God of Small Things

Rating:
Summary: A prime example of poor literature and good marketing
Review: This is the typical novel that makes the reader wonder how on earth it ever made it to the best seller list? Was it Oprah? Roy does what so many other "artsy" writers try to do. She uses abstract metaphors to relay some weak message. Gimme a break. A good writer doesn't have to confuse the reader to send across a quality theme.

Rating:
Summary: Great and original style and a good storyline.
Review: Arundhati Roy's book was very captivating. The presentation was of course in quite an exotic language style. The social theme behind the novel could not have been brought out so forcefully or so successfully(the kind of money it is supposed to have made) in an Indian language, say Malayalam for instance which is the protogonists language. I do wish such novels are written in the Indian languages, say, for example Ms. Roy translates and serialises it in a popular Malayalam rag. This would take guts and would be a social service as well since it would help bring the literary efforts on taboo subjects in the open and accelerate the diluted reaction rates in the social melting pot. R.Soundararajan.

Rating:
Summary: I am in the middle of this book for the second time.
Review: Read this book but read it twice. I finished the book and immediately started it over again. This is a story told on several levels. There are many hints and references to the denouement throughout the book that you miss the first time through. This book is worth the work. I would almost recommend that you read the last third before you read the first two thirds. It is only the second time through that you truly understand the effect of what happens to Velutha on the lives of Estha, Rahel, Ammu, Chacko & Baby Kochama. I don't want to give the story away by revealing what happens to Velutha. This is in the tradition of the Jewel and the Crown. Roy writes like a poet. The descriptions are as vivid as I have ever read. The language is to be savored. Read it and read it again.

Rating:
Summary: All about the small things of life..
Review: When I was reading this book, every thing the author describes seems like I have experienced it. I just did not give them so much of importance. In other words this book is all about "the small things that we overlooked".

Rating:
Summary: A story of forbidden love
Review: I bought the book mainly because it won the booker prize. At first I couldn't understand where it was going and was about to leave it when I skipped to the last pages. That got me pretty interested, so I continued. It's a wonderful book basically about jealously, forbidden love, the 'love laws' as she calls them. Baby Kochama was a vicious character, Amma a doomed one. A brilliant read.

Rating:
Summary: Ambivalent reactions to a flawed but interesting novel
Review: Our book group discussed this book tonight. Quite a few of the 18 or so people present hadn't finished the book and many didn't plan to. The opening third of the book is tough, because the characters are not well realized at first, their names sound alike, the author's stance is ironic so it's hard to sympathize with anyone (this book sure isn't going to send people touring in India). I am still not sure why some of the exposition about characters' earlier lives doesn't come earlier in the novel where it would help you understand them. Whether the novel is good enough to deserve all the effort you have to put in to understand it -- whether most readers will have faith that the story will pick up in pace (which it does somewhere around page 200) -- I don't know. I wouldn't recommend it to most of my friends. And we had mixed but often negative reactions in our book group. The author creates some vivid images and scenes, and as one member pointed out, it's interesting that the mother comes across as fairly awful as viewed from the perspective of her children's unmet needs as small children -- but as rather more wonderful when viewed as a fellow adult (in the final flashbacks) in an impossible love relationship that crosses the color line. I am not sorry I read the book, and after our discussion some members of our book group said they may finish reading the book. I thought some of the language tricks were too cute and I found many things about the novel annoying, but in the end I am glad I read it.

Rating:
Summary: Great except for one major flaw
Review: Don't have time to expound on why this is such a wonderful book but have one criticism--chapter one makes no sense until you finish the book. Then it should definitely be re-read. So if I were the book editor, I would have put chapter one last, or better yet, repeated it.

Rating:
Summary: Beguiling, haunting story; mildly flawed
Review: Winner of the Booker prize, this novel tells the story of an Indian family torn apart by cruelty, divorce, class and caste difference, time, family jealousies and rivalries, and everything else that helps a dysfunctional family break apart. At the center of the tragic tale are Estha and Rahel, twins, and their mother who dared divorce, and then dared love an Untouchable. It's told in a compelling fashion, with foreshadowing hints here and there, flashbacks and remembrances and the present melding together, with doom looming over the whole and never going away. This novel really is an impressive debut. However, I was hugely put off by the horrible cutesy writing: the strung together words that fail to add meaning to anything ("steelshrill police whistles," "skyblue"), inane, useless capitalizations ("the Air was Alert and Bright and Hot," "Hotweather") that supposedly represent Important Concepts to the children of the story but really just evoke A.A. Milne or just empty childishness, and worst of all the totally absurd invented use of adverbs ("her eyes were redly dead," "it waved a cemently paw") that serves no purpose except to irritate. Without this annoying cutesy prose, the novel's dramatic web would truly be mesmerizing.

Rating:
Summary: The God of Small things.
Review: This amazing book is so startlingly beautiful in it's style and descriptive technique that it could have had no plot and I would still have read it in a state of awe. However, the book had an astoundingly prominent storyline that made it doubly impressive. Arundhati Roy has been so perceptive in her portrayal of sounds, smells and especially people. It is clearly a gift.

Rating:
Summary: The most beautifully-written book I've ever read.
Review: The language of A. Roy is magnificent. She is able to paint a wonderful story with vivid detail. Each time a word or phrase is repeated throughout the novel (which is quite often and a wonderful, fresh approach), it takes on more and more life, and makes more sense. I hope that the author will continue to amaze and astound with her wonderful talents.