The God of Small Things

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Summary: If one could fall in love with a story...
Review: Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things is the most beautifully written book I have read in a very, very long time. Like many other South Asian writers (comparisons to Rushdie are well-meaning but unconvincing), her way of wielding words gives new life to the power and the possibilities of the English language. The characters she creates (or perhaps re-creates from her own life) are unforgettable.

Her playfulness with punctuation, capitalization, and spelling (Of all the things that were Possible in Human Nature, "Infinnate Joy" sounded the saddest) are refreshing and complemented by evocative similes that are haunting (thirty-one is a "viable die-able age") and sublime.

For those who complain about the weakness of Roy's plotline, they should consult page 218, when Rahel, as an adult, awaits a Kathakali performance: "... the secret of the Great Stories is that they have no secrets. The Great Stories are the ones you have heard and want to hear again. The ones you an enter anywhere and inhabit comfortably. They don't deceive you with thrills and trick endings. They don't surprise you with the unforeseen. They are as familiar as the house you live in. Or the smell of your lover's skin. You know how they end, yet you listen as though you don't. In the way that although you know that one day you will die, you live as though you won't. In the Great Stories you know who lives, who dies, who finds love, who doesn't. And yet you want to know again."

Yes, the story of forbidden love in The God of Small Things is nothing new; Roy acknowledges that, in fact builds on it. It is her use of language and her skillful manipulation of time that give this story its vitality and its freshness. There is no great intellectual and moral message behind the story of the two-egg twins and their divorced mother other than there is still a place for beautiful stories that explore the possibilites of human nature, including Hope, Madness, Love, and Infinite Joy. And even if that message has been repeated many times, there are still people who need to hear it.

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Summary: Booker Prize Material
Review: Arundhati Roy is one of the most compelling authors I have had the pleasure of reading in recent years. To the few critics who bash her for catering to a western audience or for writing like Salman Rushdie - I say piffle. Who does a writer write for, but hopefully a universal audience? And Salman Rushdie, the fabulous writer that he is, did not invent magical realism. Arundhati Roy is an informed and talented writer. The God of Small Things is a powerful first novel.

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Summary: A novelty of a novel
Review: So much has been written about THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS - it is brilliant, it is overhyped - and both are true. The story is my problem: it is a bit flimsy, nothing to really stick in one's mind long after reading. And there really seems to be no lingering message or moral from it either. But what saves the book from being absolutely forgettable is Roy's fantastic - although initially jarring - use of words and imagery. Roy's language and imagery, the imagery that often sticks in the more primitive, instinct-based crevices of one's mind, makes THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS stand out from many other books. If the plot (which is, in a way, saved by its elliptical telling) could be as powerful as Arundhati Roy's writing style, THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS would be an instant classic. Nevertheless, the beauty of Roy's writing makes the book worth the reading.

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Summary: A wonderful first novel
Review: This writer has a great style and a wonderful sense of atmosphere - and construction. It is simply stated, a novel full of sense of place and of history. There are, perhaps, too many linguistic flurries which could have been edited more fully - but that aside the novel is a powerful read and could make a wonderful film

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Summary: Nothing less than beautiful.
Review: The God of Small Things weaves brave and solid intelligence and sensitivity on a net of language that is carefully heard and inticately re-woven to best use words to exact what words would fail to access in the hands of a lesser writer. The language is poetic and lyrical but it is a language created to meet the task of touching a half-understood moment --not in retrospect, which is simpler, but as it's playing out. Ms. Roy meets that challenge head-on with an enviable confidence, cleanliness and precision to the way narratives shape and warp a character. The characters carry their full cargo of confusion and frailty by gleaning messages from the bewildering and severely consequential world they occupy. These messages come through the senses so that the reader sees how they are read from several perspectives. This book doesn't shy away from the message misunderstood or half-understood. Instead, it uses those crossed and fallen signals to their fullest capacity, rendering a flawless honesty and heart to the characters.

Even the ghostly moth that rests chillingly on the young Rahel's heart is a potentially dangerous and "flippant" image to maneuver. But Roy's moth soars with an ability to convey the unconveyable sensations of humiliation, dejection, envy and fragility. Then that moth goes further and captures dread, uses it in small, tickling strokes against a tiny, fearful heart.

This book doesn't lean on or exploit its "exotic" world but allows the reader to wander in, assume responsibility, care, laugh, weep, and spin in a rich and troubling landscape. It is a book that is full of love for the characters, wisdom, psychological insight and a stunning gift for recording (and composing, when the need arises) the music in prose and sorrow

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Summary: Poetry in the guise of a novel.
Review: This is a slim volume that should be savoured slowly. Roy is a poet with a stunning use of metaphor that helps delineate character and set a mood. This is neither a beach book nor a book for those who prefer their stories straightfoward and their characters neatly drawn. In fact, this is not a traditional novel at all, but rather Roy's depiction of India can be compared to an impressionist painting: one that allows the viewer to be drawn in by the mood of the canvas and then left to make his or her own impressions

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Summary: A choppy mosaic with no heart
Review: The book reads like an eccentric MTV video with disparate stream-of-consciousness clips shot at wierd angles and color combinations tailored together incoherently. Many saw "brilliance" in this mosaic. I was turned off by the flash and chaos in this book, for I prefer authors who linger on their characters, loving them, nurturing them and helping me get to know them. But, hey, how can you argue with a million bucks in rem.?

Rating:
Summary: OK book, heavily overhyped
Review: I had heard so much about this book that I ended being disappointed when I did get to read it. The descriptions that ring so true are really those of a small self centered layer of society. And as for magical use of language I much prefer Rushdie.

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Summary: IT IS DIFFERENT !
Review: An excellent novel. People may split their hair over the facts forgetting that this is a fiction. Author weaves in and out of the past and present with ease & without losing the audience. All in all well written. My congratulations go to A.Roy and I wish her well. PS: I understand that the author is facing a law suit (in the name of public decency)in India intiated by somebody who seems to have missed the point (or novel?). I wish the author success in this legal battle. Ish, Colombo, Sri Lanka

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Summary: A book written to appeal to western ideals of indian literat
Review: Quite obviously, this book has been written to cater to the western notion of what good literature from India consists of. It is richly laden with the many requisite platitudes of modern works involving discordant, drifting, alienated families and family-members that are defined by one tragic event in their lives; Ammu's character is on the whole largely unsympathetic, and did not evoke any kind of sympathy, except in rare moments when when she displayed odd glimpses of motherhood. In most instances, she is as untypical of an Indian mother as one can be. Rahel has a totally unconvincing character when she is presented to us as an adult, and her brother isn't even given a character as an adult. The entire book is gloomy, which, once again, seems to be a requirement for a book by a modern Indian author to be successful in the west. Really, I fail to understand what the hype and rave reviews are about.