desertcart.com: The God of Small Things: A Novel: 9780812979657: Roy, Arundhati: Books Review: The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy: A review - Arundhati Roy has a new book, her second novel, out this year and much acclaimed. I want to read it, but in thinking about that book, I remembered her remarkable debut novel, The God of Small Things, which was published twenty years ago in 1997. I had read the book back then, but in recalling it today, I found that its details had blurred and I wanted to read it again. And so I did. It was even better the second time around. Perhaps my life experience in the last twenty years has given me a greater appreciation of the story. Roy's luminous prose makes reading an unadulterated pleasure, even when she is describing the tragic events of this tale. The story of fraternal ("two-egg" in the language of the book) twins Esthappen and Rahel and their childhood in the state of Kerala in the southern tip of India, as they try to understand and come to terms with their fractured family and as they learn to their eternal sorrow that the events of one day can change things forever, is a story which everyone who has ever been a child should be able to relate to. Moreover, I thought the structure which Roy gave to the story was absolutely brilliant in its conception and execution. She begins the story at its end and ends it at its beginning and, throughout, the action slips effortlessly back and forth between the present and the beginnings in 1969. The twins and their mother, Ammu, had returned to the family home in Ayemenem after the mother divorced her abusive drunkard husband. But because of the divorce, she is considered an outcast and she and her children are resented by the family, especially by her aunt, Baby Kochamma, a woman whose own desire for love has been thwarted. In fact, everyone in this fraught household has been thwarted in love in one way or another. Ammu's brother, Chako (Rhodes scholar, pickle baron, and radical Marxist), had married a woman in England but after their daughter was born, the first bloom of love faded and she left him for another man. Then, he, too, returned to Ayemenem. Ammu's and Chako's mother, Mammachi, is a widow, now blind, who was regularly beaten by her husband with a brass pot when he was alive. In this atmosphere of frustrated desires, Ammu must try to raise her children and give them happy lives. The caste system is still very much a part of society in India in 1969 and it pollutes relations at every level. The twins have a friend, teacher, and protector in Velutha, a member of the Untouchable caste. He is someone who grew up with their mother. The two children love him by day, but, in secret, their lonely mother loves him at night. It is, of course, a forbidden love and one that can only end in grief. The catalyst for the tragedy to come is the Christmas visit to the home by Chako's ex-wife, Margaret, and his beloved daughter, Sophie. It's impossible to further describe the plot without spoilers. Suffice to say that no one escapes unchanged. Roy loads her narrative with foreshadowing so that one feels a constant sense of trepidation and anxiety. When the worst happens, it is hardly a surprise and yet the reader is still devastated. What strikes me as most tragic is not so much the suffering of these flawed characters, but the fact that such suffering is so commonplace. We are reading of the effects of the caste system in India in the 1960s; it might just as easily be about racism, misogyny, xenophobia in America today. Human nature has not improved in the last fifty years. In that regard, sadly, Roy's story stands up very well to the passage of time. Review: AN OVER-RICH FEAST - This novel is everything that the many reviewers, both positive and negative, say it is. That's because it is overflowing with things both good and bad; it is all superabundance, superfluity and sometimes surfeit. Suzanna Arundhati Roy is a phenomenally gifted young writer simply gushing with words and perceptions, but unable to resist them, contain them, or cut them down with the cruel, revising severity of an older master. And so the reader, happy for the rich fare, but feeling a bloat coming on from the excess of sweets and carbohydrates, must pass by the later servings with some degree of displeasure. Yet, overall, it's not right to turn up your nose at a feast. The most difficult part of the repast is the beginning. THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS, following the model of Salman Rushdie's THE MOOR'S LAST SIGH, is very much a novel about family relationships. The author apparently wants the reader to enter the story in media res, as if suddenly transported to Southwestern India and stuck in a village without explanation. That device works up to a point, but beyond it precise information is needed as to who is who and how everyone is related. Roy never gives a decent accounting and seems almost