My Storybook Favorites

Tales From The Love Gods

The first storybook that caught my attention was one comparing the exploits of the Indian god of love, Kamadeva, to the well known Roman god of love, Cupid. It was really interesting to see the similarities between the two figures, and how tales of love are universal between cultures. I really liked how the story was set up as a conversation between Kama and Cupid, comparing the stories of those they have connected, both the good and the bad. They both share a good love story they helped create, Cupid and Psyche for Cupid himself, and Rama and Sita for Kama. In addition to these happily-ever-after love stories, they each shared one that was not as sweet, for Kama, it was the ill fated relationship between Ravana and Mandodari, where Ravana was not satisfied by Mandodari, and sought the love of Sita instead, saddening his wife. Cupid shared his own tale of Orpheus and Eurydice, who themselves had a great love, but fell victim to the jealousy of another man, Aristaeus, who wanted to steal Eurydice for himself by killing Orpheus, but accidentally killed Eurydice instead. Orpheus ventured to the Underworld and pleaded to Hades to let her return to the land of the living. Hades agreed, but on the condition that Orpheus not lay his eyes on her until they returned to the land of the living. As he set foot outside the door to the Underworld, Orpheus looked back at his wife, who was not outside the door, and had to witness her get sucked back into the Underworld, breaking his spirit.

Rama and Sita in Love, source: Lovebirds

The Temple of Doom

This was probably my favorite of the storybooks that I read, as it plays out like an Indiana Jones movie. The protagonist is a young female archaeologist who is attacked by a Nazi, but saved by a scruffy looking man in a funny hat, who takes her back to a small village. There, a sadhu, a kind of mystic elder who reads her palm and informs her that she is the reincarnation of Sita, the consort of Rama, the avatar of Vishnu himself. Eventually they find the American's contact in the village, who tells them the Nazi was looking for the Bow of Shiva, a mythic weapon that could lay waste to entire civilizations. The story stops before it could really pick up, but I imagine it would have led into the classic Indy style escapades set to a background of Indian mythology, ending with the locating of the Bow, where the protagonist would either re-string the Bow and use it against the Nazis, or perhaps guard or hide it, so that its destructive capabilities could not be used. This was an awesome story, and makes me wish more had been written, or that one of the Indiana Jones movies would have followed a plot similar to this.

Secret Life of Titans

This final storybook was a very neat take on the lives of some of the Titans. Set in modern times, these Titans are now living among humanity (well, most of them). The Gods of Olympus have been cast down by some other power, freeing Atlas from his torture of supporting the heavens for two millennia, thought it never clearly states who the new powers are (which I especially like). It is set during a lunch between Clymene and her four children, Atlas, Prometheus, Epimethius, and Menoitios, who are all tasked with explaining how their lives have been. Atlas thinks to himself about his trials and tribulations, including his imprisonment and subsequent freedom from supporting the heavens, and his acting as a General for the United States for a decade sometime between the 1970s and the current day. He doesn't want to bore his mother with these worries, and simply told her that he'd been up to the same old same old. Prometheus talked about his running a youth center to help children, and therefor humanity continue to prosper. Epimethius talked about how he and his wife Pandora spent their time in Africa, helping the animals that he created. Lastly, Menoitios was rather standoffish, frustrated that he was still spending his existence as a prisoner in the Underworld. No matter how many different rulers took control of the Underworld, they always seemed intent on keeping him there, even though his brother Atlas was freed from his prison. I liked this story because it brought all these characters into a modern setting, and tied their modern lives to the myths that describe them in their classical Greek settings. Atlas was a fighter and a strategist, so he served as a General for humans (in disguise, I assume), Prometheus assisted humanity, as he had created them and assisted them by gifting them fire, Epimethius spent time with animals, as he created them and felt more at home with them, and Menoitios didn't have much going for him, as he is rarely mentioned in myths, and is sometimes not even included as one of Clymene's children, so the author incorporated this element into the story.