A review by savaging
The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy

5.0

At the end, a character writes:

How
to
tell
a
shattered
story?

By
slowly
becoming
everybody.

No.
By slowly becoming everything.

Everything? That seems like a crowded book. But that's what Roy's doing -- you've got to put in every single struggle in India, not forgetting the beagle who escaped from the animal testing lab. (Nota bene: pay attention to names as you move through this book. Try to remember them. But then also shrug and accept when you are inevitably confused about who this one is.)

Does this novel make sense as a plot? I'm not so sure. Maybe Roy is trying to mirror the strange meandering plotlessness of social change, summed up by Musa:

"You're not destroying us. You are constructing us. It's yourselves that you are destroying."

Everyone -- no, everything -- slowly becomes constructed out of all this attempted destruction. Maybe not a big revolutionary triumph with a marching band parade, but a little space for some misfits to help each other become their whole glorious selves. Not paradise, but when you piss in the dust the puddle you made still reflects the stars.

I loved this book.