Name: The Scion of Ikshvaku.
Author: Amish Tripathi.
Rating: 4 out of 5.
Well, to say that I was very highly anticipating this book would be an obvious understatement. The fact that I had actually met Amish at one of the promotional events at Crossword Nagpur only served to heighten this insurmountable anticipation. The joy that I experienced on getting my hand over this book could have been comparable to the joy that one might have experienced on handling the elixir itself. At that time, that is even before I had read it, I had been fairly certain that I would be compelled to confer on this book the highest rating and the most positive review that I could muster. But, I guess it was not to be so.
The Scion of Ikshvaku is basically a retelling of the great epic ' Ramayana.' So, a fact that might trouble some of the potential readers is the familiarity of the plot. Out of the Indian population, most of the people are very well acquainted with the epic. It would not be an exaggeration to say that no Indian grandparent would dare miss the opportunity of becoming a 'master storyteller' in his grandchild's eyes by narrating this beautiful epic. But, I must say that people with such line of thought would indeed be terribly mistaken. The Scion of Ikshvaku holds surprise packages for even the people who know Ramayana by heart. So, entertaining any notion of possibility of monotony is futile.
A thing that I absolutely love about Amish is his rational approach. Well, describing Jatayu and Hanuman as genetically mutated humans rather than some supernatural animals capable of interacting with humans is absolute genius, is it not? So, overall the book is fantastic. Various concepts have been modified with Machiavellian precision to show relevance in today's modern world and this is indeed the highlight of the book. The philosophical discussions between the princes and the gurus are very enlightening and these along with the fantastically crafted dialogues make this book much difficult to put down once initiated.
However, the book has some drawbacks as well. The prologue of the book is more than enough to suggest how this book might end. So, there is a very little suspense if not nil. Also, each part of the Shiva Trilogy was concluded on a cliffhanger that made people die from waiting for the next edition of the series. However, this book is not in consistence with this feature. The end of the book is very simple and does not exactly ' make you die' for reading the next book of the series.
No comments:
Post a Comment