i know i'm alone on this one. i've never heard a single negative comment about the good of small things. plus, i love arundhati roy. i've read several of her books of essays, heard her speeches, read her occasional newspaper colums, never without utter amazement at the beautiful arrangements she composes with words.

when i finally got around to reading the god of small things i had high hopes. that might be part of the reason why i was so disappointed with this novel. maybe i'd placed it somewhere so high that even a booker prize couldn't reach. the bottom line was that i was bored by the plot. i don't have any greater criticism than that. i simply wasn't interested in the characters.

roy's writing lived up to my expectations. it's lyrical, like i imagine the music coming from those paintings of angels in heaven playing the harp must sound.

her story delves into the indian caste system and into the inner reaches of personal emotional struggles. my problem was that i had little interest in the daily affairs of her characters.

4 and 1/2 stars

I admire this book: its structure, descriptive prose and portrayal of the children. One of the 'Two Things' (that's an allusion to the book) I heard about the novel before reading it was how sad and depressing it is. It is, especially in that the adults fail the children so spectacularly and, for the most part, intentionally (plus it's always hard to read of children as victims) but perhaps I've read so much sad, depressing fiction in my life that this one didn't stand out as more so. Or maybe it's because of the structure that states from the beginning that certain things have happened but leads you to the descriptions of these events slowly, as if it's bracing you for the intensity as you approach the 'Heart of Darkness.' Any time I wondered if the author was ever going to get to the alluded event, she did, and at the perfect time. Her wordplay (the other of the 'Two Things' I heard about the book beforehand) greatly alleviates the tragic elements. While we already know what ultimately happens to the couple at the end, I feel that the book ends on a positive note, as if these 'small things' are what need to be cherished.

An image of Velutha in Rahel's mind from the first chapter stayed with me throughout and had me paging back several times to reread it. A simple mother-son allusion near the end to something in the beginning was perhaps more heartbreaking to me than anything else. The different viewpoints are done well, and seamlessly.

I know a bit about the history of India, but I wish I knew more, as I believe this book can be read on more than one level. The pivotal year in the novel is 1969, which is when the Indian National Congress split into two factions (like two-egg twins?). Times are changing (with Marxism and Communism making some inroads) but not enough, as the government and religious and political organizations continue to fail individuals, the 'small things', paralleling the adults' failing the children.

As I finished the book, I was reminded of a conversation I had the other day with a GR friend, in which I quoted Richard Ford. Ford was talking of racism in Mississippi, but it could apply to the caste system in India as well. He said, "[Mississippi] has so many writers, because it has so much to explain." At the same talk, he also said this of Faulkner's work: "[It] burns with the absurdity and incongruity of racism." I think Roy's novel also burns with this.

Oh, The God of Small Things, why you gotta be this way?

First off, someone needs to cut this book up and reassemble it into a semblance of a linear narrative. By all means intercut the Present with the Past, but let things unfold somewhat naturally. Don't undercut narrative tension with a minor character's pointless backstory three-quarters of the way through, and don't leave it until the last pages to make us care about the central love story.

Next, without an artificially convoluted structure contriving to withhold information from us, I suppose you'd have to remove the vast amounts of foreshadowing, as being now redundant. We can all do without that 'little did they know' stuff anyway.

While we're at it, might as well edit out the repetitions of cloying, faux-naïf bay. bee. tawk and Uncapitalise Many Words. These affectations are not obnoxious in and of themselves, they're just employed Tutu Menny times.

After rearranging and excising so much, the resulting book may only be of novella length. That's okay — it will be a devastating masterpiece of evocative, luminous prose, trenchant social/political commentary, and searing emotional intensity.

I'm not asking too much. These are only Small Things.

