Customer Reviews

Arrow of the Blue-Skinned God: Retracing the Ramayana Through India

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Jonah Blank's book deserves to be in print. I can't find it anywhere. I read it years ago and it spurred a great love for the Ramayana, and for India, but then I gave away my copy little suspecting it would be lost forever. Arrow of the Blue-skinned God is a classic. It is a book I will always remember, and hopefully someday I'll get to read it again.

I love India and have been there many times but this book taught me a lot I don't know. The book has an original format which was risky but works. You really get both caught up in the story and then feel like you've visiting the countries he's talking about.

As travel writing, it doesn't get better than this. So refreshing to not be talked down to and he avoids the horrible snobbishness often encountered in the gendre.

I just wanted to savor each page. It's not a book you flip through. I was sorry when I finished it. I just wish I could give it six stars.

im have lived in india for years have family and friends there ,have been back over more than three decades and have read much about this most beloved country but "the arrow of the blue skinned god" has become one of my all time favorites.....i only wish Blank had been more willing to share his own personal insights.dispassionate perspectives are less useful than they used to be and india is certainly not a place that ever engendered neutral responses. thank god for that.

I was first tuned into Jonah Blank through the Travelers' Tales of India anthology. Reading his hilarious account of discovering that a poorly functioning Delhi airport clock was in fact manually operated, I expected more of the same in this book. While there are more of these entertaining cross-cultural discoveries throughout, this overly ambitious book addresses what you'd expect from a naïve twenty-something writer, covering the broadest of all philosophical topics- with chapter titles including "Rites," "Fate," "Caste," "War," and "Love." The scary thing is that he succeeds, displaying a remarkable ability to grasp complex issues.

This work is held together with a strong narrative thread. Beginning each chapter by retelling a passage from the Ramayana, he then applies this theme to modern Indian culture, and compares this with life in America. Despite a reflexive defensiveness of American culture and government, he portrays a deeply nuanced understanding of the complexities of Indian traditions as they clash with modernity. For example, he dispels any notion that Hindu fatalism is the same thing as passivity. Unlike Christianity, you can't just pray for salvation in Hinduism; you have to earn it and change yourself to adapt to an unchanging world. In a later chapter, he credits Hinduism's adaptability to the well-educated elite's acceptance of metaphorical (rather than literal) interpretation of the Vedas, and credits Sikhism's sustainability to its openness that the Gods of all religions are really different manifestations of the same entity.

In his chapter on love, he respects the value of an arranged marriage in offering stability in a hard peasant life, acknowledges the potential rewards of society's increasing acceptance of the risk of marriage for love, but listens to an individual who swears the happiest people he knows are the ones who arranged marriage through a matchmaker.

Traveling to India is a life-changing experience in itself. This book is one of the most articulate reflections I've seen on what that experience can be like.

This book is a riveting read.
It touches upon a myriad of social, economic, political, emotional and ultimately human themes from the Ramayan epic and juxtapositions them with the present day Indian psyche.
The substance is informative and interesting without falling into the trap of being academic or verbose.
The author's style is succinct, witty and appropriately poignant.
Being a non-resident Indian, I was pleased to read such a well written and objective analysis of such a behemoth of a country.
This is a very vast, tricky and interconnected subject matter to tackle.
Jonah Blank does it with aplomb.
I would recommend that anyone wanting to know about India read this book.

blank does what few westerners do well: present a balanced portrayal of the distinguished history of a modern-day eastern country. at times, blank glosses over subjects, but broadly-speaking, it is an exceptional analysis of india through the ramayana. an absolute must-read for anyone with an interest in contemporary india

This book is a must read for all students of Hindu philosophy. I revised my opinion of the Ramayana - which I had previously thought of as less interesting and more simplistic than the Mahabharata. I also revised my opinion of Sita - from the symbol of the downtrodden Indian female to someone who was the other half (better?) of Lord Rama. The book also raises interesting questions about whether Hinduism is essentially a fatalistic faith or an action oriented one. The encounters that Jonah Blank had with all levels of Indian society ring true. Overall, I highly recommend this book - I could not put it down.

It has a lot of elements- travel writing,history, interviews with a wide cross-section of the contemporary Indian society and using the Ramayana as a guide a lot on Indian philosophy and religion, naturally concentrating on Hinduism and its meaning. I liked that he used his journalistic skill and tried to be as impartial as possible. Enjoyed it a lot!

I guess this book has been out for some time, but I had not known about it until I stumbled upon it at the bookstore and I am very glad I did. The book is written in a style that is unlike other travel books I have seen or read about India in that it reflects on one of the treasured literary epics in Hindu/Indian culture and mythology--the Ramayana. Each chapter focuses on a single aspect that is explained through the characters in the Ramayana, (caste, kings, swamis, fate...etc..), and each chapter begins with a summarized "Jonah Blank" version of the epic of Rama, Sita, and Hanuman. What I have enjoyed so much about this book is that the point of view that Blank brings is that of a twentysomething who is seeing India from the eyes of a young person who at times is both humorous and skeptical, yet idealistic and hopeful. You can truly tell that Blank, although a young person at the time of the writing, truly has passion and depth of vision about the complexities of India and you yourself get caught up in the majesty and the mysticism of India through his journy and the journey of Rama and Sita.

This is a wonderful book about the travel experiences of a young Harvard scholar in South Asia and how they evoked or resonated with certain episodes of the Ramayana. In one way or another the Ramayana has had an immense influence on South Asian civilization (as well on that of S.E. Asia) so it was interesting to see how Blank brought together, and exposed as timeless, so many of the epic's themes. This is a excellent introduction to India. Highly recommended.