Chitra Banarjee Divakaruni
The Palace of Illusions by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni is a retelling of the Hindu epic, the Mahabharata. It unfolds in the voice of Draupadi, also known as Penchaali. It charts her birth out of the sacred fire, her childhood, her rotating marriages to the five Pandava brothers, her life in the illusion-filled palace, her years of exile with her five husbands due a loss in a game of dice, her observation of the Kurukeshtra war, and her death.
This is an ambitious undertaking, and Divakaruni is to be applauded for her attempt to reimagine this complex epic in the voice of a female. However, the portrayal of the central character is problematic. Draupadi is depicted as childish, self-absorbed, and vengeful. She spends much of her time harboring secret crushes for males who are out of her reach. Although we see her growing from a child to a middle-aged woman, her voice doesn’t change. She remains the same emotionally arrested, whiney little girl throughout. The novel reads like a hyped-up sitcom with secret love interests, the stereotypically cruel mother-in-law, and a beautiful heroine whom men find irresistible.
This retelling of a classic Indian epic just wasn’t for me.