Pues sí. En esta novela tienen cabida García Márquez, y Toni Morrison, y por supuesto, Salman Rushdie y sus Hijos de la Medianoche. Porque inevitablemente recuerda a ella; a su representación mágica y exótica de la India, con su colorido, sus encurtidos y sus olores a especias, pero también decadente, llena de suciedad e inmundicia, física y moral. Porque la historia que nos cuenta es trágica y deprimente , como lo son las diferencias sociales y los prejuicios que abundan entre sus gentes.
La novela relata la historia de tres generaciones de una familia. La conoceremos de forma fragmentada, saltando adelante y atrás, reconstruyendo progresivamente el puzzle que conforma su historia. Es una lectura exigente, muy lírica a veces para mi gusto. Pero el resultado recompensa. Es una gran novela, y su calidad literaria es incuestionable.

So brutally tragic...

I recognize that when it comes to this book, platitudes are worth even less than usual when it comes to the conveyance of something with actual meaning. So on that note I will spare both you and I that. Instead, I will comfort myself in the core of metaphor, and go from there.

To say that this book resonated with me is akin to saying that ingestion of arsenic does a decent job of causing multi-system organ failure. To say that I read it at the right time is akin to saying that the added latex to the cord did a decent job of being the exact amount required to turn a free fall finality into a sustained oscillation, one that is holding strong to this day. To say that it changed my life forever is too easy and too simple, for it’s taken me four years to come back to it and realize how pervasively the thematic pulses have suffused by sensibilities, and how differently it could have gone had they not.

Rather than spill guts that are still too close for me to speak of in comfortably distanced terms, I will simply say that on the first day of this rereading, I went back after finishing and played video games until I could trust myself with serious mental activity again, for if there's one thing I've learned from 'Infinite Jest' is that, sometimes, thinking your way out of something is the worst decision you could possibly make. But before that, I wrote the above.

Now that I've finished, and have all the resources at my disposal, I can bring you this:

n  And there it was again. Another religion turned against itself. Another edifice constructed by the human mind, decimated by human nature.n

It's absurdly hilarious, almost, how many times the book hurls its meaning at you in very discreetly concrete packages. Religion, culture, foreign relations, politics, family, belief, blood, and binding. It would come off as trite and pretentiously overdone, were it not for the systematic destruction of every storytelling methodology usually used to deliver such life lessons. Industrialization, information, travel, passionately, monetarily, and so many other pathways of escape usually offered up on the altar of the 'happy ending', or anything but a 'thoroughly debilitating reality of an ending', and the most popular, love. Love, its How and its How Much. But more important than all that is Growing Up. The Bildungsroman, the promise Time gives to its more helpless constituents. Or at least, a promise humanity likes to think exists.

Tell me, how much resonance would these menacing Facts of Life have, Facts that are as rampant in India as they are in America, will continue to be so anywhere as long as humanity crawls and craves its way across this modern day society of ours, if any of these escapes had succeeded in bringing about content complacency? How many reviews have I read that mentioned Tragedy of it All, an emotional dagger that will latch on in grim urgency when everything else has faded to a brief recollection of word and thought, guarantee a remembrance of pain if nothing else? About as many as I've read that mentioned the Prose.

The Prose. Something I believe set the stage for how far I was drawn into this novel, unconsciously resonating with the viewpoint it conveys. For of all the books I have read over the years, and I have read many, there are very, very few that I can think of that look at children in terms of reality. Not childhood. Childhood is a substitute for serious thought that individuals with a respectable amount of years behind them love to use instead of considering those smaller, briefer in accumulated existence individuals. Reality is what all human beings swim through from day one, and there are no mandates that the early years of that swimming will be kind ones. 'The Instructions' realizes this instruction in full, and so does this.

Never does the reader observe an indulgent pandering to the senses of the smaller ones when the story delves into History, Literature, Politics, Culture, and all the constrictions that overlay whatever life they have been granted. All that these smaller ones truly lack is enough experience with the darker sides of all these things to make them complacently seek a spot in life that requires no curiosity, no discovery, no fumbling in the dark.

Complacency, in reaction to fear of Unexpected Consequences.

Without these, they see the world in weird and wonderful fashions, not yet attuned to what must be looked at, what must be covered up, and how best to go about said covering up. And thus, you get the prose, a nauseatingly delicious mix of lush rankness as fertile undergrowth clambers up cold and unyielding civilization, a breeding whose resulting Beast of Burden is neither good, nor bad. It simply is.

