Rating: 
Summary: Look for another book!
Review: This book is extremely complicated with an underdeveloped plot. The readers spends the first half of the book wondering who Sophie Mol is and eagerly awaiting the beginning of the plot. The second half is filled with the disappointment of realizing that the plot was not worth trudging through the heavy words and mixed up concepts. The sexual exploitation appears to serve no purpose in the novel except to offer a bit of shock value. It appears to be strategically placed in the middle in order to keep the reader from giving up. My advice is to look for another book.
Rating: 
Summary: My favorite book of the decade
Review: A brilliantly plotted story that uncoils with an agonizing sense of foreboding and inevitability. The book takes on the big themes: love, madness, hope, joy, happiness. A writer who is not afraid of breaking the rules. And be emotional at the same time.I don't promise you that you won't cry, you will probably do. But it's worth it. By Thei Zervaki
author of Globalize, Localize, Translate
Rating: 
Summary: Small Things Were Hard to Find
Review: I laboured with this book, I really did, which explains my poor rating and why Roy's first novel found itself parked on my coffee table for most of its tenuous existence with me. I am certain a great story exists within the pages given the recognition Roy has received, but after each chapter I kept asking myself: "Please Roy, just where are you going with this plot?". This verdict may be unfair and it is a shame because there's some great, imaginative writing here - wonderful visualizations and anecdotes. Unfortunatly, I just kept counting the pages until I was finished.
Rating:
Summary: A Story of Love, Hope, Madness, and Infinite Joy
Review: "Pandoru mukkuvan muthinu poyi,
(Once a fisherman went to sea,)
Padinjaran kattathu mungi poyi,
(The west wind blew and swallowed his boat,)
Arayathi pennu pizhatchu poyi,
(His wife on the shore went astray,)
Kadalamma avaney kondu poyi.
(So Mother Ocean rose and took him away.)"
Ammu's tangerine shaped radio hums sweet in the ears of her daughter Rahel. "The God of Small Things" by Arundhati Roy is a nursery rhyming, childlike tale of the decaying Ayemenem house in Kerala, India during the 1969.
The family of Ayemenem once held a bright future, Reverend E. John Ipe, great-grandfather of main characters Rahel and Estha, was renowned for the blessing bestowed on him by the Patriarch of Antioch when he was just seven years old. "Long after he grew up and became a priest, Reverend Ipe continued to be known as Punnyan Kunju-Little Blessed One-and people came...with children to be blessed by him."
Then there was Pappachi, Shri Benaan John Ipe. He was known in the community for his integrity and poise, but in his home he was the thrower of brass vases, and his wife, Mammachi's continual abuser. With his death he left a stale bruised house of memories. Ammu and brother Chacko were left in the wake of his fury, and they led to even more regression of the family honor.
Ammu was once a dream-driven youth, but all that changed when she married her husband. "He proposed to Ammu five days after they first met. Ammu didn't pretend to be in love with him. She just weighed the odds and accepted. She thought that anything, anyone at all, would be better than returning to Ayemenem." Soon after Ammu became pregnant and gave birth to Rahel and Estha wide-eyed "two-egg twins." Her increasingly alcoholic husband started beating her and "when his bouts of children began to include the children... Ammu left her husband and returned, unwelcomed, to her parents in Ayemenem." In the Syrian Christian heritage, this made the children practically illegitimate. Ammu continues tarnishing the family's reputation by having an affair with the family carpenter, Velutha, an "Untouchable Paravan," very low in the social structure of Indian society.
The main story stems from the visit of Sophie Mol, Chacko Ipe's daughter, and Margaret Kochamma, his recently widowed ex-wife from their home in London. Sophie Mol becomes an instant idol to her younger cousins, "loved from the beginning." She's woven into their crazy games, and often trials along with their adventures. However, Sophie Mol never makes it back to her home in London, for she is tragically drowned in one of the twins' excursions across the river to visit Velutha. It was a dark night, and the boat simply tipped over, "she was gone. Carried away on the muffled highway."
After her death, the twins stay in their hideout contemplating spending the rest of their life in jail. They become witnesses to Velutha being fatally beaten by policemen under the premise that he has kidnapped the children. These tragedies are followed by the defeat of the family's "Paradise Pickles and Preserves" pickling company to communist revolutionaries. All this is done in a simple yet horrible conversation between Chacko Ipe and Comrade K.N.M. Pillai "'Of course the proper forum to air workers' grievances is through the Union... it's a shameful matter for them not to be unionized and join the Party Struggle,' 'I've though of that,' Chacko said. ' I am going to formally organize them into a union. They will elect their own representatives.' 'But comrade, you cannot stage their revolution for them. You can only create awareness. Educate them. They must launch their own struggle. They must overcome their fears.'" Then Pillai "deftly banished Chacko from the fighting ranks of the Overthrowers to the treacherous ranks of the To Be Overthrown." In this one act Comrade Pillai destroyed Paradise Pickles forever, and it became just another building empty of a future.
The real strength and beauty of this plot comes from the description of each character's past and present. Through shadow-like vignettes the reader is brought into the Ayemenem house, and into the life of each family member. This timeless transcendence makes every character seem alive. And although the poetic language of the story makes it very beautiful, it is a weakness to the plot. With such rich Indian dialect the reader is at times confused with the meaning of the text and some experiences are lost in the translation.
