Dhruv Gandhi Gandhi itibaren Kurthadih, Bihar 804421, India
Having never read the unabridged Mahabharata (which runs to about 100,000 stanzas or roughly 8x the length of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey combined - making it one of the longest written compositions in the world, not to mention making it unlikely that i'll ever get around to reading it) it is difficult to adequately review an abridged version. However, I can make a few comments. Narayan renders this extensive work into a brief 179 pages, an amazing feat, and produces a very well written and entertaining story. This comes at a cost, however, as many of the more esoteric dialogs have been removed leaving the fundamental story and plot, without much of the philosophical ideas that make it a rich religious text.