Rumi: A New Translation by Rumi
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

" Their melancholy is soothing, and their joy elevating, to a degree I never experienced in studying the authors of any other country. When you read their writings, life appears to consist in a warm sun and a garden of roses, in the smiles and frowns of a fair enemy, and the fire that consumes your own heart. "
-Victor Frankenstein on Oriental Poetry
(Mary Shelley's Frankenstein )


I begin my review, or rather, I sum it up in the words borrowed from Mary Shelley, who said it all about the likes of Omar Khayyam, Khalil Gibran, and Rumi, in those two lines. Yes, this is exactly what reading Oriental poetry feels like, even to a person from the Oriental world! This is exactly what reading this little pink book feels like.

In fact, I'm glad I got my hands on it before that little three-year-old girl, who was probably eyeing it keenly because it's pink and cloth bound. I still shudder to think where Rumi's wisdom would have lain, in a doll house perhaps, surrounded by Barbie dolls, instead of a bookshelf!

Anyway, what about this translation of Rumi? Is it as good as Barks? Better than Barks? Is it different?

Well, I am not going to compare it with Barks, because, I am yet to read it. As to what I think of this translation, it certainly is amazing but it isn't what one would call brilliant. Somewhere, while trying to keep the rhyme scheme intact, the translator lost that key essence of Rumi: depth! I don't mean that the poems are not deep anymore or have suddenly become simple and shallow and meaningless-no! However, the original beauty of Rumi is lost in the use of more colloquial words and all this just to get the whole things rhyme. Certain quatrains are so vague you just lose track of what you're reading and there are places where the translation is simply clumsy.

I do not claim to be an expert on Persian poetry like my grandfather was however, I know for sure that if this collection had been translated in the same way as Navtej Sarna translated Zafarnama or Vikram Seth translated certain couplets from Arabic, Persian and Urdu in his A Suitable Boy , I, for one, would have loved this book slightly more than I do now.

That being said, I have still adored the book. Who couldn't? Rumi's poems are like music to the soul, and even if they seem a little too casually handled, they still leave a mark on you, hit the nail, touch a nerve somewhere. I throughly enjoyed the book but I just feel that it could have been better!

A MUST read, nonetheless!

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Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam by Edward FitzGerald
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Some helpful advice: Try and have a history with this book! Makes it even more special!

Some of my history with this book: Two of my very close friends, one, who got it for her Birthday, and the other, who got it for me on my Birthday, have been insisting that I read this book since December 2012. In fact, the second one was SO insistent I read it that he practically quoted it in front of me all the time, and sure enough, the moment I unwrapped it, I just HAD TO read it! Also, it isn't like you have anything much to do if you're on a bus from London to Oxford and reading is the BEST distraction one can find!

Now coming to the book- let's put it this way, when I get older, losing my hair, many years from now (No,I'm not going to write this review 'When I'm Sixty-Four' way!)and someone takes out the pretty, navy blue 1900 edition of Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam from my shelf and asks me how I got hold of it, I'd probably launch into a very long story involving a nervous twenty-one going on twenty-two year old girl studying archaeology at Oxford University, her Boo Radley-like classmate, some funny stories involving Pearl Jam , coffee, too-spicy-to-handle burritos, and a Birthday spent in a very Roman Holiday way. And then, I'd talk about the intoxicating power of poetry, the similarity between the state of a drunk man and man drunk with power and ambition, the pain of unrequited love and passion that a man could feel for his beloved or a devotee towards God, the irony that enshrouds man's life and work, his talent and art. All these and perhaps much, much more is encapsulated in this little book that I managed to read four times on my three hour journey from London to Oxford.

What is commendable about this book is you will never forget the little couplets and one of them or another will keep coming back to you at the oddest of hours imaginable. (I quoted one to everyone who'd call me to wish me on my birthday while another kept on repeating itself in my head even when I was asleep and it was then I understood Sam's obsession with this book!) What is also amazing is how beautifully it has been translated, so more than Omar Khayyam, I'd really give all the credit to Edward Fitzgerald because he translated it to a language I could understand and managed to keep its poetic beauty alive and captivating if not intact.

More than anything else, this book gave me an optimistic outlook regarding reading. After all, if I read something as beautiful and profound and passionate as Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam on my birthday, my life as a reader could only get better and better!



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