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Summary: Wonderful Book
Review: Read it when your soul is quiet. Pick this book up when your life isn't too tumultous or else you will miss some of the gentle and nuanced pleasures of this book. Enjoy it.
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Summary: Who Was I Before I Read This Book?
Review: Arundhati Roy is not simply a good writer (there are arguably many of those), she is a spiritual genius. This book lay on my bookshelf for two years gathering dust before I ever picked it up- fool that I am! I am a high school English teacher and generally do a lot of reading, but The God Of Small Things made me stop dead in my tracks; stop in the way one stops when told a truth he has known in his heart all along but has never been articulate, brave, or present enough to say or really "know"; stop like a bus stops, or like we fall in love; suddenly and without grace. You finally have to say after reading this book, "so this is the way things really are," not because Roy tries to convince you, but because you can so clearly "see" it. She paints these lives so rawly, without pretense or preachiness. This book is much, much more than its stunning metaphors, or its language(though beautiful), or its characters-Arundhati says something definitive about the world in which we live and with astoundingly perceptive insight and painful honesty, breaks your heart because her story is about the way you too have lived your life, loving some and not others and "seeing" some and not others. Haven't we all? Characters like Sophie Mol, dead in a box, "bell bottoms and all" who was "Lovedfromthebeginning" and Esta who "just kept on walking," make us see the terrible power of love and of lovelessness over our lives. One of the most poignant scenes for me was one in which relations from the Indian village in which the novel is set wait all day at a humid airport in their best clothes for foreign relatives who will never love them. The subtlety of Roy's depiction of deeply held emotional apartheid within families will haunt you.
This book is of first rate literary merit, but better than that, it is a yoga class, therapist, insight meditation, poem, lover, friend and philosopher in one. It will hit you all at once after about 100 pages and stay with you for years. It will remind you of who you are or even, who you should be. Roy's story for me has been freedom from illusion and the awful oppression of the " crawling backward days." Who was I before I read this book? I owe this review to Roy and to the world-maybe I can thank her someday. Whatever you do, READ IT!
Rating:
Summary: A picturesque and verdant imagery of innocence and guilt.
Review: There is a wonderful description of the beautiful land that is Kerala in India, and a provocative narrative style that is quite forceful.Yes, one has to be patient in absorbing the images as they form.The picturseque view of the verdant landscape of the village is enticing.
The story has to be painted in the canvas of your mind, to really enjoy the interwoven patterns of abstractions which children can conjure up and the prejudices of the adult society of India.
If you are looking for a book to read after say Equal Music by Vikram Seth, this could be the book for you.As you start reading this book you are immersed in nostalgia,led back to those emotions and feelings of your childhood and the inner conflicts with the world built by the adults around you.
If Picasso was to review the book, he would have compared it to his famous work Guernica.
Rating: 
Summary: A pleasant surprise
Review: The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy's first novel, was quite the pleasant surprise. I found this book a bit slow at the beginning but was soon drawn into Estha and Rahel's world. This is the story of twins, Estha and Rahel, and their mixed up, backward, slightly twisted family. We hear the story of the twins' childhood, why Estha finally stopped speaking, the joyous and horrific things that changed their lives forever; we also get glimpses of their later years when Estha still didn't speak and Rahel longed to ease his pain. The story also touches on the Marxist/Communist conflict through the lives of the characters. This is far from a mainly political story, but it does serve as a backdrop. Arundhati Roy's language and writing are very unusual but charming. I found some of the metaphors in the book deserved underlining and committing to memory. I find it hard to explain her style, but the best way I could explain would be to say that her style is simple...like that of a child...but beautiful in its simplicity and candor. You really feel that you are living life through the eyes of the twins. I almost put this book back on the shelf before I was 100 pages in, but I'm so glad I didn't. The story is gripping and touching and one to be remembered.
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Summary: This book, like all great ones, is intensely personal
Review: I first read this book in 1997. Today, after 4 years and countless re-reads (and esp after reading some of the negative reviews in here, I owe it to the author I think) here is my observation: Arundhati Roy wrote this book for herself. We are just incidental readers. Some say that people destined to be writers (or those allowed a glimpse into the dark depths of life through circumstance) have just one story to narrate. Every time I read this book, I can't shake the feeling that she had tears in her eyes while she wrote this story - the one that was her destiny to tell.
Rating:
Summary: amazing
Review: upon first reading it, it immediately became one of my favorite books of all time. the story is enthralling; the language is awe-inspiring. it is an amazing feat of literature.
