At times, we suffer more from memory than the past action, we are haunted by the imagination more than reality, in a flash it’s gone, and we carry the heartache of “what if” for a lifetime to our heart, We repeat in our mind, tens and hundreds of things to say instead, we imagine infinite remaking of a vision that has gone with the wind, like two lovers of night who meet at a distant bay, trembling with the fear of what lays ahead, and pleasure of anticipation, both hesitant and hasty,loveres fall in a frenzy of incoherent movements, rapidly exhausting each other, now they lie down strangled still, drained and brimmed all at the same ,as they hear the clinking melody of their battered breaths, and at day break, the lovers get apart, with memories of scents,breaths,crunched leaves and a short-spanned haven, fresh in their mind like bleeding wounds, 'Perhaps it's true that things can change in a day’ lovers become strangers and tomorrow never comes.
What comes is the memory, of a long gone face, of a broken smile, of a silenced voice in a dark cell, a man, an untouchable pravaan,a communist of lowly cast, the shimmering swimmer of the waters of passion who leave no footprints when walks in dark, the man of big heart, the God of small things. I never have happened to dislike a book’s narrative to the extent of leaving it unfinished twice, and never have I been so tormented by the fate of some fictional character to the extent of changing it repeatedly in my frenzied head, It wasn’t supposed to be this achingly beautiful and sensually agonizing. The whole air of the book is blue, ironically, there’s nothing apparent to mourn for, no higher-than-sky tragedy befalls, only the Law of Love’s broken, laws that lay down who should be loved and how. And how much.” And consequently, the outlaws been disciplined to correct what’s gone irrevocably wrong.
Still, I struggle with the pronunciation of characters’ names, I find no prudent purpose for interweaving narrative that seems out of place at places, had it been not for the melancholic aura of characters that blankets them and the wistful style of unveiling froth events, the novel could easily be reckoned as a work of gimmicks. The vague incest between twins, darts the attention away from the murky flow of the story,Book is encumbered with coinages and innovative phrases that only add to frustration on the part of reader that is fueled by the never-ending elaborations of the words used.
Bigotry has to be uprooted at the basis immediate as is done filtration of the air, in places contaminated with plague, we have to become receptive, or indifferent in the attempt, at the very least, to save the Gods of small things!

2.5★
Among other things what my friends + 1 had to say (because after you read a book like this you need some TLC):

Brina: "Roy reveals to her readers an India hanging onto to the traditions of the past with a slight glimpse of her future."
Diane: "Need to think on this one."
Frankie: "Some of the really long descriptive parts I had to skim over."
Irene: "I did not want this book to end."
Kevin: "Although Roy's writing is kissed by the gods, I'm a great believer in a story's need to flow and my early enthusiasm became steadily dampened as the book progressed."
Karen: "Sometimes I found it odd but many times it made me smile. Some intricate descriptions sometimes interrupted the rhythm of the story."
Kasia: "Reads like 300 pages of pure poetry."
Sandie: "The author definitely has a unique style that requires an intense concentration to pick out the layers."
Shmoop: "There's a lot going on in this book, and very little of it is directly to the point. There's a lot of unfamiliar material to process."

Sounds like: A Man Booker Prize winner (I’m detecting virtual sighs out there from some of you).
I agree with all the statements above which I shamelessly poached from friend’s reviews without their permission. I’m just a bit fatigued after reading this to think up my own thoughtful review. A couple of them mentioned rhythm issues and therein was the problem for me. I’m getting too long in the tooth and distracted to keep up with so much peregrination in prose. My loss I’m sure because this was awesome at times but just too Bookerish for me. I feel so inadequate when I want to love a book yet find myself unable to perform. A Viagra for senior readers would be most appreciated. Alas, I only have my wine which certainly doesn’t pair well with this style of tome. Unfortunately it leads to premature diminution ⤵︎ .

If one ever has trouble sleeping at night, then I highly recommend "The God of small things". It has been tried and tested by yours truly, and quite honestly, this is one of the most underwhelming books that I've read in a good while.

This won the Booker prize in 1997, and reading some of the positive reviews on here, I was expecting to be truly dazzled. I hear that this book is important. Important to whom exactly? I felt nothing for this.

I think I can address the main issue immediately, that being, I just couldn't follow what was written. The plot was everywhere. It didn't feel smoothly written, the plot was detached which mostly lead to a great deal of confusion and irritation on my end. There were lots of flashbacks, which made the present tense storyline disorientated.