spitefully to mix things up. As I read I found that I had to make a list of the characters and constantly revise it. An explanatory cast of characters should appear at the front of the book, but since it does not I think the best service I can provide to prospective readers is to offer my list. It is based mostly on early information, so does not give the story away: SETTING: the Hindu village of Ayemenem (not on maps), near Kottayam (on some maps) in the State of Kerala, which lines the southwestern tip of India; the village is two hours distant from the coastal town of Cochin (on detailed maps). The language is Malayalam. MAIN CHARACTERS: Soshamma Mammachi--the grandmother, owns a pickle factory called "Paradise." Papachi--the grandfather, 17 years older, a retired government entomologist. Ammu--daughter of Mammachi and Papachi, mother of the twins, divorced from Baba, 27 years old in 1969. Baba--the alcoholic father, goes to work in Calcutta and takes his son Estha with him; then 23 years later returns him to Ayemenem and moves to Australia. Estha (Esthappen Yako)--their son, first of the dizygotic twins, born November 1962. Rahel--their daughter, second of the dizygotic twins by 18 minutes; she marries and divorces the architect Larry McCaslin and returns to Ayemenem from America when she learns that Estha has returned. Chako--only son of Mammachi and Papachi, brother of Ammu, uncle of the twins, a Rhodes scholar at Oxford. Margaret Kochamma--English ex-wife of Chako. Sophie Mol--their daughter, dead at 9, cousin to the twins. Velutha ("white")--son of Vellya Paapen, born 1945, a Paravan (untouchable), handyman and carpenter. Baby Kochamma (Navomi Ipe)--sister of Papachi, grand aunt of the twins, once a Roman Catholic nun (not related to Margaret Kochamma). E. John Ipe--her father, blessed as a boy by the Patriarch of Antioch, head of the Syrian Christian Church. Kochin Maria--her midget maid. The above list gives dates and ages as the author provides them, but try as you might it is awfully hard to determine exactly what are the years of the two main planes of action. The author likes to shift from one to the other, so that a sense of timelessness is created, but once certain dates are given it is irritating not to have the chief ones, and one cannot escape the feeling that the author is being intentionally obscure. Possibly she could write the whole thing in Malayalam and the Malayalam reader would grasp everything, but if the medium is English then some concessions to the wider foreign culture should be made. As for the feast, nearly every idea of consequence is compared to something else, and not one simile will do, when two or three can be found. The memory of Sophie Mol, for example, becomes ever-present, like “a quiet thing in socks... like a fruit in season... as permanent as a government job.” These multiple comparisons, however fresh, are added to a text already stuffed with colors, tastes and quirky associations. Once a brilliant image is discovered, it is not used once, or even a few times, but is repeated incessantly to the end, as, for example, the trick of describing a character, say Ammu, as “an Ammu-shaped hole in the universe.” Eventually everybody becomes an X-shaped hole in the universe. And the little verbal habits, chatter and jingles of the characters, such as the childish “dum dum” added at the end of a thought, delightful at the start, become cloying and sickening by the end. There is a problem with names. Roy never gives the last names of characters, but sometimes gives Indian (presumably Malayalam) designations or terms in their stead. Thus the mother of the story is called Ammu, and her children call her “Ammu,” but so does everyone else. Evidently she is just generally Mother, and we never get a first or last name. (Or I got it wrong.) Similarly “Chako” appears to mean “uncle,” yet other characters seem to call the man by this name, while the kids are forbidden to do so. Readers of English would expect the characters called Baby Kochamma and Margaret Kochamma to be related, but they are not: the first is an old Indian; the second is a young Englishwoman who married into the family. “Kochamma,” then, must indicate a status (non-Hindu, non- Muslim?) which is never explained. Or is it a last name? Similarly “Mol” is added on occasion to the name of a girl and “Mon” to the name of a boy, without explanation All the same, there are wonderful things here. Roy, being fearless, lapses on occasion into bad taste, revoltingly bad taste, but in her best moments achieves a sublime portrayal of life as severe and unsparing as Joseph Conrad. The reader inclined by her child's-point-of-view narrative to place all good in childhood and all evil in maturity should reflect on a little scene in which two girls are stepping on ants: one wants to kill them all, but the other wants to leave one so "it will be lonely." Here, as in other scenes, is the remorseless eye of a great artist.