Until, of course, humans get their hands on it. For it is up to humans to figure out how to use this world they have been given. Those who learn too late are, well. They should have known better.

There is no number of years required for complete loss of faith in every concept of redemption at the hands of family, friends, and familiar social setting clustered around an ideological stability. There is no standard age of accepting the fact that the Self is a blip with no entitlements to happiness, or that none of the standard handbooks for such Entitlements work. There is no length of existence where it is proscribed to demand that one make the decision of what value the Self has in its continued existence, and what it will take to maintain said existence. There is no amount of living that results in the realization that 'What It Will Take' will not necessarily coincide with any form of 'Sustainable Living'.

For a long time, I thought, it could be worse. Nowadays, I think, it could be better. Today, I take the Deposit of It Could Be Worse, and invest it in the Debt of It Could Be Better. My chosen methods of doing so have been met with surprised gestures at my age, perhaps unspoken surprised gestures at my gender, some days I have to wonder.

I look at this book, and think to myself, here's a lesson I learned long ago. I don't plan on wasting it by standing still.

The only dream worth having is to dream that you will live while you are alive, and die only when you are dead. To love, to be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and vulgar disparity of the life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget.
*
And when we look in through the windows, all we see are shadows. And when we try and listen, all we hear is a whispering. And we cannot understand the whispering, because our minds have been invaded by a war. A war that we have both won and lost. The very worst sort of war. A war that captures dreams and re-dreams them. A war that has made us adore our conquerors and despise ourselves.
*
Perhaps it's true that things can change in a day. That a few dozen hours can affect the outcome of whole lifetimes. And that when they do, those few dozen hours, like the salvaged remains of a burned house-the charred clock, the singed photograph, the scorched furniture-must be resurrected from the ruins and examined. Preserved. Accounted for. Little events, ordinary things, smashed and reconstituted. Imbued with new meaning. Suddenly they become the bleached bones of a story.

ამ ავტორის თანამემამულე რომ ვიყო, ეს წიგნი იქნებოდა ჩემი ჰიმნიც, კონსტიტუციაც, კულტურაცა და რელიგიაც.
მაგრამ არა, ინდოელი ხარ, ნორვეგიელი, ქართველი თუ სირიელი, ეს წიგნი მაინც ყველა მკითხველის წმინდა წიგნი გახდება. ასეა, მე��დეთ, რადგან ეს არის წიგნი იმ კანონებზე, რომლებიც ადგენენ თუ ვინ უნდა გიყვარდეს და რაოდენ თავდავიწყებით.
ან იმაზე, თუ როგორ უნდა დაარღვიო ყველა ეს კანონი.

“And the air was full of Thoughts and Things to Say. But at times like these, only the Small Things are ever said. Big Things lurk unsaid inside.”
О, це було чудово!
“Бог Дрібниць” - перший роман індійської письменниці Арундгаті Рой і досить таки незлий, на мій смак і на смак комісії Букерівську премії. У романі йдеться про Індію, любові (в множині), протистояння, заплутані сімейні вузи, а ще про велику ріку, про місяць, що відбивається в калюжах, про банановий джем і тисячі інших речей.
tСюжет в романі непослідовний, складається з фрагментів різної хронології, але мені сподобався цей прийом. Врешті сам сюжет, якщо не брати до уваги всіх спогадів, передісторій і післяісторій - досить короткий. Роздробивши його на уламки, авторка зосереджується на деталях, роблячи кожен уламок окремою історією. Багато хто пише, що сюжет передбачуваний, але мені було цікаво читати до самого кінця, напруга й інтрига не залишала мене. Можливо тому, що я дуже мало читала про Індію і постколоніальщину. Власне, я нічого не читала крім Бога Дрібниць і Шантараму.
tУ романі купа всього важливого: політика, історія, статус жінки в суспільстві, історія, релігії, кастовість і класовість, а також людська природа. Часто буває, що в серйозних романах автор забуває про такі витрибеньки, як гарна стилістика й приваблива для читача оболонка. Тут, як на мене, всього вдосталь і серйозних тем і гарного стилю.
tМені дуже сподобались описи, які прямо таки переносять тебе до місця подій. Використання дитячих слів, дитячої міфології, такі дрібні деталі, але дуже мене брали. На фоні прронизливо реалістичних описів місць і речей, атмосфери, погоди - персонажі описані дещо декоративно, дещо фольклорно, з повторюваними епітетами, як у старій пісні. Врешті вони якісь такі і є, як танцівники традиційних танців - декоративні і трагічні.
tДуже глибоко описується відчуття відчаю і відсутності опор, зависання у безповітряному просторі життя, де грають роль лише маленькі речі, лише на них можна покластися. Однак з маленьких речей складаються великі історії. Мені дуже сподобався цей роман і прекрасний переклад Андрія Маслюха дозволяв повністю занурюватися в історію.

