.

Image Credit: Book Pages, by Snufkin. Source: Pixabay.

Famous Last Words: It's All About Perspective

For my reading this week (after reading ahead for next week to clear the schedule some), I've just about finished The Palace of Illusions. It's been really interesting to see all the characters and events of the Mahabharata—which had very specific, distinctive characters and events, but was also somehow kind of vague about them, skimming over details without that much depth—laid out like this, with enough room to unfold naturally.

A huge factor in how it unfolded so naturally, though, is the narrator the author chose. Back when I read the PDE Mahabharata, I didn't pay that much attention to Draupadi: she seemed really promising at first, but quickly took a backseat to her husbands and their legacy.

One thing The Palace of Illusions does brilliantly, though, is show the huge extent to which that shouldn't be the case. As I read through the cousins' war, I was struck by the fact that this time around, each of the deaths of the various warriors meant something. And once I thought about it, I realized that that was because Draupadi was the perfect narrator: she had ties to every one of the other characters. Drona: father's nemesis, destined to be killed by her brother. Duryodhan: her enemy since he tried to have her humiliated after the gambling misadventure, and her husbands' rival. Karna: never-to-be love interest, secret brother-in-law. Dhri: commander of the Pandava army, her brother. And so on. Sometimes because of special connections the author added or embellished, like the one with Karna, but often just because of reading between the lines of the existing text, the author found Draupadi at the center of the huge, complicated web that is the Mahabharata; with her as a reference point, all of the other characters had a role and a place, instead of all running together. It's a fascinating study in point of view, and in reworking mythology in general.

I also shifted my course schedule around this week, (at least temporarily) substituting extra credit options to make up for a missed story each week and the resulting missed project addition. While I still miss writing a new story each week like I did last semester, it really has been a huge help so far; I'm not so stressed, and I've actually been able to work ahead a little on my reading, making room for next week so I can focus on deadlines coming up in other classes. For now, at least, it's a good system, and I'm sticking with it.

Image Credit: Staggered Windows, by PixelAnarchy. Source: Pixabay.

Famous Last Words: In Which I'm Not Quite Drowning in Homework, But Occasionally Choking On It

I’ve never used the “Famous Last Words” option before, so I thought I’d try it out this week, and I actually think I might start doing it more often, even when I’m not making up points. I like the idea of looking back and seeing how the semester progressed—especially since, at this point, it looks a tiny bit like a train wreck.

From the outside, it’s going well—last semester, keeping up with classes—and I’m sure that’s how it’ll look at the end of the year, too. But for now, it’s all kind of messy, and this class is getting hit the hardest. I’ve had a lot of writing to do in other classes, which isn’t exactly new, since I’m a PW major; but I’ve also had less time than any other semester to work on getting that writer done, and I’m slow under the best circumstances anyways. To keep up in other classes, I’ve had to skip writing assignments in this class for the past few weeks and do extra credit opportunities to make up for it. I hate skipping the writing, since that was my favorite part of the Myth-Folklore class last semester, and I’ve been looking forward to the idea of being able to look back at a new crop of potential stories once May comes.

For now, though, it’s kind of a necessary evil, and I’m just glad to have extra credit options to fall back on. One thing I have been able to do is keep up with the readings, and I’m really enjoying the freedom the Indian Epics course offers in that department. The mix of different story mediums just goes to show how strong and flexible stories themselves are, and getting to experience the same stories through different approaches has been really interesting. The episodic nature of the Mahabharata (and its sprawling cast) makes the TV-like nature of the Epified videos or the comic books a natural fit, but it’s also been great getting to see the scope narrowed down to a specific, fleshed-out character with the novels. Right now, I’m reading The Palace of Illusions, and I’m hoping to read another novel after this involving a modern-day mystery and Sita.

Image Credit: The Palace of Illusions cover. Source: Goodreads.