I really enjoyed reading this epic, especially as things developed and wrapped up toward the end. I was surprised at the character exploration. There seems to be an emphasis on the characters, even the demons, having a choice on whether they are good or evil, based on the decisions they've made. There's not the same cut-and-dry, simplistic good vs. evil battle that exists in a lot of fantastical literature. The bad characters are ultimately redeemable in some way, or at least the good characters try hard to redeem them, even though at the same time there's a sense of inevitable fate involved.
I also enjoyed reading the very last bit at the end where Narayan briefly talks about the Indian storytelling tradition itself. It reminded me a lot of the tradition studied by Alfred Lord in The Singer of Tales and how the ability to recount these long, poetic epics, giving some individual variation in style and detail but largely retaining the same elements and form, occurs cross-culturally. It's particularly fascinating because, while there are modern Western storytelling traditions with which most of us in America are familiar, they don't reach the length and performance prestige of these epics from Classical civilizations, ancient India, West Africa, Serbia, etc. Having encountered these oral poets only in recorded and scholarly literature, it's difficult for me to imagine how they're able to spin their craft in such amazingly complex ways without much or any reliance on the written word.
storytellers of the Ramayana, Tamil festival of Sangamam, Chennai
photo by Badri Seshadri, 25 February 2007
source: Wikimedia Commons
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