| Best Sellers Rank | #928 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #23 in Contemporary Literature & Fiction #29 in Coming of Age Fiction (Books) #136 in Literary Fiction (Books) |
| Customer Reviews | 4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars (17,430) |
| Dimensions | 5.14 x 0.74 x 7.97 inches |
| Edition | Reprint |
| ISBN-10 | 0812979656 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-0812979657 |
| Item Weight | 8.8 ounces |
| Language | English |
| Print length | 333 pages |
| Publication date | December 16, 2008 |
| Publisher | Random House Trade Paperbacks |
P**N
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy: A review
Arundhati Roy has a new book, her second novel, out this year and much acclaimed. I want to read it, but in thinking about that book, I remembered her remarkable debut novel, The God of Small Things, which was published twenty years ago in 1997. I had read the book back then, but in recalling it today, I found that its details had blurred and I wanted to read it again. And so I did. It was even better the second time around. Perhaps my life experience in the last twenty years has given me a greater appreciation of the story. Roy's luminous prose makes reading an unadulterated pleasure, even when she is describing the tragic events of this tale. The story of fraternal ("two-egg" in the language of the book) twins Esthappen and Rahel and their childhood in the state of Kerala in the southern tip of India, as they try to understand and come to terms with their fractured family and as they learn to their eternal sorrow that the events of one day can change things forever, is a story which everyone who has ever been a child should be able to relate to. Moreover, I thought the structure which Roy gave to the story was absolutely brilliant in its conception and execution. She begins the story at its end and ends it at its beginning and, throughout, the action slips effortlessly back and forth between the present and the beginnings in 1969. The twins and their mother, Ammu, had returned to the family home in Ayemenem after the mother divorced her abusive drunkard husband. But because of the divorce, she is considered an outcast and she and her children are resented by the family, especially by her aunt, Baby Kochamma, a woman whose own desire for love has been thwarted. In fact, everyone in this fraught household has been thwarted in love in one way or another. Ammu's brother, Chako (Rhodes scholar, pickle baron, and radical Marxist), had married a woman in England but after their daughter was born, the first bloom of love faded and she left him for another man. Then, he, too, returned to Ayemenem. Ammu's and Chako's mother, Mammachi, is a widow, now blind, who was regularly beaten by her husband with a brass pot when he was alive. In this atmosphere of frustrated desires, Ammu must try to raise her children and give them happy lives. The caste system is still very much a part of society in India in 1969 and it pollutes relations at every level. The twins have a friend, teacher, and protector in Velutha, a member of the Untouchable caste. He is someone who grew up with their mother. The two children love him by day, but, in secret, their lonely mother loves him at night. It is, of course, a forbidden love and one that can only end in grief. The catalyst for the tragedy to come is the Christmas visit to the home by Chako's ex-wife, Margaret, and his beloved daughter, Sophie. It's impossible to further describe the plot without spoilers. Suffice to say that no one escapes unchanged. Roy loads her narrative with foreshadowing so that one feels a constant sense of trepidation and anxiety. When the worst happens, it is hardly a surprise and yet the reader is still devastated. What strikes me as most tragic is not so much the suffering of these flawed characters, but the fact that such suffering is so commonplace. We are reading of the effects of the caste system in India in the 1960s; it might just as easily be about racism, misogyny, xenophobia in America today. Human nature has not improved in the last fifty years. In that regard, sadly, Roy's story stands up very well to the passage of time.