n  “And the air was full of Thoughts and Things to Say. But at times like these, only the Small Things are ever said. Big Things lurk unsaid inside.”n

This was an incredible achievement for a debutante author, and so much had been said about this one already that I'm not sure what else I can add. The prose flows rhythmically: from the first page, it creates an exotic, mysterious, melancholic, yet sensuous aura. The sensuality of the prose may prove to be jerking, as a majority of the plot is told as flashbacks from the pov of two kids, but once the story reaches its end, we understand why it was essential that the author left the tonal hints from the very first.

It is one of the books my classmates have pestered me to read for years, but somehow I had put it off till now. And now that I am through with it, I'm glad because it was for the best. After all, this is not a book meant for a 12-year-old at all, however precocious he might have been. I didn't expect Roy to go to places she would go in here, surprising and sometimes shocking; I began to wonder why it didn't generate the controversy it could have. The only logic I could come up with is that the majority of the section of readers who would've been that narrow-minded couldn't have made it through the dense prose.

n  “Perhaps it’s true that things can change in a day. That a few dozen hours can affect the outcome of whole lifetimes. And that when they do, those few dozen hours, like the salvaged remains of a burned house—the charred clock, the singed photograph, the scorched furniture—must be resurrected from the ruins and examined. Preserved. Accounted for. Little events, ordinary things, smashed and reconstituted. Imbued with new meaning. Suddenly they become the bleached bones of a story.”n

Inspirations are visible throughout the story, particularly in Marquez's sometimes crisp-and-journalistic tone, and even more so in Faulkner. Trust me when I say I don't exaggerate that despite its social and political nuances, and distinctive cultural context, the inspiration of the likes of  As I Lay Dying is so transparent here, Roy was certainly an obedient disciple of Faulkner in or before the years she wrote the story.

The novel isn't without its flaws, however. Given how ambitious linguistics is, I didn't expect it to, but the storytelling does meander more than once. Also, certain editing choices won't work for everyone and some of the characters (except the primary ones) are inconsistent in their fleshing out.

But still, I loved it. It's hard to find a novel this loquacious that isn't even slightly pretentious.

n  “If you're happy in a dream, does that count?”n

Would try to write more coherently when I feel up to it.

‘El dios de las pequeñas cosas’ me ha pasado por encima. Me ha dejado tocada y hundida, pero también fascinada. Una de esas historias que te mueres por descubrir el final pero que no quieres que se acaben nunca.
 
Esta es la historia alegrías y desgracias de tres generaciones de una familia asentada en la región india de Kerala, estructurada en torno a un suceso que marcó la vida de todos sus miembros. La autora plantea la trama como un puzzle que va montando poco a poco, pieza a pieza, así no hay una estructura lineal, sino que tenemos escenas de décadas diferentes, en torno a cuando todos aprendieron forzosamente que “las cosas pueden cambiar en un solo día". Todas ellas necesarias para la trama familiar pero también, para dar contexto y explicar los tiempos convulsos en se ubican, la sociedad india del momento, sus tensiones, sus avances, su economía y su jerarquía. Y es que bueno, es una de esas lecturas con diferentes capas de significados, la trama principal funciona por si misma, por supuesto, pero mirando por debajo, hay mucho más.
 
