Week 15: Reading Evaluation

This course had some of my favorite readings for any literature-based class I've had, both because I already enjoyed folklore and because I got to read novels! The Narayan versions of the epics are fun to read, and I really appreciated being able to pick my own related readings for the second half of the class and branch out into things I'd been interested in before but hadn't had time to read.

Of the novels I read, I like Divakaruni's writing and storytelling more than Arni's, but The Missing Queen is a faster-paced book, so the excitement and quickness is nice. Breaking the Bow had some really great stories. My favorites were the ones placed in futuristic settings and also those where modern women take inspiration from the Ramayana, dealing with their own personal issues and often rewriting the endings in positive ways. I think I mentioned all of my favorite stories at the time I read them in the Reading Diaries.

If anything, I would've preferred more reading and less commenting assignments. At a certain point, having to do multiple sets of comments each week started to seem more like busy work, and I would have rather spent that time reading more stories or even exploring other writings on the epics, like maybe that "300 Ramayanas" article that I never did get around to reading...

Week 15: Final Reflections

This has been a really fun class, with the storytelling assignments and especially with the readings. My favorite parts have been the readings; I'm so glad I picked the lively Narayan adaptations of the epics, and I've enjoyed the three free-choice readings. Sometimes I was pushing myself to do three sets of reading a week for the class, but it was worth it to read more books!

The effort I put into writing dropped off as the semester intensified, but I got in a few pretty good stories before that. "Updates from Exile," of course, I think is one of my best stories for the semester. I also enjoyed playing around with other folklore and literary motifs in my first story for the class and with anthropological theory in "A New God in Brindaban." Finally, I was surprised with my first Storybook entry, "Rama Navami," at how I felt Sita's voice took on a mind of its own as I was writing. This first story is definitely the strongest of those included in the Storybook.