Now, I love beautiful writing, but this became incredibly tedious. There were SO many metaphors thrown in, and it was difficult to recognise if I was reading something significant to the plot or not. It just didn't work, and, there is a such word called "overuse".

I cannot go into considerable detail about the characters, as the character development was basically non existent. There were a good amount of characters in this book, and by the end of the book, they were still just names to me.

This book for me, was comparable to one of those mud pies, that you make as a kid, in which you add a bit of everything to, grass, stones, your dads gardening gloves, your ghostbuster figures, and eventually, what you get, is one huge, confused mess.

TIP: Never trust a Booker prize winner.

A lyrical, mysterious tale of misunderstanding and pain, echoing through the years. At its dark heart, it demonstrates how small things can have multiple and major consequences, meaning that everything can change in a single day. "Anything can happen to anyone. It's best to be prepared." - and these fears trigger tragedy.

It is set in Kerala (southern India) in 1969 (when twins Rahel (girl) and Estha (boy) are aged 7) and 23 years later, when the twins return to the family home. As the narrative switches periods, hints become clearer and eventually become facts: you know bad things will happen, but it's not initially clear who will be the perpetrators. There is beauty, but always brooding menace of nastiness to come, or echoes of trauma long ago.

Caste, communism, Conrad's "Heart of Darkness", "The Sound of Music", whom to love (and how), and insects (especially moths) are common threads.

THE FAMILY
They are affluent, educated, Anglophile, Syrian Christians. The grandfather (Pappachi) was the Imperial Entomologist and in later years his wife (Mammachi) and their son (Chacko) started a pickle factory (a pickle factory is also significant in Rushdie's Midnight's Children). Their daughter, Ammu, is the divorced mother of the twins, and has "the infinite tenderness of motherhood and the reckless rage of a suicide bomber". The twins' great aunt (Baby Kochamma) lives there as well. She is a bitter woman, who loved, but never had, Father Mulligan, so retreats into false piety. She seeks and relishes opportunities to gloat at the misdemeanours and misfortunes of others: on hearing of scandal, "She set sail at once. A ship of goodness ploughing through a sea of sin".

The big event is when Chacko's English ex wife (Margaret) is widowed and she brings Chacko's 9 year old daughter (Sophie Mol) to visit.

The other key character is Velutha (son of Vellya Paapen), a clever untouchable, a couple of years younger than Ammu. The family pay for his education and he becomes indispensable at the factory for maintaining the machines, though carpentry is his true skill. There is also Kochu Maria, a house servant, who becomes more like Baby Kochamma's companion in later years.

TWINSHIP
The powerful bond of "two-egg" twins is essential to the story: "In those early amorphous years when memory had only just begun... Estha and Rahel thought of themselves together as Me, and separately, individually, as We or Us... a rare breed of Siamese twins, physically separate, but with joint identities."

However, they spend the years between the two time periods living apart, and that, inevitably, changes things. When returning as an adult, "now she thinks of Estha and Rahel as Them... Edges, Borders, Boundaries, Brinks and Links have appeared." They are now "A pair of actors... stumbling through their parts, nursing someone else's sorrow", and realising, too late, "You're not the Sinners. You're the Sinned Against."

GHOSTS
The family is founded on preservation: first of insects, then of Paradise Pickles and Preserves, and always of reputation. However, ghosts are everywhere, mainly in the memories of the dead and the ramifications of their deaths, but also in other forms of loss: opportunities, love, names (the twins are without a surname when their parents split) and even the power of speech. "Silence hung in the air like a secret loss."

Sophie Mol's death is mentioned on page 4, and although its significance is constantly referred to, the details are only revealed very near the end. Her death "stepped softly around the house... like a quiet thing in socks" and "sometimes the memory of death lives... much longer than the life it purloined". Eventually "Sophie Mol became a Memory, while The Loss of Sophie Mol grew robust and alive. Like a fruit in season. Every season."

Those left behind experience "Not death. Just the end of living."

The family home descends into dilapidation. Baby Kochamma, once an skilled gardener, lets her plants wither or go wild, while she devotes her life to vicariously living the lives of ghosts she sees on satellite TV.