This novel could also be seen as a window into the world of the Indian Communism Revolution. The children of Ayemenem start questioning the politics of the revolution when they see that their own friend, Velutha is part of a Communist demonstration. The wave of Marxist idealism leeches onto the Indian lower-class, bringing mass uprising and the formation of worker's unions. This very rebellion tears at the family's pickling factory, and eventually leads to its demise due to the impossibility of the establishment workers union.
This novel renewed the definition of beauty. It speaks continuously of the greasy, fading society that the characters live in, yet the language with which it is presented speaks so that the reader can't help but love the calluses of Chacko's elbows or the wrinkles on Baby Kochamma's age-worn face. The poetic little nursery rhymes and nonsense language of the seven-year-old narrator add a spice to the informal structure of the plot. Arundhati has a way of transforming the reader into their seven-year old self, then to an enlightened, jaded youth, then to a passionately corrupt adult; all through the realness of the experiences of the Ayemenem house.
Rating:
Summary: A powerful and poetic work
Review: I thought this novel was a wonderful exploration of Indian culture. Even though the Christian Indian life was relatively unknown to me, the cultural implications that the novel deals with seemed to me both real and poetic. Roy deals with, and has dealt with, an intricate and well-established society that spends very little time evaluating itself. The political ramifications of this book in her hometown almost caused the book to be banned. As for the quality of the language and the style of writing I think very highly of them. She does not spare her characters and because of that their individual beauty shines. This book is a beautiful work of art.
Rating:
Summary: Writing Style
Review: Arhundathi Roy's book, GOD OFSMALL THINGS, introduced to me a new writing style- poeticand yet tangible. It has since become my favorite book. The plot is poignant and yet, when you read it, the story unfolds in such a way that,as you realize whats happening it moves you. At first I had ahard time understanding what wasgoing on because of her unique style,but as I read on, I became accustomed to it,and rather enjoyed it. I'm glad I was reading it for school,because if not, I would have given up reading it, but since it was mandatory, I read on. Don't give up on reading this book-it's worth it.
Rating: 
Summary: over-written and over-rated
Review: The latent talent is there, but this author needs to refine her overblown, self-indulgent, and often self-consciously showy prose. If she can learn to tone it down, she may be on to something . . .
Rating:
Summary: Need an annotated version . . .
Review: This book has amazing metaphors and the ability to help the adult reader remember what it used to be like to think as a child. That being said, I found this book extremely difficult to read. The "plot", such as it is, continually and abruptly moves from one time frame to another. I understand the "stream of conciousness" concept, but some streams are very difficult to flow with and follow. Also, the author uses so many terms from India that this reader wished for a glossary in the back in order to understand what was being described. For someone who is not familiar with East Indian culture, it was very difficult to make sense of just what the author was refering to in many passages. I read for enjoyment and this book was just too impressionistic to be an enjoyable read.
Rating: 
Summary: This Will Change You
Review: "They all crossed into forbidden territory. They all tampered with the laws that lay down who should be loved, and how. And how much." ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ A Booker prize winning author, Arundhati Roy has no counterpart in the West. A female prolific writer and an incredibly active (and effective) social and political commentator. Her debut novel is an expressive, ambitious, richly detailed account of contemporary (subcontinental) Indian life. The story of GOD OF SMALL THINGS is not simple and narrow. It is three-dimensional and doesn't follow a dichotomous path. And this lack of simplicity will make it hard for some readers to enjoy Ms Roy's fiction. For this is about disturbing the current mores, demanding you to question the "normality" of everything, for you to look the other way. Her narration is exceptional, full of memorable images and lyrical prose. Sentimental at times, but always highly provocative. One can only recommend an intelligent, thought-provoking novel like this.
Rating:
Summary: A Depressing Book
Review: But I have to say I do not understand how anyone can enjoy this book. The book is terribly depressing. I don't mind a book with sad moments and such, but The God of Small Things doesn't really make the reader sad (I never shed a tear) but just depressed at how horrible these people lives are. The book revolves around a series of terrible events. I actually rather like the non-linear aspect of this book, but Roy really does use it for the purpose of making everything more depressing. As other reviews have mentioned, you know what happens at page 100 (some others complained about it being confusing, which outside of maybe keeping some of the characters straight I don't see how this books could be). While you may know that Romeo and Juliet die from the very first, its not what the whole play is about, and some happy things did happen. This book just goes on and on, a definite "things can't get any worse" then they do type of situation. As pointed out the book ended rather nicely (in a depressing sort of way of course) but that doesn't excuse the other 315 pages.
And its not interesting either. I understand thats its somewhat of a steam-of-consciousness thing, jumping from one memory to another. But it doesn't give the author an excuse to go on about some unimportant detail. The first thing I noticed was the repeated violent metaphors and lack of plot, luckily her overuse of metaphors doesn't really carry throughout the book. There was never much plot, at least when compared to the amount of text. More about what people are thinking and, of course, the "small things." While I have a hard time understanding why people enjoy reading about grotesquely miserable and often evil people, I can understand that some people enjoy books more heavy on character without much plot or action (and by that I don't necessarily mean adventure, but simply things happening), I'm just not one of them.
I did finish the book in a day and a half, which I can partly credit to my wanting to get it over with, but also to Roy's relatively easy to read writing style (I'll take incomplete over run-on sentences any day) that allowed me to read at the same rate I read a fantasy, as opposed to a slower rate when I read a cryptic piece of literature. This could also partly be due to the high amount of unimportant details.
I should probably end this review by saying this book was assigned to me for a World Literature class, and its not the kind of book I would normally pick up, but I did finish it (and this review) before the semester started so I don't have any assignments or lectures to affect my opinion of the book.
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