BOOK REVIEW

The GOD of Small Things

First things first I read novels but I don't write book reviews. I have never in fact written a book review before, so this might not be a trustworthy source. I'm writing this to calm myself since I just finished reading the book and I have no one to discuss it with.

The book is an exceptional masterpiece with an uncomplicated story presented in a complicated way. Complicated because the writing style is very different from what I have read so far. The words used, the expressions, the ideas, the description, the character sketches, the imagery, the scene setup, everything in this book is so out of the ordinary. Well it's an ordinary story, characters are also familiar and settings also simple but the way, the author has presented all this, is beautiful, breathtaking. It has a different lingo and a unique repetitive style. Each chapter has an equal weight-age, a new arc to the story, introducing the lives of another character already present since the beginning.

From the first chapter we are introduced to a scene and throughout the book this scene is expanded. The book is mainly character driven and revolving around the lives of twins Estha and Rahel but it delves deeper into the other characters and gives us an insight into each one of their lives. That one particular scene presented in the first chapter sets a tone for the novel and whatever follows next is based around that scene. Halfway through the novel we can understand the whole story, what had happened, what would happen but we keep reading it because we need to know by the author herself. After all this book is more than just a story. It explores the stories of everyone involved in it. One tragic incident and the devastation it causes in the lives of those people. The twins are separated and robbed off their innocence and leave a twin shaped hole in the universe (the book lingo). Other characters also evolve and it feels as if I've known them all my life. I can feel their pain and I know them personally. The incident with Estha in Abhilash talkies left me in tears. The life of Chacko in London was as if I myself was living it, the carefree jolly man with Margaret Kochamma and the loss of their daughter in the later years. The drab and dull life of Ammukutty and her route for escape. The horrors of this story are experienced by normal people like us. It was unfortunately what happened to The God of small things, The God of loss. When the story unravels it comes to us not bit by bit but all at once. And what can be felt midway is only let out in the last of the chapter although there are signs throughout the novel and I could definitely feel myself shivering at the thought of it. I had to eat this book up as fast as I could after I reached that point.

I want to give spoilers and write the whole summary here but okay I won't do that in case someone actually wants to read it.

The book breathes of rural Kerala and although I've never been to South India, this book made me feel like I have lived in the Ayemenem house and swam across the humid green river and been to the history house and tasted the mango pickles of Mammachi and seen the passion build up underneath the mangosteen tree as if it were all happening to me.

One could literally feel the love, warmth, compassion, the disgust, the anger, sorrow and every other emotion, Arundhati Roy wanted the reader to feel. She had woven a web of words and describes everything in as much detail as possible, she has stated the obvious in the most unapparent way. She moves between the past and the present with such an ease without compromising the plot. The plot is simple, it's beautiful and I can't stress on it more. But at the same time the book is not an easy read. I had to read some pages again and again to understand the essence of it. It was as if I knew this story before I read it, you know it too. But reading it again is a delight although it's not a happy cheerful novel but it's a must must read, the only Indian author to win a Booker prize. Need I say more?

Here are some of my favorite quotes from the book:

He folded his fear into a perfect rose. He held it out in the palm of his hand. He took it from and put it in her hair.

She wore flowers in her hair and carried magic secrets in her eyes. She spoke to no one. She spent hours on the riverbank. She smoked cigarettes and had midnight swims..

And the air was full of Thoughts and Things to Say. But at times like these, only the Small Things are ever said. Big Things lurk unsaid inside.

That's what careless words do. They make people love you a little less.

Little events, ordinary things, smashed and reconstituted. Suddenly, they become the bleached bones of a story.

Things can change in a day. That a few dozen hours can affect the outcome of whole lifetimes. And that when they do, those few dozen hours, like the salvaged remains of a burned house—the charred clock, the singed photograph, the scorched furniture—must be resurrected from the ruins and examined. Preserved. Accounted for.

It is after all so easy to shatter a story. To break a chain of thought. To ruin a fragment of a dream being carried around carefully like a piece of porcelain. To let it be, to travel with it, as Velutha did, is much the harder thing to do.

If you're happy in a dream, does that count?

The way her body existed only where he touched her. The rest of her was smoke.