There is also an abandoned house across the river that the twins nickname The History House. There are many explicit comparisons with The Heart of Darkness: it was the home of Kari Saipu, and Englishman who "went native" and "captured dreams and redreamed them". Eventually, he shot himself when his young lover was taken away.

BETRAYAL AND THE DEATH OF LOVE
There are violent relationships, broken relationships (not necessarily the same) and unrequited love, but it is, of course, the children who suffer most.

The twins are raised by their loving but strict mother, but they are haunted by a fear that she will cease to love them. Their "willingness to love people who didn't really love them... was as though the window through which their father disappeared had been kept open for anyone." After Sophie Mol's death, when everything changes, Ammu is sent away, Estha is sent to his father, and Rahel is left behind to be raised by her uncle and grandparents, who "provided the care (food, clothes, fees) but withdrew the concern".

There are other forms and instances of betrayal and lies, sometimes to keep up appearances, and sometimes for selfish ends.

CROSSING BOUNDARIES - OF LOVE AND OTHER THINGS
Taboos are many in a society ruled by caste (as well as class and religion), but the family's problems with classification are first highlighted in relation to jams and jellies, and the fact that banana jam was illegal as if fitted neither category. "They all broke the rules. They all crossed into forbidden territory. They all tampered with the laws that lay down who should be loved and how. And how much." And by whom.

Gradually, "Estha and Rahel learned how history negotiates its terms and collects its dues from those who break its laws." "History used the back verandah to negotiate its terms and collect its dues. Estha would keep the receipt for the dues that Velutha paid." When pressed by an adult to lie about something significant, "Childhood tiptoed out. Silence slid in like a bolt. Someone switched off the light and Velutha disappeared."

There is also confusion and hypocrisy around some of the power relationships, e.g. a wealthy communist landlord and factory owner with "a Marxist mind and feudal libido", and of course, the different levels of sexual freedom permitted for men and women.

SMALL THINGS: MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES
The whole story is really a demonstration of The Butterfly Effect, although it's moths that are mentioned explicitly (Pappachi discovered a new variety of moth, but wasn't recognised for it).

"It was the kind of time in the life of a family when something happens to nudge its hidden morality from its resting place and make it bubble to the surface and float for a while in clear view."

There are many other Small Things:
* "The God of Loss. The God of Small Things."
* Ammu telling Rahel "When you hurt people they begin to love you less", a throwaway line that grows, festers and twists within until it changes the lives of everyone.
* Ammu is "Someone Small who has been bullied all their lives by Someone Big".
* At big moments "only the Small Things are ever said".
* A couple who know they have no future, so "instinctively they stick to the Small Things"
* Filth and decay, of which there is much 23 years later, is an accumulation of small things.

PORTMANTEAUS
A distinctive feature of the writing is the large number of portmanteau coinages. Most are pairs of adjectives or adjective plus noun: sourmetal, oldfood, fishswimming, chinskin, deadlypurposed, longago, suddenshutter, sharksmile, orangedrinks, steelshrill, suddenshutter, stickysweet. However, things like cuff-links are written with a hyphen. Cuff-links also hint at an explanation: when the young twins are told they are "'to link cuffs together'... they were thrilled by this morsel of logic... and gave them an inordinate (if exaggerated) satisfaction, and a real affection for the English language."

QUOTES
* "Dissolute bluebottles hum vacuously in the fruity air. Then they stun themselves against clear windowpanes and die, flatly baffled in the sun."
* "The nights are clear but suffused with sloth and sullen expectation" and in monsoon season "short spells of sharp, glittering sunshine that thrilled children snatch to play with."
* "Over time he had acquired the ability to blend into the background... [he] occupied very little space in the world."
* "Once the quietness arrived, it... enfolded him in its swampy arms... It sent its stealthy, suckered tentacles... hoovering the knolls and dells of his memory, dislodging old sentences, whisking them off the tip of his tongue. It stripped his thoughts of the words that described them and left them pared and naked."
* "Gulf-money houses build by [people] who worked hard but unhappily in faraway places... the resentful older houses tinged green with envy, cowering in their private driveways."
* "drifted into marriage like a passenger drifts towards an unoccupied chair in an airport lounge."
* "Her eyes spread like butter behind her thick glasses."
* He walked away "like a high-stepping camel with an appointment to keep."
* "Rahel tried to say something. It came out jagged. Like a piece of tin."
* "twinkled was a word with crinkled, happy edges."
* The weight of obligation "widened his smile and bent his back".
* The things that can't be forgotten "sit on dusty shelves like stuffed birds, with baleful sideways starting eyes".
* "Silverfish tunnelled through the pages, burrowing arbitrarily from species to species, turning organised information into yellow lace."
* "The ants made a faint crunchy sound as life left them. Like an elf eating toast."
* An adult playing with children "Instinctively colluding in the conspiracy of their fiction".
* "Insanity hovered close at hand, like an eager waiter at an expensive restaurant."
* "resting under the skin of her dreams"
* The "transparent" kiss of a child "unclouded by passion or desire... that demanded no kiss-back. Not a cloudy kiss full of questions."
* "The great stories are the ones you have heard and want to hear again. The ones you can enter anywhere and inhabit comfortably."
* "She was too young to realise that what she assumed was her love for Chacko was actually a tentative, timorous acceptance of herself."

