Prince of Ayodhya
by Ashok K Banker
(Warner Aspect, $24.95, 392 pages, hardcover; published in September
2003.)
The Sanskrit epic poem The Ramayana details the  life
of the Indian hero Rama, a prince of the city of Ayodhya and an incarnation
of the god Vishnu. It's filled with intense melodrama, spectacular battles,
and terrifying monsters. Ashok Banker's Prince of Ayodhya begins
a multivolume adaptation of that classic Vedic text.
Prince of Ayodhya is the first novel in the author's ambitious
project of retelling the great myths of India in the idiom of prose
epic fantasy. Judging by this first offering, Banker's oeuvre-in-the-making
is likely to become an essential cornerstone of fantasy.
The story takes place a generation after the end of the war between
humanity and the demonic Asuras. War threatens to erupt once again,
and human spies loyal to the Asura cause have infiltrated Ayodhya.
The language is heavily peppered with words from Indian languages,
and the result is an almost musical lyricism. Banker is especially gifted
at describing mythic conflicts; most spectactularly, the battle between
Rama and the forces of the giant Tataka is an awesome moment, deftly
imagined and described.
Beyond the legendary heroics and the suspense of a looming war, Prince
of Ayodhya comes alive because of its rich tapestry of characters
and relationships. The cast is large, but every character, from the
most gaudily monstrous to the most vulnerably fragile, is fascinating.
There's a deep tenderness that suffuses this novel. A particularly
moving moment is when we realize that a wounded doe that Rama saves
from poachers is in fact an enemy demon in disguise. She had previously
thought all humans callous and cruel, but Rama's act of compassion challenges
her worldview.
Most epic fantasies revisit again and again the same areas of Celtic
and British folklore; it's refreshing to have the genre so vigorously
reimagined through a different mythic template.
Originally published in
The Montreal Gazette, Saturday, 16 August 2003.
Claude Lalumière's Fantastic Fiction
is a series of
capsule reviews first published in the Saturday Books
section of The Montreal Gazette.
Elsewhere in infinity plus:
Elsewhere on the web:
|