G**N
AN OVER-RICH FEAST
This novel is everything that the many reviewers, both positive and negative, say it is. That's because it is overflowing with things both good and bad; it is all superabundance, superfluity and sometimes surfeit. Suzanna Arundhati Roy is a phenomenally gifted young writer simply gushing with words and perceptions, but unable to resist them, contain them, or cut them down with the cruel, revising severity of an older master. And so the reader, happy for the rich fare, but feeling a bloat coming on from the excess of sweets and carbohydrates, must pass by the later servings with some degree of displeasure. Yet, overall, it's not right to turn up your nose at a feast. The most difficult part of the repast is the beginning. THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS, following the model of Salman Rushdie's THE MOOR'S LAST SIGH, is very much a novel about family relationships. The author apparently wants the reader to enter the story in media res, as if suddenly transported to Southwestern India and stuck in a village without explanation. That device works up to a point, but beyond it precise information is needed as to who is who and how everyone is related. Roy never gives a decent accounting and seems almost spitefully to mix things up. As I read I found that I had to make a list of the characters and constantly revise it. An explanatory cast of characters should appear at the front of the book, but since it does not I think the best service I can provide to prospective readers is to offer my list. It is based mostly on early information, so does not give the story away: SETTING: the Hindu village of Ayemenem (not on maps), near Kottayam (on some maps) in the State of Kerala, which lines the southwestern tip of India; the village is two hours distant from the coastal town of Cochin (on detailed maps). The language is Malayalam. MAIN CHARACTERS: Soshamma Mammachi--the grandmother, owns a pickle factory called "Paradise." Papachi--the grandfather, 17 years older, a retired government entomologist. Ammu--daughter of Mammachi and Papachi, mother of the twins, divorced from Baba, 27 years old in 1969. Baba--the alcoholic father, goes to work in Calcutta and takes his son Estha with him; then 23 years later returns him to Ayemenem and moves to Australia. Estha (Esthappen Yako)--their son, first of the dizygotic twins, born November 1962. Rahel--their daughter, second of the dizygotic twins by 18 minutes; she marries and divorces the architect Larry McCaslin and returns to Ayemenem from America when she learns that Estha has returned. Chako--only son of Mammachi and Papachi, brother of Ammu, uncle of the twins, a Rhodes scholar at Oxford. Margaret Kochamma--English ex-wife of Chako. Sophie Mol--their daughter, dead at 9, cousin to the twins. Velutha ("white")--son of Vellya Paapen, born 1945, a Paravan (untouchable), handyman and carpenter. Baby Kochamma (Navomi Ipe)--sister of Papachi, grand aunt of the twins, once a Roman Catholic nun (not related to Margaret Kochamma). E. John Ipe--her father, blessed as a boy by the Patriarch of Antioch, head of the Syrian Christian Church. Kochin Maria--her midget maid. The above list gives dates and ages as the author provides them, but try as you might it is awfully hard to determine exactly what are the years of the two main planes of action. The author likes to shift from one to the other, so that a sense of timelessness is created, but once certain dates are given it is irritating not to have the chief ones, and one cannot escape the feeling that the author is being intentionally obscure. Possibly she could write the whole thing in Malayalam and the Malayalam reader would grasp everything, but if the medium is English then some concessions to the wider foreign culture should be made. As for the feast, nearly every idea of consequence is compared to something else, and not one simile will do, when two or three can be found. The memory of Sophie Mol, for example, becomes ever-present, like “a quiet thing in socks... like a fruit in season... as permanent as a government job.” These multiple comparisons, however fresh, are added to a text already stuffed with colors, tastes and quirky associations. Once a brilliant image is discovered, it is not used once, or even a few times, but is repeated incessantly