So, let's go up to birth of Pandu and Dhritarashtrya and Vidura

[Pia]

As a first 'marker'........and discuss what comes to mind when reading
up to that point.

All things particularly interesting/insightful/shocking/controversial ?

[Pia & Sanjeev]

Well, okay, here's what surprise me big time.....I got into one of the
'loop' stories, the churning of the ocean. And the gods and asuras
take the mandara mountain and use that -- fair enough, but then I
read: "The gods then went to the king of tortoises and said to him, 'O
Tortoise-king, thou wilt have to hold the mountain on thy back!' The
Tortoise-king agreed, and Indra contrived to place the mountain on the
former's back.".....and its like

Wait...what....wasn't Vishnu supposed to have become the Kurma-avtaar
to do that task ? Dang it, there goes about 25 yrs of learning the
'Dasavatara' song -- "Keshava Dhrita Kachhapa Rupa"......

Sigh, there is no consistency in the Gods !!!!!

[Anindya]

Heh, heh, the Tortoise-King supporting the mountain is the one I
always knew. So, was always confused by Kurma avatar.

But then, I suppose they just made the tortoise-king an avatar for a
good job well done. :-)

The Ramamyana also has a samudra-manthan, but here the snake being
used as the rope is different, among other things.

Indian myths are majorly chaotic, which is why I always take a
probablistic approach -- read as many versions as possible and check
for common features.

[rajeev]

So are we primarily focusing on the line-by-line translation then? In
Ramesh Menon's version the story starts with Santanu and proceeds
linearly from there. I guess Ganguli's translation would offer a lot
more food for thought.

[Pia & Sanjeev]

I think we can do either, the fewer rules the better for discussion
IMO ! I'm pretty familiar with the linear storyline, so am more prone
to wander off into Ganguli's translation which offers me 'new' things,
but I'll jump in with both feet as soon as someone posts something
from the more linear translations too. But I'm super-keen to get the
take of relative newcomers to Mahabharat-reading on the more linear
storyline.

Pia

[rajeev]

Agreed. I think I'll stick to the Ramesh Menon version for now -- I'd
love to read Ganguli but my semester here is about to start and I'm
finding myself swamped!