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3.94 AVERAGE
3.94 AVERAGE
There's something powerful about this book in that I can read a bit, leave it for another book, and then be able to pick it back up right where I left off, something that I can't find in a lot of books. Despite the heavy-handedness and weighted tone that fills this novel, there's something about the consistency in the leverage that makes it so easy to return to where I was.
Once in awhile, I'll admit I got a bit annoyed at how she would use a not-so-subtle artistic hand with her plethora of one-line paragraphs, but the overall story of a family's demise from one day is clear. I always knew what part of the timeline she was talking in, and there's something that happens in the last 40 pages or so that suddenly clears any confusion that may have previously existed, and I feel as though I've read the story in the order it happened. Or maybe it's a different kind of order, that's not so much chronological as it is emotional? Who knows.
Either way, it took me a bit of a trek, but I'm glad I finished the journey.
Once in awhile, I'll admit I got a bit annoyed at how she would use a not-so-subtle artistic hand with her plethora of one-line paragraphs, but the overall story of a family's demise from one day is clear. I always knew what part of the timeline she was talking in, and there's something that happens in the last 40 pages or so that suddenly clears any confusion that may have previously existed, and I feel as though I've read the story in the order it happened. Or maybe it's a different kind of order, that's not so much chronological as it is emotional? Who knows.
Either way, it took me a bit of a trek, but I'm glad I finished the journey.
"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." --218
Tbh, it comes down to the times we are in. I don't have enough concentration to read certain books that I would normally love.
dark
medium-paced
Narrowing the scale of the story, an imperfect family emerges. A drama unfolds. It breaks down, primarily, into a childhood telling, a tale of forbidden love between a mother of twins and an untouchable man. A story alive with torn and bittersweet characters, conflicting with one another.
It is with great tension and curiosity to follow characters such as Baby Kochamma, an ex-nun who fell in unrequited love with a priest and who, due to these circumstances, live the rest of her life full of loathing and bitterness; Chacko, the twin’s uncle who is both a factory owner and a Marxist; and Ammu, Estha and Rahel’s mother, who is tired of the unfairness of the world and struggles to regain her “self”, leading her “to love at night a man her children love by day.” There is no suspense towards the ending; it is obvious from the reality it represents that this is no happy, good-filled story. Instead, it takes the reader, gradually, into how each character played a certain role towards their own and each other's tragedy and towards the death of a childhood.
To focus the tragedy which befalls an individual as a cause of his/her own mechanism is to disregard the influence of his/her environment. Sure, the story is filled with themes of childhood, family, loyalty, sex and love but what is more impressive is how it also shows the powerlessness of these things and how these things just moves within a bigger sphere. The story focuses on a more personal level - the individual tale - and cleverly presents private affairs without covering the looming cloud of a much greater influence. It shows how each individual can become a victim, a perpetrator and both. There is always an underlying theme of what forces, represses, and oppresses each character to take the actions and think the thoughts that they do.
Expanding the scale of the story, an imperfect world emerges. A world fueled by human ideas and failed by human nature. The "big things", the whole political and economical system, affecting the "small things", the private life each individual lives. Despite the scale of this systemic influence, it is easier to disregard them as they are brought into smaller pieces and into the private sphere of each person. Power, religion, patriarchy, politics, communism, capitalism, Western influence, the Indian caste system….all are present within the story, subtle but no less palpable. Just look at Baby Kochamma and her manipulation, her sexual repression and delusional purity – how it is shaped by her narrow-minded devotion to a religion brought about by Western conquerors. At Comrade Pillai and his political scheming, shouting freedom for the workers and the oppressed in front of the public but also letting a Paravan die for political gain. The public sphere envelopes the private sphere, the individual, affecting every bend and twisted path within this story – within reality. It is terrifying in its scale and so helplessly cold and sad in its consequence, especially to the deprived and the powerless.
There are a lot of things at work in this book. There is a lot that makes you think about. But for all of this, the ending remains the same tragedy. The lyrical prose and nuances brimming within each page, which visually enhanced and captured every atmosphere and emotion brought along by the story, just made the ending more tangible and haunting. It is gripping, and in its brutal powerlessness, powerful. Everything comes alive in this story, all great stories do. And like all great stories, it is a mirror, a reflection. The only beautiful thing in here is its harsh, honest portrayal of that world we live, where childhood die a premature death and "love laws are imposed on who to love and how much."
I wish to see a better world than this.
It is with great tension and curiosity to follow characters such as Baby Kochamma, an ex-nun who fell in unrequited love with a priest and who, due to these circumstances, live the rest of her life full of loathing and bitterness; Chacko, the twin’s uncle who is both a factory owner and a Marxist; and Ammu, Estha and Rahel’s mother, who is tired of the unfairness of the world and struggles to regain her “self”, leading her “to love at night a man her children love by day.” There is no suspense towards the ending; it is obvious from the reality it represents that this is no happy, good-filled story. Instead, it takes the reader, gradually, into how each character played a certain role towards their own and each other's tragedy and towards the death of a childhood.
To focus the tragedy which befalls an individual as a cause of his/her own mechanism is to disregard the influence of his/her environment. Sure, the story is filled with themes of childhood, family, loyalty, sex and love but what is more impressive is how it also shows the powerlessness of these things and how these things just moves within a bigger sphere. The story focuses on a more personal level - the individual tale - and cleverly presents private affairs without covering the looming cloud of a much greater influence. It shows how each individual can become a victim, a perpetrator and both. There is always an underlying theme of what forces, represses, and oppresses each character to take the actions and think the thoughts that they do.
Expanding the scale of the story, an imperfect world emerges. A world fueled by human ideas and failed by human nature. The "big things", the whole political and economical system, affecting the "small things", the private life each individual lives. Despite the scale of this systemic influence, it is easier to disregard them as they are brought into smaller pieces and into the private sphere of each person. Power, religion, patriarchy, politics, communism, capitalism, Western influence, the Indian caste system….all are present within the story, subtle but no less palpable. Just look at Baby Kochamma and her manipulation, her sexual repression and delusional purity – how it is shaped by her narrow-minded devotion to a religion brought about by Western conquerors. At Comrade Pillai and his political scheming, shouting freedom for the workers and the oppressed in front of the public but also letting a Paravan die for political gain. The public sphere envelopes the private sphere, the individual, affecting every bend and twisted path within this story – within reality. It is terrifying in its scale and so helplessly cold and sad in its consequence, especially to the deprived and the powerless.
There are a lot of things at work in this book. There is a lot that makes you think about. But for all of this, the ending remains the same tragedy. The lyrical prose and nuances brimming within each page, which visually enhanced and captured every atmosphere and emotion brought along by the story, just made the ending more tangible and haunting. It is gripping, and in its brutal powerlessness, powerful. Everything comes alive in this story, all great stories do. And like all great stories, it is a mirror, a reflection. The only beautiful thing in here is its harsh, honest portrayal of that world we live, where childhood die a premature death and "love laws are imposed on who to love and how much."
I wish to see a better world than this.
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Roy’s prose is pretty astounding. I listened to the audiobook and got a little lost during the time jumps but found such true-ness in the depictions of grief, longing and harshness.
emotional
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Need to come back to this when I have more interest in/patience for literary fiction
DNF. I gave it half the book and while I felt there was a lot of potential and some well written scenes, it was kind of hard to follow with a timeline that jumped everywhere sort of unclearly. If I’d been able to get sucked in and read it all in one go, it probably would have flowed in a way I could have tracked better, but for the most part I could only get through 20 or so pages at a time before I was tired of trying to figure out where we were and which characters we were dealing with at what place in time.