to the end, as, for example, the trick of describing a character, say Ammu, as “an Ammu-shaped hole in the universe.” Eventually everybody becomes an X-shaped hole in the universe. And the little verbal habits, chatter and jingles of the characters, such as the childish “dum dum” added at the end of a thought, delightful at the start, become cloying and sickening by the end. There is a problem with names. Roy never gives the last names of characters, but sometimes gives Indian (presumably Malayalam) designations or terms in their stead. Thus the mother of the story is called Ammu, and her children call her “Ammu,” but so does everyone else. Evidently she is just generally Mother, and we never get a first or last name. (Or I got it wrong.) Similarly “Chako” appears to mean “uncle,” yet other characters seem to call the man by this name, while the kids are forbidden to do so. Readers of English would expect the characters called Baby Kochamma and Margaret Kochamma to be related, but they are not: the first is an old Indian; the second is a young Englishwoman who married into the family. “Kochamma,” then, must indicate a status (non-Hindu, non- Muslim?) which is never explained. Or is it a last name? Similarly “Mol” is added on occasion to the name of a girl and “Mon” to the name of a boy, without explanation All the same, there are wonderful things here. Roy, being fearless, lapses on occasion into bad taste, revoltingly bad taste, but in her best moments achieves a sublime portrayal of life as severe and unsparing as Joseph Conrad. The reader inclined by her child's-point-of-view narrative to place all good in childhood and all evil in maturity should reflect on a little scene in which two girls are stepping on ants: one wants to kill them all, but the other wants to leave one so "it will be lonely." Here, as in other scenes, is the remorseless eye of a great artist.
A**O
A masterpiece. The book received a little well-worn
B**T
Brilliant text and composition. Extraordinarily creative writing, inventive, comical and witty yet combined with a serious discourse on Indian tradition and caste mentality. Both beautiful and sad.
R**A
Though it took me quite some time to finish this book, I truly believe it deserves every bit of that time. This isn’t a story you rush through it’s one you read slowly, observe carefully, and allow yourself to absorb. I haven’t read anything written so beautifully and poetically. Every sentence feels crafted with care, and every image lingers long after you close the book. It truly deserves all the praise it receives. Arundhati Roy has woven critical themes of Indian society- caste, class, patriarchy, and the quiet cruelty of social hierarchies with breathtaking delicacy. The story of the twin siblings, Estha and Rahel, and the man who did nothing but love a woman society forbade him to, will stay with me for a long time. I loved everything about this novel from the mischievous innocence of the twins to the sharp portrayal of family tensions, power, and hypocrisy. Even the smallest details - the irritated grandmother, the nosy uncles, the suffocating weight of societal expectations feel alive. This isn’t just a book; it’s an experience. A must-read for anyone who loves powerful storytelling, layered emotions, and writing that feels almost like poetry.
と**ん
GW前にKERALA＆MUMBAIへ赴任することになっている為、この地を少しでも学ぶ必要があったので購入致しました。著者のArundhati Roy氏が脚本担当、出演された映画「In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones」も感銘を受けた大切な要素だ。当時は２６，７歳位で大変可愛らしい女性だなという印象。映画の内容はご本人が建築家の卵として学生時代を淡々と語ったものです。当時のインド国内では大変評価が高くお勧めできる作品です。 こちらを読み終えた後はSalman Rushdie氏著のMidnight's Children、Jhumpa Lahiri氏著のInterpreter of Maladies, Rohinton Mistry氏著のSuch a Long Journeyを大好きなLeopold Cafeの地で楽しみたいと思います(笑）
N**O
El caos en palabras. Conocer más sobre la vida en la India, su sistema de castas, su caos y su belleza. Todo aquel que se jacte de ser un gran lector, que ame los retos y la belleza de la narrativa debe conocer esta historia. Todo gira al rededor de la muerte de una niña. Por medio de saltos en el tiempo, de descripciones poéticas y complejas como la vida misma, conocemos la historia de una familia que se salta todas las normas de la cultura al amar. Sígueme en instagram para más recomendaciones literarias. @Nora_d_tinta_y_papel
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