Olympus: An Indian Retelling of the Greek Myths

This book impresses the readers with nifty design and the way it is told. The pictures in almost every page are very beautiful and convey the story. But the way the book is written is quite boring and makes it difficult to continue. Main reason for this would be the sheer quantity of material that is there in Greek Mythology. There are 8 major characters on which the book is divided. And each characters' part is filled with numerous stories where there are so many minor characters are involved. The book makes it hard to follow up with characters since each stories are short lived. And these characters though smaller comes later in the story with a major plot point but it is difficult to remember each of the characters. After each story there are author's notes to help relate the story into Hindu and/or other mythology and Devdutt Pattanaik will surprise us with the connections he draws between the stories across civilizations. We come across different types of creatures with unimaginable qualities and it is interesting to learn about it.
My major difficulty on the book is the way such a humongous story is written in 250 odd pages. It simply is not possible and a Herculean task (pun intended!) and we have to appreciate the author for the effort.
If you want to get a quick dose of Greek mythology in a simple and as a easy read, you should read this book. But do not expect to remember everything which is in the book because it is enormous like the god Argus Panoptes who had over 100 eyes and Hydra whose 9 heads keep re-spawning even after beheading them continuously!

Review written for the reading challenge 2018