THANKS
I should add that I am really grateful to Steve whose excellent review, and comments beneath, persuaded me to pick up this book asap, rather than let it languish on my shelves any longer. His review is here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Este es un libro de una belleza extraña.
Con una historia muy lejana y al mismo tiempo cercana; donde el amor, el dolor y el terror atraviesan toda la trama y se hace imposible cerrar el libro sin llevarte a los personajes en la memoria.

Con un uso  del lenguaje y el tiempo muy particular, que a mí me encantó. Pero entiendo que no sea redonda para todo el mundo porque tiene una suerte de repeticiones (desconozco el nombre de la figura retórica) como conjuros contra el mal ( según mi interpretación) que me pareció original, pero entiendo que a algunos les pueda parecer cansino.

Es otro de esos tantos libro que hay que darles una oportunidad sin esperar nada a cambio.

Толико хваљена књига, добитник престижног Букера, дуго ми је била на листи за читање и заиста сам имао висока очекивања.

АЛИ

Ово је толико лоше, као припремна вежба на неком курсу креативног писања. Метафоре, метафоре, описи, описи, поређења, поређења, бесомучна понављања, убацивање „шокантних“ сцена, покушај да се приповеда из дечије перспективе, мењање временских и просторних планова и све у том стилу. Није да се Арундати Рој није потрудила, али форе су јој јефтине. Једва сам се натерао да прочитам до краја, само због моје опседнутости да морам да завршим сваку књигу коју сам започео.

I'm all by myself here, but what the hell.

This reads like a graduate writing class exercise blown from 20 pages to 300. The metaphors, while occasionally fresh and unexpected, are tedious and frequently stand in for something that could be much less complex. The writing is self-conscious and precious. There is really no good reason to tell the story in such a disjointed fashion. Roy's attempts to recreate the way children view the world were cute for about 10 pages, and then became tiresome (there's a reason children don't write novels). Beautiful insights and revelations are buried beneath so much willful density and elaboration that I was just bored. Too much effort, too little editing.

n  “She had a deep blue sac under one eye that was bloated like a bubble. As though her eye had tried to do what her lungs couldn’t. Some time close to midnight, the faraway man who lived in her chest had stopped shouting. A platoon of ants carried a dead cockroach sedately through the door, demonstrating what should be done with corpses.” n

It does make some sense. Weather-wise or otherwise. To talk about this book today.

You cannot always remain dependent on weather to post your thoughts on a story. You know all the big men are laltains (lanterns ), and the small men are mombattis (candles). This phrase I still remember. Lanterns and candles are always in demand whatever the weather outside. Isn’t it? They burn themselves and deliver shine to others. The last book I read was also about twisted candles! Candles are in the air, and a flame of flashback flares up in me!

So I read this book quickly again. Did someone read a book in peanut-crunching darkness? Anyone? I was reading it years ago in dark and was struggling to match up with the writing style of the author, initially. Read in dark means, not in the effulgence of electric light inside my room, but outside in the moonlight, with a punnet filled with peanuts in front of me. No pun intended. No cheesy wordplay; really, I had read pages of this novel, crunching peanuts, in the moonlight. I borrow this peanut–crunching expression from the author to describe my association!

