Tuesday, August 17, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Forest of Enchantments by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

 



Disclaimer:  After I had already taken this book out from the library, I was given an e-ARC copy from the new American publisher, who is apparently rereleasing the book in August 2021.  I promise this did not affect my overall review.

The Forest of Enchantments is the second book by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni that re-interprets an ancient Indian/Sanskrit epic, in this case the Ramayana, by retelling the story and adjusting it to focus on the perspective of a major female character, instead of the traditional male protagonist.  I really enjoyed that first book, The Palace of Illusions (my review here), which retold the story of the Mahābhārata from the perspective of Draupadi/Panchaali, showing her tragic tale and how so much of it was caused by her own choices, loyalties, and loves, all in a world which seeks to limit her because of her gender (remnisicient of Madeline Miller's Circe did the Odyssey from Greek myth).  I had some minor foreknowledge of the Mahābhārata  going into that book (from other adaptations), but honestly had basically no such foreknowledge of the Ramayana, so I was really curious and excited to see how Divakaruni would adapt this other epic that I did not know.  

And The Forest of Enchantments is a really strong and interesting but very different book than The Palace of Illusions, even as the concepts are similar.  Centering on Sita, it tells a tale not just about her but about the other neglected women in the epic who are forced to constantly endure as the men around them make decisions out of pride and "duty" with little regard for the impact on the women they love.  It's a story about love - familial and romance - and how such love is often a tie that binds, even as the loved ones are betrayed by their significant others.  And without changing the overall story (at least based upon my research afterwards) it ends on an epic moment in which is really well earned, and will make the reader go "FINALLY!"  

--------------------------------------------------Plot Summary----------------------------------------------------
The sage Valmiti comes to Sita, as she lives in the forest exiled with her two sons, with the epic story of her husband Ram, the story known as the Ramayana.  And yet, Sita tells him, while his story is very good, it is missing her story, and the stories of the other women along the way - the story of their despair, their darkness, their exhilaration, their love and their enduring.  And so the sage tells her to write it down herself.  

And so Sita writes - of how she grew up with a loving family who respected her wishes, of her falling in love with Ram and her act to ensure her sister could join her new family, of her attempts to placate her father-in-law's three wives, of her time in the forest, and the fateful events that happened after that: all her moments of love and joy.....and misery and frustration, sometimes caused by her own mistake, more often caused by the foolish prideful acts of those around her.  

But the story Sita tells is not just about herself - it is also the story of Kaikeyi, a queen who sacrificed everything for her son, only to be cast away; the story of Ahalya, the innocent woman betrayed by her husband's jealousy; of her sister Urmila, often forgotten and left behind; and even Surpanakha, rakshasi enchantress who wanted only the wrong man.  It is the story of how they are not all just cautionary tales, but are themselves beings of courage, who deserved far more than the world treated them......
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The Forest of Enchantment is told through the eyes of Sita, from girlhood to her end, as she finds herself tied to Ram and so many others by love.  Ram is the traditional hero of the story, the Ramayana - he's the son of a powerful king with a strong sense of duty and honor who never breaks his vows, who does honors those vows even when that results in clearly negative outcomes.  He's the hero who rescues Sita and wages war for a year to save her, and who is essentially unbeatable at war.  

And yet, like pretty much every man in this story, Ram is blind to the impacts of his acts on those around him, obsessed with his pride and reputation and blind to that of others, and repeatedly ignorant of the lives and opinions of those who aren't the manly noble warriors - or just men - like himself.  And from Sita's point of view, we see all this - how Ram doesn't understand why Sita would come with him to the forest, why she would want a child, the sacrifice she made to stay committed to him after a year in captivity, the ways other women might want him and be driven to desperate acts by their circumstances and his prideful refusal....Ram is in some ways driven by his father's mistakes of taking so many wives (3) and concubines that tear him apart, but that does not excuse how he repeatedly refuses to listen to the women around him when they tell him their concerns.  And so he demands the impossible out of Sita not once but twice, hears her story of a woman driven out of her home by an abusive husband and thinks only of his own reputation, and never thinks about how his own actions embolden the men of his kingdom, and the men around him, to never change themselves. 

For it's not just Ram acting this way - it's his brother Lakshman always following his brother's orders, even as that hurts Sita's sister, his wife; it's a guru turning his wife to stone out of mistaken jealousy and then mistaking her vow of silence as forgiveness; it's a prince seeing his mother sacrifice everything to crown him and not just rejecting the crown - which was right to do -but refusing to acknowledge that she did it all for him and turning his back on her; and it's even Ram and Lakshman mocking Surpanakha for her foolish choice of desire, and then harming her when they had no need to, making her deformed for life just because of a bad choice.  

And in all this - because this isn't the story of the men, it's the story of the women - Sita and the others have to endure, tied to their loved ones by their emotions, despite all the wrongs they perform on them.  And this the book argues takes its own form of courage - to resist the abuse and entreaties of a captor for a year while there's no hope of rescue; to walk into flames to pacify the stupid fears of her husband that she might be thought to have betrayed him; to go into the forest with her husband for 14 years rather than to stay in comfort, and more.  And, unlike many of the traditional forms of the story (as explained in the author foreword), this courage is to brave things that are wrong, that should not be required of her.  And so when the story reaches its conclusion, it does so not with Sita enduring further, not with her taking the happiness that could be offered to her, but rejecting it in the name of confronting all these wrongs and speaking out.  

It's part of a conclusion mandated by the epic, because Divakaruni does not change the overall events of the Ramayana (even as she chooses some interpretations over others), but spun in a new different way to highlight its central theme - the courage of women, bound by love and forgiveness, who should not have to deal with all this shit.  

So yeah, well well worth your time, even if you don't know the story coming in.  

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