The Palace of Illusions: A Novel Paperback – February 10, 2009

In a time of rich spices, jeweled saris, and everyday magic - a time of curses, vengeance, and the power of the heart - a girl stumbles out of the flames that have already produced her twin brother, carrying with her the thread and promise of change. In Divakaruni's masterful hands the myth of Panchaali takes shape, and the reader leaves behind the contemporary world for a society that carries far too many parallels to our own.On its own, the narrative is majestic, but it is Divakaruni's character development that truly brings The Palace of Illusions to life. Panchaali herself is capable of invoking a sea of emotional responses, and the power to invoke sympathy, hatred, admiration and condemnation within the space of 360 pages speaks volumes of her author's narrative capabilities. The inhabitants of The Palace of Illusions are far from two-dimensional characters moving through a storyline: they breathe through the pages and welcome the reader into their mysterious world. In short, the novel is simply magical.

I finished this book in two days. Divakaruni's writing is beautiful and flows effortlessly. She flows through the complex narrative rather effortlessly and it is a pleasure to journey with the characters she creates. However, I do have an issue with the portrayal of Draupadi and Kunti. I'll start with Draupadi since she's the protagonist. While in most places, she reflects an unique strength, there are instances where she comes across as churlish and petulant. To me, Draupadi was the epitome of dignity, even when she was taunting and goading Pandavas into a war. As a brave, fearless woman who had the temerity to speak her own mind in a male-dominated society, it is crucial that Draupadi sounded authoritative and not whiny, which is exactly how she comes across in certain cases.The other character I had an issue with was Kunti. The whole brinjal incident with Draupadi was, in my opinion, unneeded. As many other reviewers before me, the entire saas-bahu episode between these two was a bit of a put off for me.There are two characters that I would like to mention, Karna and Shikhandi. Karna is portrayed as the most complete human in the entire book. He's the most intriguing and appealing in the entire ensemble and I was actually a little sad when he died. The other character who caught my interest was Shikhandi. Shrouded in an aura of mystery, this character was brilliantly written, despite the rather small role. I sorely missed Vidura, who is one of my favorite characters in Mahabharat. I wish there were some significant scenes with that gem of a character.That said, overall the book left me feeling satisfying and that in itself is an achievement.

This book can only be described with one word BEAUTIFUL. The imagery, the language, the well-conveyed feeling of longing all made this book speak to me on so many levels. I did not want to finish this book for the fear of the end of the fantasy world the author had created for me. This book was so descriptive it made all my senses ache. Not only at its core was a story of love and loss but an epic battle as well as the lessons of greed, power and desire. I wish Divakaruni had made this book even longer so my journey could have never ended. A truly magical journey and magical book.

Divakaruni has penned a fast-moving and engaging retelling of one of India's most beloved ancient texts: the Mahabharata. Probably the world's largest single literary work, the Mahabharata tells the story of the first recorded civil war in history: the struggle precipitated between two sets of cousins due to their conflict over who is to inherit the family's ancestral throne.Most Western readers are familiar with this epic tale only marginally, through a tiny excerpt called the Bhagavad Gita, which contains the eternal teaching of the divine Krishna.In her contemporary novel, Divakaruni recasts the entire story by telling it through the eyes of the central female character, Draupadi, whose humiliation and violation is one of the events motivating the epic's heroes to enter into war with their cousins.Draupadi's "disrobing" has always been considered one of the most central scenes in the epic. In fact, many date the onset of our current age of corruption and decay (the Kali Yuga) to that very moment in time. In the critical edition, Draupadi's chastisement of her husbands, for their passivity and unwillingness to protect her, is given full voice: a fact that attests to the tradition's own ambivalence with regard to the traditional treatment of women at the hands of their husbands in general (echoed through the centuries in Draupadi's unanswered question: "Is a husband permitted to stake his wife in a gambling match"?)By making Draupadi's the point of view through which we see the events unfold, however, Divakaruni adds a greater level of psychological complexity to our consideration of the epic events. In this version, we see Draupadi involved in an ongoing relationship with Krishna in which she is not only acknowledged for the suffering she endures, but also chastised for her selfishness, and encouraged to move beyond her adolescent goals and ambitions.There is admirable character development, as Draupadi recognizes (too late, all too often) her mistakes and their great costs. So too, we are treated to a sort of Draupadi Gita, as we see the 18-day war through Draupadi's eyes, and she is forced to witness the carnage brought about through her lust for revenge.Is it a break with tradition to tell the story in this way? To those who would be scandalized by Divakaruni's approach: it is well worth remembering that there are dozens of well-established regional versions of the Mahabharata, and even many more local traditions throughout India. In fact, as a cursory scan of even the critical edition would verify, we could say that the tradition *is* to come up with new ways of telling the old events, and new details with which to embellish the body of the story.