Today when I planned to revisit this book, some memories like a thin ribbon of thick water lapped wearily at the mud bank of my forgotten mind , in the very same way as Rahel had felt, when she had visited that river many years later. Another interesting fact, almost at the same time around when I was reading this book, I had visited for the first time, Kerala, ‘The god’s own country’. Almost 2722 km south of my place, I did some backwater boating there. Remember that the story in this book saunters in and around Kerala. A multi-generational Saga, with characters names like Chacko, Ammu, Pappachi, Mammachi, Kocchama, etc. And of course the twins, Rahel and Estha! How can you forget Sophie Mol and Velutha?

Arundhati’s way of describing a scene is brilliant, even if I was not in concurrence with the story; I was able to get impressed by the extremely lively portrayal of a scene in such clever language. She mastered herself throughout this craft. She does poetic justice even to the scenes which would otherwise be called so silly or even filthy.

In some pages her prose gave the feeling of reading the poetry of Whitman, see

“The grey old boatplant with boatflowers and boatfruit.
And underneath a boat-shaped patch of withered grass. A scurrying hurrying boatworld.
Dark and dry and cool. Unroofed now. And blind.
White termites on their way to work.
White ladybirds on their way home.
White beetles burrowing away from the light.
White grasshoppers with whitewood violins.
Sad white music.
A white wasp. Dead.”

The story and plot, everybody knows, for a booker winning book, so I won’t deliberate over that. The biggest issue is too much to and fro in the narration. It gave an acrid taste to the mouth of a reader and makes him struggle to keep things in line. It did not make this book a pleasing reading experience as far as the sequence of the plot was concerned. It was tough.

But writing is seraphic, passionate, delightful, and full of scenery. Among my so far, Booker-reads, I have found the passion of Salman Rushdie’s Midnight Children in the prose of Roy, the difference is, that Salman’s passionate prose resonates through long sentences and even longer paragraphs, but Roy’s passionate prose thrums in your ear in short sentences, sometimes rams into your head with one-liners. But she creates sensational fellow feeling through her words.

And an allegory, yes she is allegorical. Highly emblematic in her approach, in my eyes, she has taken up two grave issues untouchability and Marxism. And in both cases, she has successfully conveyed what she wanted to convey. This widened the book in scope.

The final thing I would say, though I was befuddled till the halfway and was not able to cope with the unarranged style of narration, there is a chapter eleven named ‘the god of small thing’, and from here onward this book starts to become clear and the narration becomes handy and the story starts revealing the real gospel, so wait till there if you face the same issue like me in narration.

“If he touched her, he couldn’t talk to her, if he loved her he couldn’t leave, if he spoke he couldn’t listen, if he fought he couldn’t win"

This book is assuredly an important read, but you need some patience!
In the beginning, it was panoramic, then it makes you emotional, then it gives you a chuckle, then it becomes childish and finally, it makes your eyes tear. The ending chapter is an ethereal beauty!

“A novel of real ambition must invent its own language, and this one does," John Updike in The New Yorker

You read it and you see Kerala. See the culture of lower caste Hindus and Anglo Indians. You hear the sounds of the ocean and backwaters. I know most of us bibliophiles have read this gem. Please share your thoughts with me.

If you ever read poetry in prose … You know what I mean. This is once such book which transports you to the backwaters of Kerala and let you see it in all its beauty and ugliness.

I didn’t know what fraternal twins were. I am sure you wise people already know. This is story of two fraternal twin brother and sister- Rahel and Esthappen and their mother Ammu. You will be horrified and furious on the unfairness of the tragedy what their life was.

You and me both see and hear what the author sees and hears. But we don’t have the capacity to put it in words. Great authors have that capacity. Arundhati did it marvellously in GoST.

Best part is language. She writes prose but in a poetic language. She plays with words like little children play with toys. She is genius of word play.

n  “But what was there to say?

Only that there were tears. Only that Quietness and Emptiness fitted together like stacked spoons. Only that there was a snuffling in the hollows at the base of a lovely throat. Only that a hard honey-colored shoulder had a semicircle of teethmarks on it. Only that they held each other close, long after it was over. Only that what they shared that night was not happiness, but hideous grief.

Only that once again they broke the Love Laws. That lay down who should be loved. And how. And how much.” n

Is sex outside marriage is always bad or is it a protest against the oppressive societal norms and miserable life circumstances? People involved in illicit sex know deep down that it is wrong socially but deep down they feel it is right.

n  "The scurrying, hurrying, boatworld was already gone. The White termites on their way to work. The White ladybirds on their way home. The White beetles burrowing away from the light The White grasshoppers with whitewood violins. The sad white music.

