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Pregnant King (2008)

by Devdutt Pattanaik(Favorite Author)

3.8 of 5 Votes: 3

languge

English

genre

Fantasy

publisher

Penguin

review 1: A great book indeed. Kept me engaged until the end. It captivated me through the simplicity of the message it was trying to convey with little stories (interleaved into the bigger story) throughout the book. At the end of the book, the author had a simple message. No soul is tied to a body, so the soul does not have a gender, an educational degree or a status in society. The lives of most of us is a façade for the period of time the soul is bound to a body. While playing this charade, most of us try to fit in and do normal things like everyone else and we shun and cringe at anything that is not close to normal. We should be unjudging of people for what they are born with (which is seemingly hard for many). What one choses to be (so long as he/she is not harming anyone els... moree) should be his/her own business and not anybody else's.This is a book not just about the pregnant king, but also about relationships between a son and a mother, a husband and wife, a father and a son. The author has greatly captured these different relationships very well. I don't usually re-read books, but I probably will read this again at some point just to understand some of the subtler messages I might have missed on the first read. Hats of to the author!
review 2: “The Pregnant King” is a masterpiece by Devdutt Pattanaik, in which fiction gels with facts (as per Hindu mythology) with such fluidity, that soon, you are enveloped with pure wonder, and leave behind any efforts of segregating the two. The author has dealt with the subject of sexuality and its innumerable forms, as celebrated in our culture, with such gentleness, that you feel the pain and confusion that Yuvanashva feels, you seek that answers that he seeks, and you fight the battles that he fights. In fact, all characters have been treated so beautifully, they come alive as you turn the pages of the book. You identify with Shilavati’s hunger for power, with Keshini’s naïve charm, with Mandhata’s arrogant refusal of the truth – because it confuses him, scares him, because it holds the risk of his losing his claim to the throne. No doubt, Hindu mythology provides a fertile ground for an imaginative mind. But the treatment of the author to the same subjects makes all the difference. The royal family is not weighed down by gold ornaments heavier than themselves. The palace is not built with carved white marble. There are no silk and velvet tapestries on walls and windows. Of course each member of the royal family has his own courtyard and a train of servants and confidants. But that’s real… and believable. As real as the subtle element of sensuality and sex – in the gold jewellery that adorns the queens on their wedding night, in the games of spotting a star, in the courtyard while playing hide & seek, on the elephant under a banyan tree, in the diligent record of “fertile days”, in the public obsession of royal conception. All I can say is, even though I am done with the book, I’ve not had enough of its characters. less

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