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avicos 's review for:
The God of Small Things
by Arundhati Roy
A quilt sewn with memories, realities, and fantasies. Each square in the quilt contains an episode of the past, present, and future. No matter how hard you may try to concentrate on a single square, you find that your eyes wander, your hands touch outside the boundaries of the square being examined. You can’t escape the taste of things that were and things that will be. But that doesn’t matter because you’ve had this quilt for a long time. You’ve had it over your body; you’ve pressed your face into its folds to feel the softness; you’re familiar with every color. Yet you come back to this mystical thing. Because 'the secret of great stories is that they have no secrets.'
That’s the best description of The God of Small Things that I can give. That last line is the best justification for its meandering structure. Roy keeps the characters at bay for most of the novel. We don’t see their innermost thoughts, but their brimming desires transposed against the wretched world they inhibit. And it is such a wretched world that the poetic language almost seems like a defense against it. Language here is used both as a barrier between reality and fiction and also as the only tool to bring light to the things that happen in the darkness of humongous nations. The abundance of similes detaches the reader from wounding words, but temporary scars are made nonetheless.
Once the histories of all involved are given, the narrative becomes simple. No one can spoil the book for a reader because the endings and beginnings are given to in parts to us randomly through the book. Not the details of how things come to pass, but the things that come to pass. How then can one expect to sit through a full novel if the ending is given away? Here again, language plays a part. Very few authors are able to use language as a narrative tool successfully. Roy excels in her ability to just that. Meager details are spread throughout the book of whatever terrible things that are to come. Passing mentions of an inflatable toy being burst by a police man’s cigarette; of a child living in constant terror. These things provoke the reader to figure out what they mean. They keep the mind busy while the realities of caste injustice, constraining tradition and, patriarchal tyranny are sprawled across pages filled with beautiful language. Roy uses these crumbs of tension as the engine of the novel. She conveys her message, which is nothing more than depiction, through one fragmented family, tormenting them with the merciless hand of history.
I’ve given away next to nothing in the above lines, not even the names of characters. It could be an injustice to the reader if they meet the people in the book in the lesser language that I write. I hope I have intrigued a reader to move towards tackling this old (by the standards of the internet age) book.
A Personal Note:
I see myself doing this for every novel that has a bit of politics in it. It seems important.
Some people will tell you that this isn’t representative of India. Know that such people are fools who know nothing beyond the privileged bubbles they live in. Firstly, to even consider representing India as a whole in a single book is an absurd thing to do. Secondly, just because they haven’t seen it happening in their brightly lit, push-the-poor-outside cities doesn’t mean that this isn’t happening. This is as much a part of India as anything the Indian Intelligentsia, mostly the privileged classes, prop up as the next great Indian novel.
That’s the best description of The God of Small Things that I can give. That last line is the best justification for its meandering structure. Roy keeps the characters at bay for most of the novel. We don’t see their innermost thoughts, but their brimming desires transposed against the wretched world they inhibit. And it is such a wretched world that the poetic language almost seems like a defense against it. Language here is used both as a barrier between reality and fiction and also as the only tool to bring light to the things that happen in the darkness of humongous nations. The abundance of similes detaches the reader from wounding words, but temporary scars are made nonetheless.
Once the histories of all involved are given, the narrative becomes simple. No one can spoil the book for a reader because the endings and beginnings are given to in parts to us randomly through the book. Not the details of how things come to pass, but the things that come to pass. How then can one expect to sit through a full novel if the ending is given away? Here again, language plays a part. Very few authors are able to use language as a narrative tool successfully. Roy excels in her ability to just that. Meager details are spread throughout the book of whatever terrible things that are to come. Passing mentions of an inflatable toy being burst by a police man’s cigarette; of a child living in constant terror. These things provoke the reader to figure out what they mean. They keep the mind busy while the realities of caste injustice, constraining tradition and, patriarchal tyranny are sprawled across pages filled with beautiful language. Roy uses these crumbs of tension as the engine of the novel. She conveys her message, which is nothing more than depiction, through one fragmented family, tormenting them with the merciless hand of history.
I’ve given away next to nothing in the above lines, not even the names of characters. It could be an injustice to the reader if they meet the people in the book in the lesser language that I write. I hope I have intrigued a reader to move towards tackling this old (by the standards of the internet age) book.
A Personal Note:
I see myself doing this for every novel that has a bit of politics in it. It seems important.
Some people will tell you that this isn’t representative of India. Know that such people are fools who know nothing beyond the privileged bubbles they live in. Firstly, to even consider representing India as a whole in a single book is an absurd thing to do. Secondly, just because they haven’t seen it happening in their brightly lit, push-the-poor-outside cities doesn’t mean that this isn’t happening. This is as much a part of India as anything the Indian Intelligentsia, mostly the privileged classes, prop up as the next great Indian novel.