All gone.

Leaving a boat-shaped patch of bare dry earth, cleared and ready for love. As though Esthappen and Rahel had prepared the ground for them. Willed this to happen. The twin midwives of Ammu’s dream.

Ammu, naked now, crouched over Velutha, her mouth on his. He drew her hair around them like a tent. Like her children did when they wanted to exclude the outside world. She slid further down, introducing herself to the rest of him. His neck. His nipples. His chocolate stomach. She sipped the last of the river from the hollow of his navel. She pressed the heat of his erection against her eyelids. She tasted him, salty in her mouth. He sat up and drew her back to him. She felt his belly tighten under her, hard as a board. She felt her wetness slipping on his skin. He took her nipple in his mouth and cradled her other breast in his callused palm. Velvet gloved in sandpaper. At the moment that she guided him into her, she caught a passing glimpse of his youth, his youngness, the wonder in his eyes at the secret he had unearthed and she smiled down at him as though he was her child. Once he was inside her, fear was derailed and biology took over. The cost of living climbed to unaffordable heights; though later Baby Kochamma would say it was a Small Price to Pay. Was it? Two lives. Two children’s childhoods. And a history lesson for future offenders. Clouded eyes held clouded eyes in a steady gaze and a luminous woman opened herself to a luminous man. She was as wide and deep as a river in spate. He sailed on her waters. She could feel him moving deeper and deeper into her. Frantic. Frenzied. Asking to be let in further. Further. Stopped only by the shape of her. The shape of him. And when he was refused, when he had touched the deepest depths of her, with a sobbing, shuddering sigh, he drowned. She lay against him. Their bodies slick with sweat. She felt his body drop away from her. His breath become more regular. She saw his eyes clear. He stroked her hair, sensing that the knot that had eased in him was still tight and quivering in her. Gently he turned her over on her back. He wiped the sweat and grit from her with his wet cloth.



He lay over her, careful not to put his weight on her. Small stones pressed into the skin of his forearm. He kissed her eyes. Her ears. Her breasts. Her belly. Her seven silver stretchmarks from her twins. The line of down that led from her navel to her dark triangle, that told him where she wanted him to go. The inside of her legs, where her skin was softest. Then carpenter’s hands lifted her hips and an untouchable tongue touched the innermost part of her. Drank long and deep from the bowl of her. She danced for him. On that boat-shaped piece of earth. She lived. He held her against him, resting his back against the mangosteen tree, while she cried and laughed at once. Then, for what seemed like an eternity, but was really no more than five minutes, she slept leaning against him, her back against his chest.

Seven years of oblivion lifted off her and flew into the shadows on weighty, quaking wings. Like a dull, steel peahen. And on Ammu’s Road (to Age and Death) a small, sunny meadow appeared. Copper grass spangled with blue butterflies. Beyond it, an abyss.

Slowly the terror seeped back into him. At what he had done.

At what he knew he would do again.

And again.

She woke to the sound of his heart knocking against his chest. As though it was searching for a way out. For that movable rib. A secret sliding-folding panel. His arms were still around her, she could feel the muscles move while his hands played with a dry palm frond. Ammu smiled to herself in the dark, thinking how much she loved his arms—the shape and strength of them, how safe she felt resting in them when actually it was the most dangerous place she could be. He folded his fear into a perfect rose. He held it out in the palm of his hand. She took it from him and put it in her hair. She moved closer, wanting to be within him, to touch more of him. He gathered her into the cave of his body. A breeze lifted off the river and cooled their warm bodies. It was a little cold. A little wet. A little quiet. The Air. But what was there to say?

An hour later Ammu disengaged herself gently…

I have to go. n


Did you ever wonder what makes the Ramayana and Mahabharat great stories of all time? Why we can't get enough of these. Arundhati answers it:-

n   “...the secret of the Great Stories is that they have no secrets. The Great Stories are the ones you have heard and want to hear again. The ones you can enter anywhere and inhabit comfortably. They don’t deceive you with thrills and trick endings. They don’t surprise you with the unforeseen. They are as familiar as the house you live in. Or the smell of your lover’s skin. You know how they end, yet you listen as though you don’t. In the way that although you know that one day you will die, you live as though you won’t. In the Great Stories you know who lives, who dies, who finds love, who doesn’t. And yet you want to know again. That is their mystery and their magic.” n

A very strong statement on caste system, hypocrisy of Indian society, misogynistic attitude. A must read for every Indian and all others too.

