A review by meghaha
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

5.0

“May in Ayemenem is a hot, brooding month. The days are long and humid. The river shrinks and black crows gorge on bright mangoes in still, dustgreen trees. Red bananas ripen. Jackfruits burst.

Dissolute bluebottles hum vacuously in the fruity air. Then they stun themselves against clear windowpanes and die, fatly baffled in the sun.”

I finally re-read The God of Small Things this past week. I remember when I first read this novel, years ago, as one of my earliest ventures into Literature (note the capital L), it stood out to me as a masterpiece, head and shoulders above most of what I'd read. The prose shocked me. It was so alive; so beautiful; so different. As a teenager, The God of Small Things, Lolita, and The Great Gatsby formed the the triumvirate of works of Literature that had the most beautiful prose I'd ever encountered, and ever thought to.

I don't think I was wrong in that judgement. Years and many books later, I'd probably only add Angela Carter to that list.

I listened to The God of Small Things on audio this time around, so the experience was different. I remembered this book as composed of surprisingly fragmented sentences that nonetheless flowed together, unusually capitalized words and phrases, and luminous vignettes. But when read aloud, periods become more like commas; capitalized words aren't demarcated; and vignettes become scenes. So it was less shocking in that regard.

I also remembered the non-linearity; what felt like jumps through timelines and scenes that were hard to follow, a structure that I couldn't quite grasp. Listening, it doesn't seem at all unnatural, to weave from present to past, to jump from one year to another, to come back and dip and retrace and then leap between events. It was easy to follow the storyline, and it felt deftly controlled, especially with repeated turns of phrases as signposts. I think we're more accepting of non-linear stories told orally.

There's themes I think I missed on my first read, mesmerized as I was by the prose more so than the content. The social injustice Roy portrays, her interest in politics.

Certain images and turns of phrases have stuck into my mind from my first read, and still do:
"dark blood spilling from his skull like a secret"
"the yellow church swelled like a throat with the sound of sad singing"
"Sicksweet. Like old roses on a breeze.”


Roy has an unusual eye for the playfulness of language, for its rhythms and sounds.

I still haven't read The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, but I think I must in 2018.