Rating: 
Summary: Brilliant Tedium
Review: I tried. God, I tried. After 50 pages, I sampled near the end of the book. The same. So I did it. I gave up on her. The author can write stunningly - but she writes as if answering one question: Just how clever and expressive can I be? She writes as if the storyline is only a tease for her 'where the hell is this going' descriptions. It made me want to go home and kick the dog.
Rating:
Summary: Clumsy, Pretentious
Review: It reads like a clumsy effort by a talented high-schooler. Vastly overrated and tremendously disappointing.
Rating: 
Summary: Amazing Literary Talent
Review: The writing in this book is finer than in any I have ever read. Ms. Roy has an incredible sense of touching the reader in a way I have never experienced. Her analogies are truly brilliant. She allows you to connect deeply to the characters and understand them in a way that makes you feel that you are part of them. Absolutely stunning writer, a must read for all.
Rating: 
Summary: If you're brain dead, don't read this book
Review: If you're brain dead, don't read this book - you won't comprehend its subtle beauty. If you find "Must see TV" enthralling, you won't understand the power of this book. This book requires the reader to use both sides of the brain - if you can't do that, you're lost. You might as well go back to laughing at "Just Shoot Me" or is "Smackdown" more your style?
Rating:
Summary: Exquisite Writing
Review: This is one of the best books I have read in years. The author has a highly distinctive style which is both incisive in its economy and poetic in its compelling imagery. I found myself reading passages aloud to my husband to share the creative use of words and the wisdom contained within relatively brief statements. One is drawn completely into the locale and the story. The characters are indelibly portrayed, quirky yet utterly believable. Highest recommendation! I could not put it down.
Rating:
Summary: Roy sparkles with her very first novel!
Review: "The God Of Small Things" is not just a novel. It's an euphoria of words and a whirlwind of metaphors. The magic of this book lies in the fact that though the story is a tragedy, the reader only realizes the magnitude of his/her grief at the ultimate climax when the postive characters suffer, only in the last few chapters of the book. This is the story, strictly, of boy and girl twins, Esthappen and Rahel set in the river-side South Indian town of Ayemenen. But broadlly speaking, this is the story of how dangerous innocence sometimes can be for it also gives danger and does not relize when a danger is coming. Estha and Rahel, like most children of their age, are innocent, but events render their their innocence and simple curiosity into destruction of a old and traditional family. We are initially introduced to the grown up Rahel and her house as it is at the present of the book. We are also introduced to the death of Sophie Mol, Estha and Rahel's cousin, fairly early. But we realize that Sophie Mol did not die naturally and as the story shoots into flashkback, forgetting the twins, we pursue the arrival and death of Sophie Mol. Her death, then, becoomes as much as a suspense as the main plot of the story. Therein too lies one of the charms of this book: though all events are caused or happen primarily around the twins, Roy skillfully manages to keep them in the background for the greater part of the story. Sincere to the title, the complex sub-plots of this story are restricted to a Little-Thing frame of reference. As Roy attaches epithets to Estha and Rahel at a breathtaking speed, they are in the near future referred by those titles. For example, at the arrival of Sophie Mol in India along with Chacko's(Ammu,the twins' mother's brother)ex-wife Margaret Kochamma from England, Estha and Rahel are made to behave like ambassadors and for some time after that, they are consistently and even persistently referred to as ambassadors. The story thus moves on from Small Things to Small Things, adjectives to adjectives and epithet-titles to epithat-titles. As we near to the the climax, the story suddenly takes a break and dwells, rarely, in the present.And though we know what might the suspense might be, Roy still manages to keep us thrilled. A pot-pourri of all these unbelievable things finally builds into the God Of Small Things. The at-times plilosophical and rhetoric-question asking Roy handles her personal language with care and precision and is careful not to overdo it. The God Of Small Things recieved the Booker Prize in 1997, which it fully deserved.
Rating:
Summary: A PURE SONOROUS MUSIC THAT STIRS YOUR SOUL !
Review: I read this book for the first time in October,97.I must confess then Ifelt that it was truly a great work but could not realize its full impact.I read it secondtime only in November,2000 after a gap of nearly three years.I want to tell everybody that it is a work of dreams and poetry which only a creative beauty can accomplish.The choice of words is itself artistic.It is a tragedy revealed with such an emotional intensity that only those who have a capacity to percieve human experiences from the inner recesses of soul can appreciate.Yes, this work is not meant for those who want a quick kick out of fantasies. Rahel is very expressive,Estha is quite silent but the tragedy of Ammu affects them equally.Velutha epitomizes the changing contours of once untouchable section of Indian society.The sociological import of this book goes far beyond the original scope with which Ms. Roy might have started writing it. Let everyone who wants to review this piece of haunting music do it only after its second reading.
Rating:
Summary: Emotional intensity, vividly pictured
Review: I picture in my head an Indian version of Bette Davis in "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?" whenever I think of Baby Kochamma, the bitter and twisted spinster aunt in this story. Roy's writing is so beautifully descriptive that hundreds of other associations sprang to mind while I read. Guilt, frustrated passion, familial relationships (especially between twins), jealousy and a myriad of other emotions all built up during the course of the novel. The cause, the death of Sophie Mol, happens so simply and yet it's consequences are so catastrophic. This is a novel that is both beautiful and depressing at the same time. All of it is so connected, I must go back and read it again.
Rating: 
Summary: Prose or Poetry??
Review: I enjoyed this work, but I had to keep reminding myself that it was actually a novel, and not an epic-length poem. The language is beautiful - it flows in and out and curves around until you find yourself reading it aloud. Roy has an elegant descriptive voice that works to the novel's advantage in more ways than you realize. My main complaint is that the characters weren't built up enough. I found myself wanting to learn more about Velutha and Chacko, and felt in the end that I only received a surface-level understanding of most of the characters. I will keep my eyes out for Roy's next novel, as I suspect that the flaws in _The God of Small Things_ are nothing more than growing pains.
Rating:
Summary: Awesome in Audio
Review: If you like to read stories that follow prescribed rules of writing, this is NOT the book for you. If you enjoy reading stories that break the rules, there is a good chance that you will appreciate this book. I'm not into stories for their artistic value and I'm no literary critic, but wanted to help fellow readers determine if this book is worth their time. Anyway, about the story... the time sequence is presented in a nonlinear fashion, yet the story matures naturally. The characters are real to life, but uncommon to most fiction. The phrases that the author constructs are unique to the written word, but common to the way we speak to ourselves. I heard the story through the audio cassette edition. I thought that the reader, Sarita Choudhoury, did a fantastic job. I know people with similar book preferences who did not enjoy this book in the paperback edition (they thought it was contrived), but when they heard the story through Sarita they loved it as much as I did. I give it five starts, but at the same time I know it is not a story for everyone.
|