In the words of Arundhati :-

n  "To me the god of small things is the inversion of God. God's a big thing and God's in control. The god of small things...whether it's the way the children see things or whether it's the insect life in the book, or the fish or the stars - there is a not accepting of what we think of as adult boundaries. This small activity that goes on is the under life of the book. All sorts of boundaries are transgressed upon. At the end of the first chapter I say little events and ordinary things are just smashed and reconstituted, imbued with new meaning to become the bleached bones of the story. It's a story that examines things very closely but also from a very, very distant point, almost from geological time and you look at it and see a pattern there. A pattern...of how in these small events and in these small lives the world intrudes. And because of this, because of people being unprotected.. the world and the social machine intrudes into the smallest, deepest core of their being and changes their life." - Arundhati Royn

Okay, first things first. The God Of Small Things is a very very clever book, but what makes it exceptional is that it is both beautiful and crafty, a rare combination. This book has structure. Lots of it. She effectively creates a language of her own, a juvenile lucid language which complements the wistful mood of the book beautifully. The plot moves around in space and time with masterful ease and one can't help but experience a vague sense of foreboding, a prickly fear in the back of your neck.

From what could have been just another tragic incident, Arundhati Roy weaves a poignant story about the loss of innocence and the far-reaching devastation caused in the aftermath of one tragic event. She examines every character with a genuine warmth, their motivations, insecurities and most importantly, their unfulfilled dreams, the definitive universal human tragedy.

'The secret of being a bore is to tell everything.' Voltaire said. This book is an appropriate example of how true that adage is. Like a loving mother with only one piece of pie, she withholds information and doles it out at the most opportune moments, yet never does the plot become incomprehensible. In fact, we lap it all up and can't wait for the next serving. To even attempt to summarize the plot would be to take everything away from it because, well, surprise!, the book really is about the Small Things. And the Really Big Things.

On one level the book is about freespirited Ammu, our very own Madame Bovary. It's about Rahel and Estha, Ammu's twin children, their innocent childhood infringements and the soarings and stiflings of their little hearts, their complex entwined lives which are governed by the Love Laws, that lay down who should be loved. And how. And how much. And how long.

On another level, it's about the idea of men being social constructs. About our lives not really being in our hands. About our lives really being governed by the forces of the invisible big bad things, a sadistic child holding a horshoe magnet to the disparate iron filings of our small, insiginificant lives. In short, a History lesson. A lesson in Indian caste dynamics and the communist movement of Kerala. About how the Really Big Things often seep into the Small Things, like tea from a teabag.

What hurts the most is not the intensity of the characters' suffering, but the fact that it is extremely commonplace, their suffering, like labour pains, like the food chain. An Indian food chain tragedy, based on caste and other offerings History left behind in it's wake. It demonstrates how all caste-based violence is ecological, based on fear, the strange fear the powerful have for the powerless. Us and them.

At the end of it, what I got from the book (I think) was that though the Really Big Things might be really fucked up, most of the times the Small Things more than make up for it. Really.

"The God of Small Things" by Arundhati Roy unfurls like a melancholic hymn, weaving the fragility of human emotions with the relentless weight of societal expectations. Set in the verdant heart of Kerala, India, the novel traces the invisible tremors of small, fleeting moments—moments that ripple through time, shattering lives and leaving deep scars. Through this tapestry of love, loss, and caste-bound constraints, Roy paints a portrait of a family fractured by the quiet cruelty of the world around them, haunted by their own unspoken pain.

Rather than diving into the plot, I’d argue the true brilliance of this novel lies in Roy’s prose. Her writing is both lyrical and evocative, almost poetic, a fusion that captures the fragility and quiet despair of the world she constructs. Her imagery is unforgettable: crisp dead insects littering the floor, the wilted arum lilies atop the child’s coffin, the aroma of red fish curry cooked with black tamarind, the stench of old urine lingering in the air. It’s a symphony of senses, combining both beauty and decay, woven together with such precision that each line feels like an incantation.

