Reading Feedback: Week 13

Encouraging quote
Image Source: Flickr

I initially decided to read another version of the Ramayana for my free choice readings. But, I had not taken into consideration the wide array of comic books available at the Biz. I found myself really short on time so they became a huge help! I found them to be extremely cool and condensed the stories into a nice and short comic without taking away from the essence of the original stories. The comics were obviously illustrated as well so it gave me another look into the stories and helped me picture them in my mind a lot better than when I just read the books. These past few weeks you could say I've been in the Bizzell on Monday and Tuesday more than usual but these comics and having the option of using them as a reading diary option have really helped me and they were enjoyable to read on top of that!

Reading Feedback Week 9

Scene from Peter Brook's stage play Mahabharata, circa 1985
Image Source: Wikipedia

For this week I finished up watching Peter Brook's film adaptation of the Mahabharata. A couple weeks ago I chose the option of watching the first two and a half hours of this movie. I thoroughly enjoyed it for our free choice I opted to watch the second half of the movie. The film itself is five hours long. It is available for viewing at the Bizzell or it can also be viewed on YouTube, which I found to be very convenient. I opted to watch it on YouTube. It does seem long but I did some more research and found that the original version of this adaptation was a screen play that ened up being a total of NINE hours long. I highly recommend watching this film if you want to have a broader idea of the imagery for the Mahabharata. I couldn't really imagine how the war scenes played out so watching it in film really helped me out and I feel like I understand the story a lot better now. The film gives more detail on certain episodes of the tale so that was a plus. I really enjoyed this film and I feel like everyone else will too!


The film can be seen on YouTube here

Reading Feedback Week 7



Modern depiction of Vyasa narrating the Mahabharata to Ganesha at the Murudeshwara temple, Karnataks
Image Source: Wikipedia

This week didn't really involve an actual reading, because we were actually given the choice of watching a movie depiction of the Mahabharata by Peter Brook. I opted for the movie because I had a really hard time kind of envisioning a mental picture of the events that occured in the actual readings of the Mahabharata. I found this to be very enjoyable and really convinient since the film can be found on YouTube (for now). It was also available for check out at the library but I really didn't have time to come back and watch it there. Now I have a great idea of how everything happened and I can appreciate the tale as a whole much better this way! 

Reading Feedback: Week 6

Overall, I found the Mahabharata to be very enjoyable. I slightly preferred the content of the Ramayana but, but were very interesting reads. It was kind of hard to keep track of all the characters, since there was so many different brothers, and just characters in general. I chose Narayan's version of the Mahabharata, since I enjoyed his version of the Ramayana as well and I found it easy to understand. It was because of this that I opted to actually go and pay for the book instead of utilizing the free version, which I'm sure is just as good. I just had a great experience with Narayan's Ramayana and felt this would be just as easy to follow. I actually didn't purchase the actual hard copy of it, instead I opted to download it to my tablet. I found this to be a much more convenient way for me to read it and without the need to carry extra books. It also helped for me to read at night which is when I do the majority of my work/reading. I enjoyed having this option. There was a reading guide for this particular book and I found that extremely helpful as well.

Bhishma forcing Krishna to take up the wheel of a chariot despite the oath
that he would not pick up arms in the war
Image Source: Ritsin