Es necesario leer hasta el final para conseguir el cemento que unirá todas las piezas, los sucesos, y todo cobra sentido. Tanto que es fascinante acabarlo y leer los dos primeros capítulos, ahora con todas las claves. ¡Qué distintas se leen las mismas palabras!
 
Todo parte de un regreso a casa para un reencuentro que ha tardado 23 años en producirse. Dos gemelos separados, condenados a la soledad y el sufrimiento, obligados a vivir sin su mitad. A partir de ahí, el recuerdo de la muerte de su prima, la risueña Sophie Mol que llegó de visita desde Londres y de todo lo que vino después. Os podría contar mil y un detalles de la trama, pero os dejo el placer de descubrirlos con la lectura, eso si, lo que brilla por encima de todo, es cómo está escrita. ¡Qué experiencia lectora tan especial!
 
Una novela con muchos personajes, los secundarios, fundamentales para una saga familiar como esta, pero… es que los protagonistas, ¡qué pilar! Estoy hablando de los gemelos Rahel y Estha, quienes son niños en el momento del ‘suceso’ y adultos en el presente. Hermana y hermano con una conexión especial que, aunque la novela no abusa de ello, siempre se nos dice son capaces de sentir lo que siente el otro, conocer sus secretos, aunque no lo digan en voz alta, forman parte de un todo… (aunque se verán abocados a pasar media vida separados). La autora juega de maravilla con ese “todo”, creando puntos ciegos en el lector, enseñándonos solo el punto de vista que le interesa en cada caso.  
 
Una novela dura y muy triste a ratos, divertida en otros, apasionante siempre. Escrita de una forma que, aunque no difícil, requiere toda tu atención para sacarle todo su jugo a los mil y un detalles que se nos dan, y también para disfrutar de este baño lírico, lleno de figuras simbólicas y escenas vívidas. Prepárate para enfrentarte a angustia, soledad, injusticias, traiciones, mentiras, malentendidos… Vida y muerte, amor y odio.
 
“Lo importante era recordar que tener la posibilidad de elegir ya constituía un gran privilegio.”
 
Imposible adentrarse en esta novela y no meterse de lleno en ese río que la atraviesa y que se te queda dentro para siempre. Terminas triste si, pero taaan contenta de haberla leído. ¿Será un clásico moderno como dicen? Puede ser, desde luego, va directa a mis novelas favoritas.
 
Aviso: hay escenas de abusos y violencia explicita.

Kudos to the words penned as I was able to read the book till the last chapter in a day but otherwise there's so many problematic things happening here....

No, I am not NOT AT ALL okay with what happened with the relationship between the twin siblings.

Not okay with certain usage of terms.

Not okay with the annoying repetitive paragraphs here and there.

Not okay with how the certain "important issues" were represented.

The first half was fine and I could see what the story tried to deal with. Molestation, sexual assault, lurking paedophiles, domestic violence, but dumb angry women. Get a grip.
Yes, I can continue with the problematic things in the book. But it's late and I need something else to actually try cleansing my mind with something good.


***To be continued.


The only thing that kept me going on until the last chapter was the good writing but it was chaotic and quite repetitive.

I appreciate the important themes mentioned in the narration like political unrest, dysfunctional families, death and grief.

But these parts didn't make up the major part.

I was so disgusted towards the end of the story as the story deals with

*Incest

(I wasn't aware of it all this time before picking up the book.)

*Description of female body parts repetitively with the names of other objects which I find quite distasteful

*Death of a girl child which the aftermath was made sound like it wasn't a big deal and the characters seemed quite robotic most of the time

*The characters. I find them half-baked and underdeveloped.

*The plot is much better in the blurbs but there isn't much to it and there isn't much plot progression until the end.

And the ending with the relationship between the siblings made me want to throw the book and burn it (I would have done that if it was an actual physical copy).