In Roy’s hands, small moments become monumental. The sound of innocent laugh basking in sunlight, and then, almost imperceptibly, bitter lies ignite like kindling, swelling into devastating fires. A weak protest, dismissed at first, is shattered beyond repair. The narrative reverberates with gut-wrenching sobs, hollow laughter, deafening curses, and late apologies drenched in vertiginous guilt. It is a cacophony of regret that buzzes, swelling with a delirious intensity.

Slapping. Cursing. Spitting. Kicking. Stomping.

Each revelation carves deeper, unraveling the delicate threads of hope. What begins with an air of innocence and optimism spirals into a chasm—vast, dark, and unrelenting—until every flicker of light is consumed. The tension tightens gradually, each moment more harrowing than the last.

The characters are just as intricately crafted—vivid, multi-dimensional, and tethered to the weight of societal and familial expectations. Forbidden love, caste oppression, and dysfunctional familial bonds pulse through the narrative, adding complexity without sacrificing the nuanced portrayal of human emotion and interaction.

I almost put this book down at the (child) sexual assault scene, but since Rosh recommended it to me, I mustered the grit and determination to keep going. I’m glad I did because this is a must-read for anyone who appreciates literary fiction that is as beautifully written as it is socially relevant. While its fragmented structure and constant shifts in time can be disorienting, and the prose, at times, quite dense, the novel remains an essential read.

يسُر أرونداتي روي أن تعلن لقرائها عن رحلتها المتجهة إلى الهند لمدة ما يقارب 350 صفحة. كما يسعدها إبلاغكم بأن مشروعها حاز على جائزة البوكر بالرغم من أنه باكورة أعمالها.

وجهة الرحلة هي قرية أيمينيم في ولاية كيرلا، أثناء موسم الأمطار حيث تعم الرطوبة وتُفعم الأجواء روائح الكاري وزيت جوز الهند. اختارت لكم أرونداتي فترة الستينات إبّان الفوران الشيوعي المطالب بحكومة ثورية وتأميم الأراضي والمصانع. يتضمن البرنامج السياحي جولات في شوارع ايمنيم، مصنع المخللات المحلي وسينما الأفلام الكلاسيكية.

يصحبكم في الرحلة مجموعة من الشخصيات المثيرة والغريبة أحياناً. هناك شاكو خريج بريطانيا ذو الميول الشيوعية، لدينا آمو الأم المطلقة التي تعاني من ضغوط تربية الأبناء والحسرة على العمر، الجد خبير الحشرات، والتوأمان المختلفان: اسثا و راهيل بتصرفاتهما الرعناء وأفكارهما البريئة.

ستتعرف على جوانب مهمة من الحياة الهندية في تلك الفترة مثل الفروق الطبقية، الحب المحرم، الحرية ومعاناة المرأة. ستشاهد هذا كله من خلال تقنية سردية غير خطية، كما تتوفر خدمة الإرشاد السياحي باللغتين: الإنجليزية –لغة النص الأصلية- والعربية. لم نتمكن حتى الآن من التأكد من جودة الترجمة العربية، لكننا نؤكد لكم أن الإنجليزية المستخدمة شعرية وموسيقية ولها نكهة خاصة، لاحظ الجمل التالية:

It is a wrinkled mermaid. A mer-child, a mere mer-child.

A viable die-ble age.

A greenwavy, thickwatery, lumpy, seaweedy, bottomless-bottomful feeling.

التحق بنا واقض إجازتك في نَص نسوي يجمع بين التراجيديا والكوميديا السوداء. قد تكون الطرق وعرة والمسافة طويلة نوعاً ما، إلا أنها تجربة تستحق المعايشة.

حرصاً منّا على قراءنا نود منهم التكرم بالاطلاع على التحذيرات التالية قبل القبول بالعرض أعلاه:

-tمُنعت هذه الرواية في الهند لفترة، لذا تُخلي أرونداتي وشركاؤها مسؤوليتهم من أي تبعات قانونية.

-tهذه الرحلة مصمَّمة لمن يحبون –أو يحتملون- السرد المتأني والوصف المفصل للأجواء وتسجيل أفكار واختلاجات الشخصيات. إذا كنت تشعر بالملل سريعاً فبإمكانك تغيير وجهتك إلى أمريكا اللاتينية.

-tإذا قررت زيارة السينما المحلية فاحذر من تناول المشروبات في الكافتيريا المَلحقة.