Rating:
Summary: a soul dripping book
Review: this book really moved me, just put me in a very raw, real place, something so very missing in our plastic, frantic world, thx arundhati.
Rating:
Summary: Sweeping, beautiful and powerful novel of family and society
Review: This immensely satisfying novel appears, at first, to concern itself with a private family tragedy. But as it gradually opens up you begin to see that it's also about caste and class, society, history, India, and the world. Arundhati Roy takes a huge and resonant theme - "the Love Laws which first laid down who should be loved, and how, and how much" - and dramatizes it brilliantly. "The God of Small Things" set for the most part during the 1960s in India, in a small town in Kerala (a region, by the way, which is famous in the literature of development for having, despite its poverty, high life expectancy and literacy levels and a low birth rate). At the beginning of the novel, which takes place in the 90s, a young woman named Rahel returns to her village and is reunited with her twin brother, Estha, whom she has not seen in many years. The narrative consists of flashbacks, in which a mounting series of misfortunes unfold, all leading up to a central catastrophic event which is a family, and human, and social, tragedy. The pleasures of this novel are linguistic as well as narrative. Roy's language is extraordinarily vivid and impressively versatile, encompassing lush, sensual physical description, playful puns, and lively, pointed dialogue. The narrative unfolds seductively, and as each layer is peeled away new depths and ambiguities are revealed. The ever-shifting story affords many moments of surprise and wonder . You'll think you've made up your mind about a character, and then something happens that completely throws you off, adds complexity, forces you to re-evaluate. Like all truly first-rate writers, Roy creates a world that is fully realized and uniquely hers. And one of the joys for the reader lies in experiencing this world, which is so like, and yet so unlike, the reader's own. One cautionary note: during the first few chapters this novel may seem enigmatic and difficult to follow. But stay with it - your efforts will be well-rewarded.
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Summary: redefines... EVERYTHING
Review: anyone who ever had a heart, wouldn't turn around and hate this book. maybe it's just me (the booker prize it received suggests not)but this novel has set THE STANDARD. yes, i am a woman. yes, i was born a lover of poesy, water, and the small heartbreaks that consume our lives (our stories). yes, i come from a dysfunctional family, one in which violence and monumental sacrifice play heavily... but it doesn't matter who i am. EVERYONE should at least take a crack at this book. this book ate my head and my heart and it actually (now that i have read it a second time, 2 years later) did change my life. after i read the god of small things, after i was so gutted and giggly, so transfixed, so lilted and quelled... i dumped my boyfriend and fell in love with the quiet man, the eyeballs man, the GOD OF SMALL THINGS man. and i didn't even realize that the book had made me receptive... because there was a lapse in time, about a month or so. where one morning i woke up with the quiet man's eyes in my eyes and the ionized feeling of falling water. i reread the book last night. i have, since the initial reading, moved to another country and found the only meaningful relationship i have ever had with a painful beauty(the above mentioned). there is nothing to dislike about this book. everyone who panned it is somehow sub-human in my eyes. or maybe they are not, they are like Baby Kochamma... so jealous of the beauty... and afraid.
Rating: 
Summary: Two but only barely
Review: There are certain books that you wish would never end. For me, this was one of them.... Because the ending of this book made me wish that I hadn't wasted my time. I won't give away the ending, but sufficeth to say, I have not been so disappointed in the summation of a beautiful novel in a long time. I was hooked from the first page of Roy's work. Her prose is glorious. Her characters are beautiful and tragic, even those hideous to the core shine under Roy's pen. The subtle yet persistent (and sometimes not so subtle) observations of a destructive culture were dead-on. Even slight problems that I had with the rhythm and motion of the prose and plot drifted away as I read. Then the ending came and blew it all away. I have no qualms over what happened; I've read far more "disturbing" things in novels. What I did mind was the utter unbelievable nature of the final few pages. Out of nowhere. Blindsided, like a bad surprise ending where you find out the entire story has been a lie. Completely contrary to the characters, their motivations as presented by the author, and the environment that they had been portrayed in. It couldn't even be described as an "escape" or even "desperate" action. It just looked like another book had been pasted on to the end of this one. In short, I've never seen a novel so beautiful be so completely undone by a mere few paragraphs. Sure, read it, but then drop it before you finish. Don't let a few bad pages spoil you to Roy's gift. Hopefully, her next work won't fall victim to the same problem. I'm hopeful but extremely wary.
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